|
|
 |
 |
|
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Dylan Days pt. 1: The Newest Folk Sensation
Between a the new great hits collection/box set and the film I'm Not There people seem to have gone zany for the former Robert Zimmerman. I've always admired Bob Dylan's work, especially what he did when he first went electric. The archetype of the iconoclastic, literate solo performer has always appealed to me (Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed) and Dylan, between his work and his mythmaking, created that archetype. So I decided to explore the man's entire oeuvre, more or less. I'm not going over every album, it seems Self Portrait is a mess not worth bothering with, but I am going to hit all the major points in Dylan's career. While I haven't seen I'm Not There I am going to check out No Direction Home and Don't Look Back as well as try to get my hands on the infamous Eat the Document (there's a pretty good video store here in SF, I think I can get it). Right now let's look at the work that first made Dylan's name.
For someone who loves Dylan I have a rather odd admission to make: I'm not much one for folk music. No, that's not entirely true. I like pre-war American roots music, the stuff Yazoo records puts out. What I don't like is the modern folk music born in Greenwich Village coffee shops and which has even since been life's soundtrack for arrogant, smug middle-class college kids. I don't doubt that it's a reaction to living in San Francisco and witnessing those under the delusion that a rousing sing along can change the world. But I can't understand Dylan without exploring his days as a folkie so I checked out Live at the Gaslight 1962, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 - Concert at Philharmonic Hall.
Listening to the first two albums my dislike of folk was in constant battle between my admiration of Dylan's songwriting talent. Gaslight archives a real young Dylan whose sets still included a lot of traditional songs like "Barbra Allen" and "Cocaine." It's the original songs that standout to me, though. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna to Fall" predicts the surrealism that would dominate Dylan's lyrics in the future. An embryonic "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" actually benefits from sounding a lot gruffer, considering the subject matter. I don't mind the traditional numbers, except for the eight-minute long "Barbara Allen," but with the exception of "Moonshiner" none of them had the immediate effect on me that Dylan's song did. I'm far more interested in what he has to say about the times he was living in \then what he could do with songs from another era.
Freewheelin' is almost all original material including "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." Here I bristle at Dylan displaying some of the attitudes I despise in folk music. I'm uncomfortable listening to "Bob Dylan's Blues" where he tries to sound, right down to the spoken intro, like a grizzled woodsman with nothing but an acoustic guitar and plenty of homespun wisdom. The attempts at humor don't work for me. "Talking World War III Blues" is a less effective take on the nuclear paranoia of the Kennedy days than "A Hard Rain." Exploring Dylan's early days I realized I much prefer when Dylan doesn't make it easy for the listener, when everything isn't spelled out. When it's obvious what the song's about I feel repelled whereas when there's a sense of mystery to the words combined with vivid imagery I'm drawn in.
There are songs on Freewheelin' I enjoy that don't involve "a white ladder all covered with water." I adore "Masters of War" just becuase it's so vicious, beyond any other protest song I've ever heard. With its questions that seem like something out of Buddhist monk training "Blowin' In the Wind" still remains power after years of being a Baby Boomer chestnut. Thinking about it now perhaps it's the best example of why Dylan's lyrics need a certain amount of obtuseness to work. If he just gave us an answer to all these questions like "we should all get along" it would be trite. But to say the answer is something beyond words, something as primal as nature itself makes the song mean something.
I started with a live album and I end with one, from two years later when Bob Dylan had gotten famous and people would shout for songs he used to play to small crowds in little clubs. It finds Dylan transforming, showcasing the strange songs that would appear on the acoustic side of Bringing It All Back Home, including an eleven minute and a half minute long "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," introduced as "It's Alright Ma (It's Life and Life Only)." Dylan is laughing throughout the show and he honestly sounds pretty high. He actually forgets the lyrics of "To Ramona" and needs the crowd to help him out (although I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often during Dylan's career considering how many verses are in those songs of his). That hiccup aside it's a great performance with Dylan totally in sync with the crowds, something that would happen less and less over the years. Dylan's so charismatic during the show I'm won over by the straight ahead folk material. The "newspaper songs" that are "Who Killed Davey Moore?" and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" work even if they are so plain spoken because he's rearranging current events that everyone at the time knew about into broader indictments of society.
Joan Baez joins Dylan near the end of the show and while I enjoy both artist (although Baez is someone else I liked more when she got further way from traditional folk music) I don't think they sound so great together. When two voices that are that unique come together they're like two neutrons clashing against each other (geez I hope I remember high school science correctly). Dylan's voice is famously awkward but works perfectly for the songs he's creating. Baez's soprano could have granted here a life as an opera singer. Hearing them together the contrast draws my interest from anything else. But Dylan is alone for the last number, performing "All I Really Want to Do" after numerous audience requests. It closes the show on a high note. The performance contains all the confidence and swagger Dylan employed to make him more than just another folk artist.
Dylan knew he was becoming something larger than just his songs. As he says during the show, which took place on October 31st, "I'm wearing my Bob Dylan mask. I'm masquerading." That mask of "a voice of his generation" is something Dylan would work with and fight against during his continuing career. It adds a dimension to his work that his hero Woody Guthrie, or any artist working before the days of mass communication, never had to deal with. The different masks that Dylan wear throughout his career interests me alongside the actual music. Up net: Dylan goes electric. Rock 'n' fucking roll!Labels: Bob Dylan
Permanent Link: 2:11 PM |
1 comments
Comments:
Great post, Ian. I love "Freewheeling", it's one of the first albums I ever bought and still one of my favourites.
"Masters of War" is absolutely vicious. Dylan's great when he gets that bile going.
Looking forward to more of your Dylan analysis.
# posted by AaronM : 7:39 PM
-- Home
|
|
