Mentioned Dylan before but I wanted to return briefly. As mentioned earlier last night was a long one and during the discussions we touched on Bob's songwriting and looked at one album in particular. "Blood on the Tracks" is a brilliant demonstration of storytelling and word craft and it has one of the best lines in a song:
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it if I'm lucky.The deadpan delivery adds to it and it always makes me smile. I mention this because I've not been able to get that song out of my head today. The full poem is here and worth reading for the way he uses the same theme, slightly shifted, on each repeat of the chorus.
9 careful considerations:
Quintessential Dylan :-)
Every line is a story, a lifetime...
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves
So it looks as though today will be another with Idiot Wind, blowing like a circle through my skull :-)
God I love that song. Blood On The Tracks is a masterpiece. My favourite story on the album is "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts".
And my favourite version of Idiot Wind is on Hard Rain, with the Rolling Thunder Review. Dylan shouts and spits out the words. So powerful.
Can't argue that "Blood on the tracks" is a masterpiece, in fact today in the pub we were discussing whether or not Dylan is the modern Leonardo, a Renaissance man who can turn his hand to differing skills. I'm not sure I'd want to pick a favourite from that LP or from his entire work but like the Mona Lisa his eyes follow you wherever you are and the music has a chameleon quality. Idiot Wind is a great example - just one version can sound different depending on how you hear it but comparing different versions adds new layers, I love the "Hard Rain" version too :-)
I always loved this song, and BoTT is - just - my favourite Dylan album/ I prefer the original version - that cocky self assurance fits the lyric better.
Dylan isn't Leonardo, though - he doesn't have a half shell, and he's useless at martial arts...
Cheers Rob - I'm going to bow to your greater knowledge you being a literature blokey and all that :-)
But seriously, folks, Bob is a very considerable artist- no problem in acknowledging that - but he can't be put in the same category as Leonardo, whose polymathic skills extended across painting, design, astronomy, science, mechanics, biology etc etc.
As George harrison so pithily put it: "Bob's Bob, and that's why he's Bob."
By the way, is Joey Barton stupid or what?
Yes - "Bob's Bob" :-)
Your question puzzles me and I shall treat it as rhetorical, it's like asking if water is wet, fire is hot, whether or not polar bears have cold tails or the Pope craps in the woods isn't it?
Yeah - "Joey's Joey"...
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