The Bob Dylan Literature Appreciation Thread

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by TwoEars, Oct 13, 2016.

  1. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Unprecedented!

    (India does have a bit of form blocking twitter, maybe it's some residual cruft from that...)
     
  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Well, after all this expectation of revolutionary rudeness from our now elderly rebel, it seems that he was simply... speechless!

    (Link to BBC)
     
  3. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I think this is mostly on point though it hammers home the race angle a little hard. Overrated as a lyricist and for literature, poets>>lyricists. And let's not even talk about the voice or the unoriginal musical composition.

    "Dylan is different and exciting for the traditional, canonical reason that pop musicians in the US are viewed as different and exciting, from Elvis to Eminem. He’s a white, middle-class performer adopting a style associated with black people and poor people. Dylan, “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” the Nobel committee declared. He took the raw, authentic stuff of raw authentic people, and turned it into poetry that even literary scholars can appreciate. That’s what “genius” means when you talk about rock music—and literature too, apparently."

    http://lithub.com/bob-dylan-isnt-even-americas-greatest-literary-songwriter/
     
  4. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    "I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, to do Black Music so selfishly
    and use it to get myself wealthy (Hey)
    there's a concept that works"

    -- "Without me", Eminem
     
  5. k3oxkjo

    k3oxkjo Friend

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    But you gotta give John Lennon credit. He figured out how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall and then kept that information to himself. That's playing it cool...

    Kevin
     
  6. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It comes with a lot of money and recognition. I don't blame him.
     
  8. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Music or literature?

    I prefer to read great poetry and listen to great music rather than try to combine them and get a mediocre mix like Dylan.

    Give me Keats and Coltrane, or Dickenson and Liszt over someone like Dylan or Cohen or whomever are considered master lyricists.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Ah. It's sort of like going for dedicated classes in MMORPGs. Go full tank, full damage dealer, or full healer, but don't go hybrid, which means you are going to kind of suck at everything.
     
  10. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I listened to Cohen once. Thankfully, I managed to turn it off before the razor blade hit the wrist. But, wonder of wonders, a friend told me that, later in life, Cohen developed a sense of humour, and could even laugh at his own former suicidal droning.
     
  11. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I've heard his album but I have no idea what he's saying. Nice compositions though on a few of his tracks and the deep unsinging voice does evoke something.

    In general I prefer foreign lyrics where I can, not understanding, imagine profundity in what is probably mundane.
     
  12. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    slow, painful death? lol.

    Bunch of bored freaks... get to talking about how dangerous it is to even have a Leonard Cohen record in the heap. The unspeakable had happened: someone actually played it. As nobody claimed either ownership or caring, we set about destroying it. Hmmm... one can render a vinyl record unplayable in seconds, but destroying that tough plastic disc is not so easy....

    The Dylan albums were never attacked, though. Come to think of it, nothing else was ever treated thus. In fact, it would usually be anathema to me to treat music in such a way, even music that I didn't like.

    There was a lady who would occasionally play all four sides of a Dylan double album. I would go out for a walk.
     
  13. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    It's amazing the number of hugely successful male singers who can't sing. You would think that would be a prerequisite for the job. Neil Young is another in the same vain. Tom Waits too.

    We're just knocking down sacred cows - feels almost like sacrilege.
     
  14. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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    @Stuff Jones, so there are no lyricists in popular music you enjoy? That was what I meant to ask.
     
  15. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Never really thought about Neil Young because, I guess, I like his songs.

    Waits: more of a performer than a singer? Again, singing it may not be, but it is a formula that works for me.

    The kind of not-singing that tends not to work for me is shouting/screeching into the mic.
     
  16. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    No. Honestly I don't listen to the lyrics in music with lyrics. Sometimes they seep into consciousness but lyrics are about 1/20th of the enjoyment of a song. There are a few snippets that standout in memory. In my bleary brain two that come to mind are both U2 - I'm not sure if they're regarded as good lyricists though.

    "Ambition bites the nails of success" - I've riddled over that metaphor for years now with no resolution so maybe that's why it stuck.

    I also like - "love is blindness / I don't want to see / won't you wrap the night around me"

    I'm partial to the whimsy of old blues songs where addition is used to make rhymes.

    "1 and 1 is 2, 2 and 2 is 4, baby don't you come round here no more" or some such.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2016
  17. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I do listen to lyrics. I also appreciate the craft of matching them to the music.

    On the other hand... man of my favourite lines turn out to have been mis-heard anyway. :rolleyes: :oops:
     
  18. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Ah, so Dylan is one of those bloody awful healing Tankadins who can't MT or primary heal an MT? Figures.
     
  19. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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