The Question is … ...3:28 pm
… who’s being punished? For his pot arrest last year in Woodstock, NY, Art Garfunkel was sentenced to give speeches at local high schools.
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Mixed Up Confusion ...3:07 pm
Mark Steyn on the incoherence of the media and many others when it comes to terrorists and the means used to foil them:
So there are now two basic templates in terrorism media coverage:
Template A (note to editors: to be used after every terrorist atrocity): “Angry family members, experts and opposition politicians demand to know why complacent government didn’t connect the dots.” Template B (note to editors: to be used in the run-up to the next terrorist atrocity): “Shocking new report leaked to New York Times for Pulitzer Prize Leak Of The Year Award nomination reveals that paranoid government officials are trying to connect the dots. See pages 3,4,6,7,8, 13-37.”
….
By definition, “connecting the dots” involves getting to see the dots.Sen. Pat Leahy feels differently. “Look at this headline,” huffed the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat. “The secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. Now, are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al Qaeda?” No. But next time he flies from DC to Burlington, Vt., on a Friday, he might look at the security line: Tens of millions of Americans have to remove their coats and shoes. Are you telling me tens of millions of ordinary shoe-wearing Americans are involved with al Qaeda?
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Sunday, May 14, 2006
Drinking with Bob ...5:19 pm
No, not that Bob. It’s yet another Bob — click here to enjoy his commonsensical, loud, but not obscene rants. (We Bobs have to stick together. Or else … we’ll all stick separately. I think Ben Franklin said that.)
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Tweedley-Dee ...4:08 pm
When Dylan wrote Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum in 2001, he was thinking, naturally, of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. So says Sean Daly of the St. Petersburg Times:
The best two cuts of the night, however, were when Dylan aimed his poison pen at the state of the union. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, presumably directed at the two most powerful men in the country, was a biting jam built on an ominous rumble of bass and drums. And for Ballad of a Thin Man, Dylan taunted apathetic citizens to pull their heads from the sand and take a look around.
It’s the casual way these kind of things are asserted that makes them so charming, is it not?
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Carrying a Torch ...2:15 pm
It has been noted by others besides me that many of Dylan’s latter day songs of apparent romantic love and longing can be heard in many instances instead as songs of devotion to — let’s say — the divine. An in-depth meditation on all that would be lengthy and will have to wait for another time. When you think in those terms, however, you also can’t help but wonder whether Dylan himself perceives the same deeper dimension in songs of love written by other people, in particular songs he’s chosen to cover in concert. In some cases, that would be a real stretch (“Brown Sugar”). In others, not so much, perhaps. During his 2002 tour, Dylan performed his buddy Van Morrison’s song “Carrying A Torch” on six occasions (click here for a sample from New York City on November 13th of that year).
That great song includes these lines:
You’re the keeper of the flame
And you burn so bright
Why don’t we re-connect
And move up into the light
You don’t have to travel very far in the Good Book, of-course, to find “light” used to describe the divine. A few examples, anyway –
From Isaiah, Chapter 9 (as also quoted in Matthew, Chapter 4) there is:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
From chapter 8 of John’s Gospel is this:
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Also from the Gospel of John, this time Chapter 12, is this:
Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
From Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians:
For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Likewise, you don’t have to go very far in Dylan’s own body of work to find his own use of light, in many shades, to paint the images in his songs.
From One More Night:
One more night, the stars are in sight
But tonight I’m as lonesome as can be.
Oh, the moon is shinin’ bright,
Lighting ev’rything in sight,
But tonight no light will shine on me.
to ’Cross the Green Mountain:
I’m ten miles outside the city, and I’m lifted away
In an ancient light, that is not of day
They were calm, they were blunt, we knew ’em all too well
We loved each other more than we ever dared to tell
Anyhow, all of this has been in the name of casting a little light on what might have been going on when Dylan sang about carrying Van’s torch.
Flame of love that burns so bright
That is my desire
Keep on liftin’ me, liftin’ me up
Higher and higher
Great album, by the way.
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Friday, May 12, 2006
Viva-tonal ...8:13 pm
A reader, Andrew, emails to pick up on the “Viva-tonal Recording / Electrical Process” reference I made in a previous post (those notations appear on the Time Out of Mind CD). He says that the same notations, albeit in a different style, appear on The Essential Leonard Cohen CD, and speculates that this may have been a nod to Bob, as that CD came out 5 or 6 years after Time Out of Mind. They are both on Columbia/Sony.
Andrew also guesses that Dylan himself wrote that email, supposedly from someone named John in Cranston, Rhode Island, which he read on his most recent “Theme Time Radio Hour” show on XM Radio. I know others are speculating the same. It sure sounded like Dylan’s style, down to the joke about, “I bought her a chair, but she won’t let me plug it in.” But I figure that out of the thousands of Dylan fans who sent him emails, there could have been one who had that style down. And you know what it is that imitation is the sincerest form of. On the other hand, it’s also possible that this show was “in the can” before that email address (bobdylan@xmradio.com) was even announced. Still, I’m willing to take it at face-value as a real email, but who really knows?
The NSA: that’s who. Maybe one day we can find out by invoking the Freedom of Information Act.
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Letter to America ...11:14 am
Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s letter to President Bush was effectively a declaration of war, according to the New York Sun and many around the blogosphere. The nub of this theory is that the letter was a formal “call to Islam,” and that this is a necessary precusor to an attack on infidels, traceable back to Mohammed in the Hadith.
The various and repeated references in the letter to “monotheism” and the apparently benign references to Jesus (PBUH) as a prophet and a messenger of God seem to serve a dual purpose — giving room for some to believe that the overall message is “live and let live; we all believe the same basic things,” while in actuality making Ahmadinejad’s point that Islam is the one true religion and that Bush and everyone else should face up to this and convert. Ahmadinejad is fine with labeling Jesus as a prophet or a teacher. Meanwhile, he knows, of-course, that Christians believe that Jesus actually is God, and to call him a prophet or merely a messenger of God is to explicitly reject that. For Islam, the whole “three persons in one God” thing is a little bit too nuanced — it amounts to polytheism, and it seems safe to assume that Ahmadinejad views it this way. So by repeatedly bring up both the concepts of monotheism and Jesus-as-prophet, Ahmadinejad, in the most subtle way he knows how, is telling Bush, “You’ve got it wrong. Come to Islam and learn the right way.”
And if there were any doubt, yesterday in Jarkarta Ahmadinejad reportedly confirmed that the letter was indeed a call to Islam. And just to make things even more interesting, today traces of uranium enriched to “close to or beyond weapons grade” have reportedly been detected by the U.N. atomic agency at a site linked to their defense ministry.
I commented previously in this space that it seems like there’s something important that we don’t know in this entire scenario with Iran, and I see no reason to revise my point of view. Ahmadinejad’s braggadocious stylings are running counter to Iran’s interests, one would think. Assuming that their aim is to develop nuclear weapons, which everyone with any brain does assume, they could buy themselves more time by appearing more conciliatory and by being more deceptive and thereby dividing international opposition even more than it is already divided. That behavior would certainly make sense if they were, as “experts” speculate, five or ten years away from developing a bomb. Instead, Ahmadinejad daily makes comments about destroying Israel, or the death of western liberalism — comments which must make it exceedingly difficult for his erstwhile allies on the UN Security Council to continue making the case for restraint. And Ahmadinejad is not being “reined in” by the Ayatollah, as some speculated he would be when he began his presidency and first started breaking dishes.
Well, whatever it is that we don’t know, we can be confident that history will tell the tale, no doubt.
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Thursday, May 11, 2006
V-Tone ...10:51 am
In my previous post about Bob’s most recent radio show, I noted that he described Bobby Peterson as “keenly alive, always brisk.” On consideration, that might not have been the true import of this comment. After playing that great Bobby Peterson track (”Mama Get Your Hammer”), Bob notes that Peterson “recorded for the V-Tone label.” Then he immediately adds, “keenly alive, always brisk,” in a manner that might suggest that this was actually the promotional slogan of that particular record label. On this I just can’t say. Does anyone have some V-Tone record sleeves at home (and Bob, you’re welcome to clear this up if you like)?
All of this can’t help but bring to mind the curious and amusing inscriptions on Dylan’s own Time Out of Mind CD, from 1997. On the actual label of the CD (at least on my copy which was purchased that same year), underneath the Columbia logo it says “Viva-tonal Recording,” and further down is added, in impressively jagged letters, the words “Electrical Process.”
And further checking shows that Columbia actually used to have a “Viva-tonal” sub-label, at least back in the 1930s when they were putting out 78 rpm records.
So … take all of this for what it’s worth, by all means.
…
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Wednesday, May 10, 2006
An Embarrassment of Dylans ...5:52 pm
A curious thing today — if you did a Google News search for “Bob Dylan,” among the stories you would have pulled up would have been these two:
Israel’s ‘Bob Dylan’ performs on Yom Ha’atzmaut
and
‘Welsh Bob Dylan’ on firearm charge
Meanwhile, the “American Bob Dylan” had just had his second XM radio show aired, and was getting ready for the penultimate performance of his current U.S. concert tour in Tampa, Florida, tonight.
How fortunate indeed we are to live in this world of Dylans.
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MOTHER ...12:20 pm
The second episode of “The Theme Time Radio Hour with your host Bob Dylan” has now aired. (… continue reading …)
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Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Moussaoui: “Whoops” ...10:29 am
At first, the reaction to Moussaoui’s attempt to withdraw his guilty plea (after he’s already been convicted and sentenced) might well be a certain amount of righteous gloating; facing a lifetime of solitary confinement in a maximum security prison, it seemed that the only thing he had left to comfort him was his defiance, and now he has tossed even that away with this plea for mercy, and this admission — if you believe it — that he now has some trust in the U.S. system of justice, or at least in his ability to bamboozle it. To think of him squirming with these regrets for the rest of his life in his cell is to be reminded that sometimes a life sentence can indeed be worse than a sentence of death.
Still, one’s fear then becomes that this laughable ploy is not the last legal shot he can fire, and that this prisoner who was supposed to be condemned to oblivion and silence will continue using the legal system as his megaphone. Moussaoui deserves, above all, to be ignored and forgotten by the world. It will be a true shame if we continue to see his name in the papers year after year.
And that possibility is evidence enough to me that trials in civilian courts are not the way to be dealing with enemies of this nature.
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Sunday, May 7, 2006
Voice from on High ...5:32 pm
Dylan performed the song “Voice from on High” on at least 7 occasions, all during 2002, according to the DylanTree database. Written by Bill Monroe and Bessie Lee Mauldin, it was also often performed by Bob’s faves the Stanley Brothers. So for a change of pace, here is a sample of those self-same Stanley Brothers, on the 3rd of July, 1955, with a live rendition of “Voice from on High.”
The Savior who died on cruel Calvary
He shed his life’s blood that the world might be free
So I’ll follow his footsteps up the narrow way
And be ready to meet Him when He calls on that day
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Thursday, May 4, 2006
All the Way from New Orleans ...10:35 am
Regular Dylan-watchers who read the LA Times story on Bob’s performance at the New Orleans Jazz Fest must have allowed themselves a few chuckles, as I did. Written by Randy Lewis, it starts out: “It’s always tricky looking for the motivation behind a Bob Dylan set list.” Then immediately all that caution is thrown to the wind: “But there was little doubt Friday that Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath was on his mind during a towering 90-minute performance for the opening day of the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival here.”
Well, I’m sure it was on his mind. Then Lewis provides us with four examples of how Dylan tailored his set list to the occasion:
Three songs in, he pulled up “Lonesome Day Blues,” from 2001’s “Love and Theft” album, with its verse:
The road’s washed out — weather not fit for man or beast/Funny, how the things you have the hardest time parting with/Are the things you need the least.
And during the encore portion, Dylan subtly but powerfully changed the familiar verse of “Like a Rolling Stone.” So that instead of asking “How does it feel/to be on your own?” he zeroed in on the disorientation of displaced tens of thousands: How does it feel/To be without a home/With no direction home?
“Highway 61 Revisited” evoked the age-old conundrum of humanity striving vainly to understand the notion of “God’s will,” while a rare unearthing of 1970’s “Watching the River Flow” brought the consoling observation that in times when it’s impossible to understand life, it’s advisable to just stand back and watch it.
Yes, well, anyone who follows Dylan’s tours and set lists knows that none of these songs are stunning rarities, and, indeed, seeing all of them in one set list is completely unremarkable. And if I understand correctly what Lewis is trying to convey about how Dylan sang the chorus of Like a Rolling Stone, it is in fact his usual way of singing it these days (i.e., singing the two lines that end with “home” back to back).
The “rare unearthing” of Watching the River Flow is perhaps a bit less portentous when you realize Dylan performed it on 19 occasions during 2005 (according to the database at the DylanTree). And a check of Bill Pagel’s set lists for this year reveals that Dylan had already performed it 4 times on this tour before the New Orleans gig — most recently at the very gig that preceded the Jazz Fest, in Memphis, Tennessee on April 25th.
So, Randy certainly had it right with how he started out: “It’s always tricky looking for the motivation behind a Bob Dylan set list.”
The truth is, just about any Dylan set list would seem to be referencing the Katrina calamity in some way. Dylan writes songs from that spot, and he always has: A place where the walls are falling in, time is short, people are proving that they are capable of anything, and the physical world is leaving you nothing to hang on to. Back when Katrina was in motion, I remember punctuating some blog posts with quotes from A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and High Water, and I could have picked others. Floods, mayhem, fires and revolution — that’s essentially the background to a great many Dylan songs, if not all of them, in some sense. Even his songs of love, humor and romance tend to have that context hanging over them somehow — a sense of the fragility and transient nature of any good times. Forever Young:
… because, you know, the “winds of changes” are going to shift. And you will need swift feet.
Trying to think of the sweetest and most peaceable Dylan song I know made me come up with Winterlude. That song’s first verse:
Tonight there will be “no quarrelin’,” — that’s really the premise of this gentle song of love, isn’t it? That is, the premise is that there usually is quarreling. But tonight, we’ll make it different — tonight, my dear, we’ll appreciate the good things we have, we’ll pause to enjoy our love — we’ll have a “winterlude.” But this too shall pass, and don’t forget it.
So, anyhow, I’m sure Dylan was thinking of the damage done by Katrina while he sang some of those songs, and the words certainly must have rung very true to many in the audience. Where I disagree with Randy of the LA Times is in thinking that this set list was somehow uniquely tuned to providing comfort to those set adrift by disaster. Dylan’s entire body of work, I think, is serving just that purpose for anyone who cares to appreciate it.
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Wednesday, May 3, 2006
The True False Identity ...9:00 pm
Generally, RWB only discusses Dylan-related music in this space, but, back in March, an exception was made to note the forthcoming release by one T-Bone Burnett. Well, today, the folks at BobDylan.com made a similar exception, sending out a message to everyone on that mailing list about the T-Bone albums being released on May 16th (one double CD retrospective, and one album of brand new songs). Of-course, they are label-mates, so that figures into it, although BobDylan.com subscribers hardly get notifications of every new Columbia/Sony release.
Interestingly, Jakob Dylan (Bob’s son) will be appearing as a “very special guest” on T-Bone’s tour; a fact first brought to RWB’s attention by reader Blake a couple of weeks ago.
Burnett’s forthcoming album includes titles such as “Earlier Baghdad (The Bounce),” “Palestine Texas,” and “Fear Country,” which might lead some to expect some kind of obvious political sloganeering, such as we’ve heard from others lately, but based on what I’ve heard and what I know of T-Bone, there’s something deeper going on. It might actually be possible to write songs that relate to the world we live in without resorting to immature posturing. Who’d a thunk it?
Burnett now has his own website, and even his own MySpace.com page, where you can hear samples of several of the songs. (A warning to all you kiddies who use that site: T-Bone is well over 50 years old, no matter what he may claim.)
The new album is this one:
The retrospective two-CD box is this one:
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Debut of “The Theme Time Radio Hour with your host Bob Dylan.” ...11:13 am
RWB returns in time to hear the first official broadcast of Dylan’s new XM Radio show — “The Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan.” It was indeed the same show which many have heard previously in the preview version that XM had made available, with the theme of “weather.” So, my original reaction to it was contained in a previous post, and I stand by that. Great show. A fairly typical and very nice review from the mainstream media is readable at this link.
Next week’s theme: “mother.”
Now, I followed a link on Expecting Rain a little while ago and saw that a fan’s website had posted tracklists from 5 or 6 future “Theme Time Radio Hour” shows. Apparently they were previously published in the New York Times. As someone who wants to enjoy the surprise of hearing Dylan’s choices unfold, in real time, on the actual show, I got away from that site as fast as I could. I think it’s a pity that XM let this information get out, and it’s a shame that the New York Times published it and it’s out there in the ether now. I realize that there are many people who want to hear the show who can’t — many outside of the U.S., and indeed some inside the U.S. who can’t afford to subscribe. Once the show airs, of-course, the tracklist is public information and should be. And we all know, the internet world being what it is, that recordings of the show will be made and will circulate in some fashion. It’s just sad that there is such impatience to burst the bubble and spoil the pleasure of waiting for something to actually happen in its own time. I was going to speculate on what “mother” songs Dylan might choose, but now it’s pointless — not that I absorbed the list from the site I had clicked on, but, it being out there, I’m all too easily proved wrong. Well, I for one will be ignoring the advance info and listening to the shows as they are broadcast, and doing whatever commenting there is to be done after the fact.
’Round here, I’ll just pretend it’s about 1952, I guess. Or at least, say, 1992. I love the freedom of information that the internet provides, but having too much of everything certainly risks cheapening those things you previously loved and valued so highly. A little self-discipline is in order to keep one’s senses tuned to enjoying that which is genuinely good. A poem from the fog of my childhood occurs to me — Patrick Kavanagh’s “Advent.” First verse:
We have tested and tasted too much, lover –
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
Indeed!
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