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alan
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 Posted February 15th, 2010 02:46 AM IP    
Damn. Just wrote a long(ish) reply about Nashville Skyline and it all got lost when i posted and it said we had reached the max on posts. So here is the new bob thread but minus what i just wrote, other than i think Nashville Skyline is a bit of Bob tossing one off to keep CBS happy. Short, perfunctory, but not without interest as it is, after all, still a Dylan album.
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 15th, 2010 06:15 AM IP
Same here, Al.
But I think Skyline is an absolute masterwork. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You is as meaningful a closer as Desolation Row or Sad Eyed Lady, and it is much harder to write a simple song like that, that works.
Because Bob wrote all those wordy songs before, when he sings "throw my ticket out the window, throw my suitcase out there too", it has WEIGHT.
My lord, I Threw It All Away?? That is SOUL MUSIC, straight up. Revealing, funny, wistful, informative.
If the album is "tossed off", it really isn't, because those terms for him involve the type of consideration and timing that negate any form of pure mercenary motives.
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Rob
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Posted February 15th, 2010 10:49 AM IP
I think Nashville Skyline is a very good album with a number of great songs and nothing that is less than enjoyable. Having said that, I don't find any of it as great as something like Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and I mean that just from the point of view of a straightforward listening experience (though I probably mean it in other ways also). Imagine if Dylan had been a more conventionally mainstream songwriter and performer in the Nashville Skyline mould from the start of his career and throughout the 1960s. I'm sure he'd have become famous but would his reputation and status be anything like what it is today? Perhaps the entire history of pop music since the early 1960s would be profoundly different. Surely what he did with the bulk of his 1960s output was blaze a massive trail with regard to what popular music could do and say and he did that not just by doing things that no one else was doing but doing it with such awe-inspiring brilliance that everyone else followed. So, yes, though I think that Nashville Skyline is very good in its own right I think it is nowhere near as great an artistic achievement as something like Blonde on Blonde.
Have YOU been Con-Demed yet?
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alan
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Posted February 15th, 2010 02:37 PM IP
Quote:
Ian Cubed wrote:
Same here, Al.
But I think Skyline is an absolute masterwork. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You is as meaningful a closer as Desolation Row or Sad Eyed Lady, and it is much harder to write a simple song like that, that works.
Because Bob wrote all those wordy songs before, when he sings "throw my ticket out the window, throw my suitcase out there too", it has WEIGHT.
My lord, I Threw It All Away?? That is SOUL MUSIC, straight up. Revealing, funny, wistful, informative.
If the album is "tossed off", it really isn't, because those terms for him involve the type of consideration and timing that negate any form of pure mercenary motives.
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Those are indeed all great songs, but I still think that he had his interests elsewhere at the time - his wife and kids mainly, and that it was an album that he probably got down pretty quickly. I think its simplicity and the brevity of all the songs also makes it one that goes past very quickly, leaving a smile but without filling you in the same way that those before had done. Still a good record though!
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Sheriff John Stone
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Posted February 15th, 2010 02:46 PM IP
What do you guys think about "Girl From The North Country" with Johnny Cash?
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alan
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Posted February 15th, 2010 07:18 PM IP
er....i prefer the version on Freewheelin'.
They sound like a heavyweight and a flyweight boxer put in the ring together tryjng to work out how to hurt the other one and failing to connect. Historic in one way, a bit of a failure (for me) musically. Bob was never at his best singing a duet.
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Sheriff John Stone
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Posted February 16th, 2010 12:10 AM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
er....i prefer the version on Freewheelin'.
They sound like a heavyweight and a flyweight boxer put in the ring together tryjng to work out how to hurt the other one and failing to connect. Historic in one way, a bit of a failure (for me) musically. Bob was never at his best singing a duet.
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Good analogy; and I feel basically the same way. I mean, I WANT TO LIKE the version, because I'm also a fan of Johnny Cash. Maybe a different song might've worked better.
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Rob
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Posted February 16th, 2010 12:42 AM IP
I think Dylan's strange new voice on that album suffers a bit in comparison when directly put up against Cash's naturally deep and resonant tones on that song.
Have YOU been Con-Demed yet?
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 16th, 2010 01:19 AM IP
Quote:
Rob wrote:
I think Nashville Skyline is a very good album with a number of great songs and nothing that is less than enjoyable. Having said that, I don't find any of it as great as something like Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and I mean that just from the point of view of a straightforward listening experience (though I probably mean it in other ways also). Imagine if Dylan had been a more conventionally mainstream songwriter and performer in the Nashville Skyline mould from the start of his career and throughout the 1960s. I'm sure he'd have become famous but would his reputation and status be anything like what it is today? Perhaps the entire history of pop music since the early 1960s would be profoundly different. Surely what he did with the bulk of his 1960s output was blaze a massive trail with regard to what popular music could do and say and he did that not just by doing things that no one else was doing but doing it with such awe-inspiring brilliance that everyone else followed. So, yes, though I think that Nashville Skyline is very good in its own right I think it is nowhere near as great an artistic achievement as something like Blonde on Blonde.
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Fair enough. But I wholly disagree with the view that Dylan would be somehow "lesser" if he was a "conventional" songwriter.
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant are just as important in the songwriting sense. James Brown is. Smokey Robinson is. Charlie Rich is.
But hey, my views on Dylan are a bit unconventional, and a bit more along the lines of how he actually wants to be viewed. As part of a tradition.
Viewed as being some be-all end-all is noting but a nightmare for him, as well as his career being viewed as a three-year golden age with a few years before it and many years since. And he is wholly correct, I feel for the guy.
It has all been one song, one album, one life. And more than that, Dylan is part of the greater song, music. An important part, but just one part.
Singling him out as this superhero trailblazer, and even worse, singling out just a part of his work for unqual emphasis, does him a great, great disservice, in my opinion.
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 16th, 2010 01:20 AM IP
Quote:
Rob wrote:
I think Dylan's strange new voice on that album suffers a bit in comparison when directly put up against Cash's naturally deep and resonant tones on that song.
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Strange?
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 16th, 2010 01:22 AM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
er....i prefer the version on Freewheelin'.
They sound like a heavyweight and a flyweight boxer put in the ring together tryjng to work out how to hurt the other one and failing to connect. Historic in one way, a bit of a failure (for me) musically. Bob was never at his best singing a duet.
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It is two friends, legends, having a good ol' time in the studio together. Hope that's cool with ya.
"My friends, my friends were playing with me on that record!"
"It doesn't sound like you, it sounds like you're havin' a good old laugh!"
"Well, can't I have a laugh once in a while? Is that alright with you?"
Yeah, he was in England.
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alan
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Posted February 16th, 2010 03:02 AM IP
It may be two friends having a good time, but that is never much of a guide about quality. Most films where the actors come out saying 'we had such a great time on set' is normally another way of saying 'yeah the film is a piece of shit and the director sucks but we smoked some great dope behind the scenes...'. The song is a bit of a plod. Are we supposed to ignore that just because they are two legends? I've seen plenty of legends appear on stage with eachother - Gerge Harrison with Dylan for instance at Wembley and actually they were pretty terrible, but it was fun to see them up there.
And having a long overview is one thing, answering a question about 'what do you think of Nashville Skyline' is another which is asking what I think, not what Bob thinks.
Yes with Dylan we can look at his overall career, but does that mean we look at Knocked Out Loaded and say it comes up to scratch when compared with Blood On The Tracks or Love & Death? If its all the same then nothing stands out.
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 16th, 2010 03:46 AM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
It may be two friends having a good time, but that is never much of a guide about quality.
And having a long overview is one thing, answering a question about 'what do you think of Nashville Skyline' is another which is asking what I think, not what Bob thinks.
Yes with Dylan we can look at his overall career, but does that mean we look at Knocked Out Loaded and say it comes up to scratch when compared with Blood On The Tracks or Love & Death? If its all the same then nothing stands out.
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Fair enough, but Cash and Dylan in the 60's is for me, exactly what it sounds like. It doesn't transcend its intent, but the intent isn't a truly serious one.
On the second bit, Rob was taking the Skyline issue and making it a career generality (later vs. older stuff, simplicity vs. complication), which is why I responded in kind.
Knocked was in the 80's, when everyone was crap. Another album I think is crap though? Another Side Of Bob Dylan.
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Sheriff John Stone
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Posted February 16th, 2010 03:48 AM IP
I was doing some reading on Nashville Skyline, and found out the drummer was the great session musician, Kenny Buttrey, and the bass player was none other than - Charlie Daniels! Oh, and Earl Scruggs played on Nashville Skyline Rag.
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 16th, 2010 04:43 AM IP
Buttrey also plays on Blonde On Blonde and John Wesley Harding.
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Rob
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Posted February 16th, 2010 11:12 AM IP
Quote:
Ian Cubed wrote:
Fair enough. But I wholly disagree with the view that Dylan would be somehow "lesser" if he was a "conventional" songwriter.
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant are just as important in the songwriting sense. James Brown is. Smokey Robinson is. Charlie Rich is.
But hey, my views on Dylan are a bit unconventional, and a bit more along the lines of how he actually wants to be viewed. As part of a tradition.
Viewed as being some be-all end-all is noting but a nightmare for him, as well as his career being viewed as a three-year golden age with a few years before it and many years since. And he is wholly correct, I feel for the guy.
It has all been one song, one album, one life. And more than that, Dylan is part of the greater song, music. An important part, but just one part.
Singling him out as this superhero trailblazer, and even worse, singling out just a part of his work for unqual emphasis, does him a great, great disservice, in my opinion.
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I'm not saying that Dylan's career has been nothing but a 'three year golden age'. I'm a fan of Dylan's music throughout his career (though obviously not everything he's done throughout his career), including Nashville Skyline (though I wouldn't say it's one of his very best - which I'm also not saying are confined to the period 1963-66). On the other hand, the period 1963-66 is extremely fascinating in terms of what he did in that period. I think it can be summed up by the words 'three years'. When you wrote that I actually paused to reflect (though probably not for the first time) on how so much happened and changed in such a short space of time. And I'm not just talking about Dylan here though obviously he was a very big part of it. To my mind it was a period of artistic foment and ferment that happened not in the salons of Paris but, as a result of a number of factors coming together, at the level of popular culture. I don't wish to dismiss songs pre that period either. For just one small instance, as far as I'm concerned there could never be many things more wonderful than Wonderful Land by The Shadows. But I'm interested in what happened overall at the time and its effect. I love the music of that period but not just because it was 'trail blazing' (though it was) but because it also was fantastic. And ultimately that's why I think Blonde on Blonde is Dylan's best album, because I listen to it and I think it is. I personally like it, as a listening experience, the most.
I can't agree with you that Another Side of is a crap album. How can an album with Chimes of Freedom, To Ramona, My Back Pages, I Don't Believe You, and It Ain't Me Babe on it be called 'crap'? It's true that the songs were recorded a bit lazily and could have been better realised but that doesn't put it in the Knocked Out Loaded league.
Quote:
Ian Cubed wrote:
Strange? |
Yes, strange. The first time I heard Nashville Skyline I was really taken aback by his voice - it is so different to anything that went before. I'm not saying that his voice didn't change from album to album before that - for example his voice on BoB was very different to the album immediately preceding it. But it was always very recognisably Dylan's voice. This sounded like something else altogether. I have heard people say that the NS voice is actually Dylan's natural singing voice (though I bet he couldn't do it now!) and the 'nasal' thing was the invention. But I remember once hearing a recording of a teenage Dylan singing 'Buzz Buzz Buzz' in high school (a song which I'd previously only heard Jonathan Richman perform and thought it such a typical JR song that I was amazed to find he didn't actually write it) and it was very recognisably Dylan's voice (as in not the NS type voice) singing it. (Ironically Dylan is heard on the same recording speaking dismissively about Johnny Cash and saying that when he heard a JC song he just wanted to leave the room!) This was all in a BBC programme some years ago now about famous songs - Highway 61 Revisited on this occasion.
Have YOU been Con-Demed yet?
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alan
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Posted February 16th, 2010 02:17 PM IP
I always thought that comment about Johnny Cash was odd too - just shows how people change.
I know what Ian means about Another Side of - it IS a weird one. i bought it not that long ago on SACD (and my player has now died!) and it was a struggle to get through. It obviously was seminal when it came out but it sounds a bit flat now and most of those songs sound better elsewhere.
I've never thought Dylan's voice was odd on Nashville Skyline as in all probability Lay Lady Lay was the song I would have known best growing up. I was only 10 when it came out and it was a big hit over here and was always on the radio. For me growing up he then 'disappeared' till Knocking On Heavens Door' which is not that disimilar. I would have then heard Planet Waves and Before The Flood with his rock star shouty voice, and that was the first time i heard a lot of the older songs. I went backwards from there.
Blonde On Blonde was of course recorded in Nashville using much the same musicians (other than the few with The Hawks)- as was John Wesley Harding. Amazing how different each of those records sound.
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Rob
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Posted February 16th, 2010 02:47 PM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
I've never thought Dylan's voice was odd on Nashville Skyline as in all probability Lay Lady Lay was the song I would have known best growing up. I was only 10 when it came out and it was a big hit over here and was always on the radio.
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I never really paid Dylan any attention at all until my then brother-in-law (10 years older than me) bought Street Legal in 1978. That album was the first time I really listened to him. Btw I thought Baby Stop Crying (which was the first thing I really listened to) was really strange. Sounded very MOR to me. I thought "So this is the great Bob Dylan!" (because i was starting to pick up up on the idea that he was someone I should be interested in). But I quite liked the album overall, Changing of the Guards struck me as particularly good. I love that album far more now than I did then actually, think it's one of his most under-rated. I wasn't familiar with Lay Lady Lay at all at that point. Then I bought Bringing It All Back Home, then BoB and then either directly or by taping off friends who were then also getting into him the other early albums. I was a teenager into the current day punk scene and the early rebellious, political and hipster image appealed to me. I also started getting into a lot of other 60s stuff at this point. I still think that the Nashville Skyline voice is distinct from every other 'voice' in his career - like he's trying to sing completely straight. To me it seems a bit like it was self consciously contrived for a 'country' album.
Have YOU been Con-Demed yet?
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 16th, 2010 08:44 PM IP
Good stuff, friends, ya'll are getting real and detailed in response to my obnoxiously expressed dismissals (which I ripped off Bob).
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Sheriff John Stone
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Posted February 16th, 2010 11:59 PM IP
I'm enjoying the Dylan discussion; it's part of my education.
Nashville Skyline was Dylan's shortest album at just over 27 minutes. And then he did Self Portrait....Comments?
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 17th, 2010 02:03 AM IP
Comments on Self Portrait are many, upshot being that I absolutely love it, in all regards. Everything great, everything bad, all has a purpose in the tapestry of the TRUE self portrait. Sometimes the storyteller sees himself as merely the sum of his influences, sometimes the most telling moments are those when the storyteller runs out of his own stories, and tells the tales of others, in his own way. Dylan has never restricted himself to the parts of his creativity that make people comfortable.
Portrait is as much a part of that as going electric at Newport.
As Sam Peckinpah realised when he cast Dylan as the anonymous watcher Alias in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Bob dons masks, he is a mask. The cover of Self Portrait is a crudely drawn mask of a face.
What is left when the most familiar mask is pulled off? Another mask. The Dylan mask is pulled off on Portrait to reveal the face of The Everly Brothers, of Gordon Lightfoot, of any random stranger with a guitar.
Dylan becomes finally anonymous on Portrait when he reveals his old self was just a persona, in his half-baked live takes upon older material.
Dylan, finally just one of us. A great gift to find your heroes are human.
I'll take Dylan's humanity over his superhumanity any day.
The message and intent of Self Portrait was so strong that when he attempted to don the familiar Mask again on New Morning, it didn't work.
All he could do was declare he didn't have anything to say on Watching The River Flow, and wait for the next tide to roll in.
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luther
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Posted February 17th, 2010 02:24 AM IP
Quote:
Ian Cubed wrote:
I'll take Dylan's humanity over his superhumanity any day.
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As good as stories about Dylan, Wilson, Mozart, Reed, Paganini, Monk, and who knows how many others may be, that's one of the keys to it all. It feels a little deflating to take away the magic, but the remarkable thing is finding how much more magic you're left with when you're dealing with people instead of superheroes.
don't try so hard.
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alan
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Posted February 17th, 2010 02:59 AM IP
Well, when it comes down to it we are all just people, which gets lost in media gaze and our own expectations and projections. But of all artists Dylan, despite wanting to do quite the opposite, has encouraged this by his refusal to do much media. Pete Townshend comes across as far more normal as he'll sit there and pontificate for hours about anything, so the mystique is more easily broken. Bob is always the man behind the shades.
I've tried, but I do still think Self Portrait is just a rotten album, recorded either when his mind was elsewhere (family) or, if you read Chronicles in that way, just to put people off and stop fans deifying him. I find it almost unplayable. A mix of poor new songs, bad cover versions and half assed live tracks. But that's just me. I like New Morning a LOT more.
I don't even think it IS a Self Portrait, as very persuavely argued by Ian above. It's just a mess of things to cover up for the fact that he hadn't written anything much decent as his life was no longer centred around music. I think up to Blonde On Blonde you can read Dylan through his albums and track his growth. As he has said, all of those records were about him. After that he started writing about characters.
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Sheriff John Stone
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Posted February 17th, 2010 03:35 AM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
I don't even think it IS a Self Portrait, as very persuavely argued by Ian above. It's just a mess of things to cover up for the fact that he hadn't written anything much decent as his life was no longer centred around music.
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Could it have been both? Maybe Dylan was hitting a dry period, and went this direction to fill the gaps. But, in choosing the material, he picked songs that DID reflect who he was at that time. We just didn't like what he picked, or THAT Dylan.
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Ian Cubed
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Posted February 17th, 2010 05:26 AM IP
Right on, JS.
I dig the point-counterpoint nature of this discussion. Nearly violently opposed viewpoints among fans of an artist usually means we're dealing with a great.
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alan
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Posted February 18th, 2010 01:28 AM IP
Street Legal is still a weird one for me. Bought it when it came out and actually sold it off a few years later. Bought the recent remixed CD (was it any different? Sounded much the same to me as I remembered) and if i play it I like it....mostly. I never did like the girl singers on it, or the sax solo's - I never have associated Dylan with that sort of instrumentation. I have also never really sat down and looked at the lyrics as i imagine that a few of them would be really good (the last few tracks from memory), and he doesn't play that many of the songs live either very often. I know Signor has got the odd outing but that's about it since it came out.
I never reach for it to play either....actually these days i tend to play just those from Oh Mercy onwards (excepting ...Red Sky of course) - maybe i know the others too well to get much new from them.
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Sheriff John Stone
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Posted February 18th, 2010 02:47 AM IP
I'm still waiting for Steet Legal to grow on me. 
It's funny but I don't "get" some of Dylan's stuff for years, then I'll come back to it and it'll hit me and I'll think, "Oh, THAT'S what he was trying to get across".
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alan
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Posted February 18th, 2010 03:16 AM IP
I've had times where I've played Street Legal and loved it, others where I've just thought 'er, what was that again?'. It still hasn't assimilated with me after 33 years!
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Rob
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Posted February 18th, 2010 09:34 AM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
Bought the recent remixed CD (was it any different? Sounded much the same to me as I remembered)
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I think it has a fuller sound to it. The original production was quite shrill and metallic. Plus, Changing of the Guards goes on a bit longer on the remixed CD (which always sounds a bit strange to my ears). I think Street Legal is a really strong album. I find No Time To Think a bit of a 'longeur' but otherwise it's an album I very much enjoy listening to. I think 'Side 2' (Is Your Love In Vain? onwards) is the stronger side and I particularly love the last three tracks which always seem like a bit of a 'suite' to me which build up to the terrific climax of Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Thru Dark Heat) a song which in itself builds to a storming emotional climax. Dylan is on great lyrical form here also. One of the things I like about this album is that songs like True Love Tends To Forget and We Better Talk This Over are real tunes, real melodies. One of my big criticisms of Dylan's more recent albums is that he relies on generic musical forms too much - the songs sort of write themselves on the back of a blues or jazz riff or whatever (sorry if I'm not being too technically precise here and people can understand what I mean). To illustrate what I mean - I like Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat, I like Pledging My Time, (I like New Pony also) but I'm glad Blonde on Blonde isn't made up of tracks only like them.
Have YOU been Con-Demed yet?
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alan
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Posted February 18th, 2010 02:06 PM IP
Oh that is very true, there's hardly a new tune on either of the last two albums.
Agree totally about Side two of Street Legal, i think those last three all very interestingly different Dylan songs.
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