dylan, on songwriters and more

This is for all non-EC or peripheral-EC topics. We all know how much we love talking about 'The Man' but sometimes we have other interests.
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alexv
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dylan, on songwriters and more

Post by alexv »

Great Dylan stuff from the Flanagan interview.

Who are some of your favorite songwriters?

BD: Buffett I guess. Lightfoot. Warren Zevon. Randy. John Prine. Guy Clark. Those kinds of writers.

BF: What songs do you like of Buffett's?

BD: "Death of an Unpopular Poet." There's another one called "He Went to Paris."

BF: You and Lightfoot go way back.

BD: Oh yeah. Gordo's been around as long as me.

BF: What are your favorite songs of his?

BD: "Shadows," "Sundown," "If You Could Read My Mind." I can't think of any I don't like.

BF: Did you know Zevon?

BD: Not very well.

BF: What did you like about him?

BD: "Lawyers, Guns and Money." "Boom Boom Mancini." Down hard stuff. "Join me in L.A." sort of straddles the line between heartfelt and primeval. His musical patterns are all over the place, probably because he's classically trained. There might be three separate songs within a Zevon song, but they're all effortlessly connected. Zevon was a musician's musician, a tortured one. "Desperado Under the Eaves." It's all in there.

BF: Randy Newman?

BD: Yeah, Randy. What can you say? I like his early songs, "Sail Away," "Burn Down the Cornfield," "Louisiana," where he kept it simple. Bordello songs. I think of him as the Crown Prince, the heir apparent to Jelly Roll Morton. His style is deceiving. He's so laid back that you kind of forget he's saying important things. Randy's sort of tied to a different era like I am.

BF: How about John Prine?

BD: Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about "Sam Stone" the soldier junky daddy and "Donald and Lydia," where people make love from ten miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that. If I had to pick one song of his, it might be "Lake Marie." I don't remember what album that's on.

BF: A lot of the acts from your generation seem to be trading on nostalgia. They play the same songs the same way for the last 30 years. Why haven't you ever done that?

BD: I couldn't if I tried. Those guys you are talking about all had conspicuous hits. They started out anti-establishment and now they are in charge of the world. Celebratory songs. Music for the grand dinner party. Mainstream stuff that played into the culture on a pervasive level. My stuff is different from those guys. It's more desperate. Daltrey, Townshend, McCartney, the Beach Boys, Elton, Billy Joel. They made perfect records, so they have to play them perfectly ... exactly the way people remember them. My records were never perfect. So there is no point in trying to duplicate them. Anyway, I'm no mainstream artist.

BF: Then what kind of artist are you?

BD: I'm not sure, Byronesque maybe. Look, when I started out, mainstream culture was Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course, there's no fitting into it now. Some of my songs have crossed over but they were all done by other singers.

BF: Have you ever tried to fit in?

BD: Well, no, not really. I'm coming out of the folk music tradition and that's the vernacular and archetypal aesthetic that I've experienced. Those are the dynamics of it. I couldn't have written songs for the Brill Building if I tried. Whatever passes for pop music, I couldn't do it then and I can't do it now.

BF: Does that mean you create outsider art? Do you think of yourself as a cult figure?

BD: A cult figure, that's got religious connotations. It sounds cliquish and clannish. People have different emotional levels. Especially when you're young. Back then I guess most of my influences could be thought of as eccentric. Mass media had no overwhelming reach so I was drawn to the traveling performers passing through. The side show performers - bluegrass singers, the black cowboy with chaps and a lariat doing rope tricks. Miss Europe, Quasimodo, the Bearded Lady, the half-man half-woman, the deformed and the bent, Atlas the Dwarf, the fire-eaters, the teachers and preachers, the blues singers. I remember it like it was yesterday. I got close to some of these people. I learned about dignity from them. Freedom too. Civil rights, human rights. How to stay within yourself. Most others were into the rides like the tilt-a-whirl and the rollercoaster. To me that was the nightmare. All the giddiness. The artificiality of it. The sledge hammer of life. It didn't make sense or seem real. The stuff off the main road was where force of reality was. At least it struck me that way. When I left home those feelings didn't change.

BF: But you've sold over a hundred million records.

BD: Yeah I know
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LessThanZero
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Re: dylan, on songwriters and more

Post by LessThanZero »

Dylan ALWAYS makes me feel lame. He is at a higher level.
Loving this board since before When I Was Cruel.
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Who Shot Sam?
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Re: dylan, on songwriters and more

Post by Who Shot Sam? »

Great stuff. I really love these interviews he's been giving in advance of the new album. Less cryptic but still uncompromising and 100% Bob.
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alexv
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Re: dylan, on songwriters and more

Post by alexv »

I'm not one of those Dylan nuts. In fact, I've vowed never to see him in concert again after his last visit to Ct. Live, his voice is...well I really can't describe it, and no matter how great the band is it's really annoying not understanding a word he's saying. I love his band, and the sound they make outdoors on a beautiful summer night as they put the rock and roll into those grand folk songs can still move me.But it still bothers me that it's Dylan and I just can't understand the words or figure out what song i'm listening to until midway through sometimes.

Anyway, my point is that his body of work, influence etc. are so out of this world influential, and his current persona is so otherworldy/odd that you tend to forget that he did not become Dylan simply because of luck or ambition or record company help or anything like that. With EC, you get the sense that despite his obvious talent, what has got him where he is today has a lot to do with ambition and drive and an obvious desire to be part of the conversation.

With Dylan, it's all about his particular genius. It comes through in the music, but because his style has always been so odd he can be an acquired taste and many just won't get it. But when you see him in these interviews (or in the Scorcese documentary) when he's on the level, you really get why he's on "another plane".

You want a description of Zevon? "sort of straddles the line between heartfelt and primeval"

Newman? "Bordello songs"

Prine? "pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree"

Daltrey, Townshend, McCartney, the Beach Boys, Elton, Billy Joel? "Music for the grand dinner party"

Dylan on Dylan? "I was drawn to the traveling performers passing through. The side show performers - bluegrass singers, the black cowboy with chaps and a lariat doing rope tricks. Miss Europe, Quasimodo, the Bearded Lady, the half-man half-woman, the deformed and the bent, Atlas the Dwarf, the fire-eaters, the teachers and preachers, the blues singers... Most others were into the rides like the tilt-a-whirl and the rollercoaster. To me that was the nightmare. All the giddiness. The artificiality of it. The sledge hammer of life. It didn't make sense or seem real. The stuff off the main road was where force of reality was"

There is no music critic alive who can describe these songwriters that way. You sense the pure love he has for music and songwriters. Notice how he makes it a point to name "the" particular songs he likes. You get the sense he wants Flanagan to know that he's not bullshitting. He likes Buffett, and Lightfoot, and he likes them because of specific songs. Forget the personas or the bullshit or what others think of them. And he makes the effort to describe it all in just the right way.

The part that really gets me about this interview is that ending, when he riffs on his love for the side-show, the grotesque side of life. He's not into the "giddiness" or "artificiality" of life. He's "off the main road" where "reality" is.

No Juno awards with David Furnish for Bobby.
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pophead2k
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Re: dylan, on songwriters and more

Post by pophead2k »

Really well put. That's why I really loved this series of interviews as well. Kudos to Flanegan for getting Dylan to be relatively straight with us. The radio show and comments like these do show that at the heart of any great musician is a huge music fan.
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Re: dylan, on songwriters and more

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Alex, I would have to concur with your thoughts-I think you are on to something. I too saw him recently in CT on a bill with EC- the acoustics, Dylan's particular lack of enthusiasm that evening were a turn off- I too have sworn off for the moment seeing him live anytime soon-probably to my detriment as he can have a "great" show on any given night- witness the reports that are consistently posted on the Expecting Rain site or on his own site after a given gig.

He is on another level- his never ending tour I used to attribute to paying alimony or child support- but I am now convinced he is only at home on his tour bus traveling the world and entertaining us- once in a while sending out a new bulletin on his view of his world- like this coming Tuesday. He is right as he says in the interview- "my songs were never perfect"- he can play with them each night and entertain-he is a throwback to vaudeville- getting out on the stage and playing how he feels that night. Who else has the back catalog he has to draw upon? He is not a polished dinner theatre act-he is the real thing-as he has said more like Verlaine or Rimbaud or I think Villon. I do not think he works at it- it just happens for him- maybe not every night-but the joy for him is just being out there. I picture him dying in that bus. It continues to be for him a striving for that " thin, wild, mercurial sound" he heard only in his head forty some years ago. You are dead on--"no Junos or David Furnish" for him.

Interesting to note that the song writers he cites all share something in common with him- they have an honesty and simplicity that is deceptive- it is particularly wonderful to read his appreciation of John Prine-a writer who has consistently given me pleasure since the early Seventies. Once tagged the new Dylan-it is pleasing to see the master appreciates him.

I know Dylan is special when I can get a call from my daughter because she has just come out of a program at her school featuring an annual campus lecture by Christopher Ricks on "Dylan and Racism" and she is all animated and engaged thanks to the talk but more so because the artistry of Dylan has her mind racing.
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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