Friday, September 07, 2012

Songs of innocence …

… Bryan Appleyard — Dylan: The Unused Liner Notes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Now, I like Dylan — I saw him in concert last year, along with Leon Russell. And I even had an experience somewhat like this with Elvis Presley. I can still remember the Sunday afternoon when I was 15 and turned on the radio and heard him for the first time, singing "Heartbreak Hotel." Musically and personally, it was something on the order of the splitting of the atom.
But I am not an enthusiast, or a fan. So eventually, he just became another singer I liked to hear. In other words, he had no influence on my life whatsoever. 

3 comments:

  1. Bob Dylan is a sort of musical anamoly to me. Throughout my junior high and high school years, I listened and was a fan of all sorts of music. I moved in many circles, and listen to many friends' favorite music. Dylan was one artist but nobody's favorite. In fact, many friends had these great album collections, but none would ever take out a Bob Dylan one.

    So then to get into my 30s or wherever, and have him put forth as the most influential artist of the 60s, I'm confounded. It's not that I don't like him, or that I didn't like him, but I would rather hear Melanie do his A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. I had one friend who had all her albums. So I get nostalgic hearing her voice, which is superior by far to Dylan's.

    Mind you, and I think it is very clear, I am not putting Bob Dylan down. His fans could beat up Melanie's fans I'm sure. But Dylan was another voice on the radio, another good artist to me among so many at that time. He never rose to the top in any of the circles I was in. Beatles, Supremes, Hendrix, Cream, Doors, ELP, Canned Heat, Muddy Waters, Charlie Musselwhite, James Montgomery, James Cotton, J Geils, Jeff Beck - - - all in no particular order, as I go group to group, even party to party, CCR, Linda Ronstandt, Allman Brothers . . . . and more. No Dylan.

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  2. This is a cause for disagreement in our household. I like Dylan well enough, but do not take him at all seriously. A relative by marriage appears to. I am entertained at the adolescent posing and misogyny that that I notice now in some of the songs, e.g. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." I'm not surprised that I should have liked them at 19, but am, a bit, that a woman would have. Some years ago--ten, I suppose--I opened the Sunday NY Times Book Review, and found a letter headed "Positively Fourth Rate", Ned Rorem's dismissal of some recent reviews of books on Dylan. I roared.

    "In fact, I now know that Dylan is the greatest of all lyric writers, pouring more art and insight into simple song forms than seemed possible before he came along." Heaven help you, my lad, when you discover--to work backward and at random--Yeats, Campion, Wyatt, Cavalcanti. What words will you find for them?

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  3. In other words, he had no influence on my life whatsoever. Agreed! Bob Dylan music inspired me a lot !

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