Damn, double sorry, ok then i’ll say Elton gave one of the towering cinema performances.
Listen, first off i love punk, 1st genre that made me fall in love with music, but the punks have it all wrong to hate on Dylan. Punk was an answer to the overblown production of prog rock and heavy metal bands. In addition they hated the noodling jam bands and the ideals of the sixties that we’re turned into yuppyism. For some reason Dylan was grouped into all that.He is the most punk rock fucker ever
After using the folk movement to gain fame (fuckd up or not) he said fuck you to the old lefty establishment and plugged in his guitar and ROCKD. alienated fans
In 1966 he released blonde on blonde creating the psychedelic phase of music. The next year when every one was expecting a seqeul (sic) he went COUNTRY, i repeat COUNTRY alinated fans
In the 80s he went christian rock alinating even more fans
He has the ultimate not given a fuck attitude and i love it
Minutemen-Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs—punk song that equates Dylan with the punk movement. Mike Watt knew his shit
Lydon was parked in a Queensland rainforest with several B grade celebrities for a show called ’I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’..
so much for the spokesman of his generation? in between he does Pistols reunions for the money, and Advertisements as well.
Bob continues to walk his own path regardless of the trends. One was a two minute wonder, the other a legend. As Lennon said of Elvis, he died when he went into the army…
actually MayorOfHell, Dylan did even better than that to close out the ‘60s. The unbelievably outstanding triumvirate of Bringing It All Back Home, HW61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, which progressively kept spiralling deeply into Bob’s twisted state of mind in 65-66, gave way to the Basement Tapes, recorded in 1967, followed by the other-worldly John Wesley Harding in ‘68 which has the sound of Walt Whitman, Rimbaud, and Kafka all rolled up into one weird biblical stream of conscience. JWH is still pretty psychedelic if you really dig down into the lyrics. It wasn’t until the next record Nashville Skyline, recorded in 1969, where country Bob fully appeared, with the unrecognizable crooning voice and the buttery warm sound – and the record is something like only 29 minutes long! And then, some 30 years later, he comes back with cowboy hat and bolo tie to do it all over again. Crazy old guy, but he still the greatest songwriter America has ever produced, and will be still recognized as so a hundred years from now…
How old do you have to be to be a part of the punk/post-punk generation, anyway? I guess I’m, like… right on the tail end of the Nirvana generation? Maybe I’m the Green Day 1.0 generation? Regardless, I love punk rock and would consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the genre and I’ve never known punk rockers to be particularly anti-Dylan. Anti-Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac, sure, but I’ve never come across any smashing of the Bob Dylan state.
I love Bob Dylan, but seem to be in the minority amongst Dylan fans by loving his pre-Highway 61 Revisited albums far more than the post.
The way things are sometimes cyclical, I think his first albums are more relevant now then they have been since he wrote them. Maybe there will be another folk music revival like the late 50’s and early 60’s and Bob Dylan will be like Woody Guthrie to a new generation. Perhaps a new troubadour will come out of nowhere and visit Bob on his deathbed like Dylan did with Guthrie and the torch will be passed.
What do we care what Bob Dylan thinks of Ford or any other film or filmmaker? I love the guy as the iconic 60’s rebel/poet that he was – there will never be a better one. But I couldn’t give two hoots what his favourite director, cigar, beer, or brand of aftershave is. He’s a poet and a song writer – not a film critic. We’ll just file his Ford comments onto the current John Ford thread – which is where they belong – with all the other opinions. His views aren’t any more special on this topic than anyone else.
Prudence, I like your post. John Wesley Harding is a masterpiece of understatement and inscrutable concentration. I’m fairly certain the lyric of “As I Went Out One Morning” is about heroin:
As I went out one morning
to breathe the air around Tom Paine’s,
I spied the fairest damsel
that ever did walk in chains.
I offered her my hand,
she took me by the arm.
I knew that very instant
she meant to do me harm.
“Depart from me this moment,”
I told her with my voice.
Said she, “But I don’t wish to.”
Said I, “But you have no choice.”
“I beg you sir,” she pleaded
with the corners of her mouth.
“I will secretly accept you
and together we’ll fly south . . .”
Just then, Tom Paine himself
came running from across the field,
shouting at this lovely girl
and commanding her to yield.
And as she was letting go her grip,
up Tom Paine did run.
“I’m sorry sir,” he said to me,
“I’m sorry for what she’s done.”
This is like old-time Americana gone to hell, with Paine as a symbol of dangerous liberty that cuts both ways. “Around his place” one finds the freedom to choose to get involved with a seductive drug (“in chains” — i.e., illegal) and then hopefully the free will to give it up before it takes you south. It’s unclear who says the final two lines of stanza two — it’s a sentiment coming from both the man and the drug. At that moment all they have is each other, though the man knows better. Plus, giving up one’s hand is a junk term, and being taken by the arm suggests being on the needle. It’s often underrated as a song but it’s a mini powerhouse.
from my favorite line in THE KING OF COMEDY, “who cares?!”
BTW…NO T.HANKS - nice save on the Johnny Lydon/Rotten “Initially, I was going to say it in jest…”
JWH is my favorite album and it’s def Alterna country laying the groundwork for Burrito Brosthers, eagles, Uncle Tupelo and a score of artists who play country with a tinge of rocknroll
Bob Stutsman, don’t forget that Bob has directed at least 3 movies of his own, starred in a few, has been the subject of countless others, and probably has spent more time around cameras than most mortals. He does have some knowledge and more than a few friends in the industry. Sure it’s not required that you spend some time reading what another human enjoys in motion pictures, yet many of us spend quite a bit of time doing that everyday. Dylan’s allowed an opinion if he’s asked, isn’t he?
Justin — Of course, “As I Went Out One Morning” is obscure enough to be about anything, but it’s worth remembering that Dylan’s first major public fuck-up was when he received the Tom Paine Award in 1963. President Kennedy had just been shot and — in a rather stumbling, hazy, half-assed acceptance speech — Dylan seemed to have some awkward sympathy for Lee Harvey Oswald. The audience of liberals went nuts. Dylan later apologized. To me that song has always been about the dangerous lure of fame, the way you can hunger after it, and the way it can turn on you, with the fairest damsel as a kind of siren, luring you to defeat.
http://www.de-fact-o.com/fact_read.php?id=34
Prudence: Read my last sentence: “His views aren’t any more special on this topic than anyone else." I stand by that. The man’s a genius, but I don’t like it when everyone assumes any celebrity’s opinions on anything and everything are valid. Yes, I am aware of Bob’s film background. I have no idea what other films he has seen or what his opinion is on various film movements or cinema in general. I am not denying him an opinion, but I am just saying that his being the great songwriter/poet that he is doesn’t mean he is also an authority on every other subject, more than any other celebrity talking about a medium outside of their own area. I am not in awe of celebrity status, even of such an exalted figure as Dylan’s. I take all his statements on film at face value, and not as sacrosanct words from the oracle.
Okay, I’m willing to say the song works on other levels as well, but why does she walk in chains, and why does accepting her equate, seemingly, with literal death? It’s really not obscure at all — it’s Dylan at maybe his most honest. Tom Paine may be camouflage to get Dylanphiles to look in a (wrong) direction. But he’s also a symbol of liberty, the freedom to choose, which cuts across the dynamic of addiction and recovery. We choose drugs because they represent a kind of freedom; then we become enslaved to them, and find freedom in either death or recovery. And this pendulum swings back and forth all through the lives of drug users.
Dylan’s never been particularly willing to talk about his drug use. He was changing at warp speed all through the 1960s. The stakes were much higher in 1968 for Bob, he was kicking hard drugs, he had broken up with Edie, he had nearly died in a motorcycle crash, he withdrew from releasing records and performing for a year. He was being literally nursed back to health by the Band at Big Pink in upstate New York. I think those matters have much more to do with the compressed, monastic, redemptive aspect of most of the songs on John Wesley Harding than the 1963 or even the 1964 or 1966 public “debacles.” I doubt he was trying to apologize to anyone in this song — it’s too chilly and despairing.
Thanks Bob, I was thinking the same thing. Well-said.
Im not obsessed w/ Dylan cuz he’s a celebrity but because he’s a great artist. I think it’s interesting to hear things he has to say about certain subjects. Like for example he hates Warhol too. I’m with em on that.
FYI, Folk is the new punk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtPqWoNLyBE&feature=PlayList&p=D372FE44C20DF400&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6
Just a thought…..now step outside and smoke
“Irony has now become the neo-conservatism or implicit philosophical condition of intellectual/aesthetic elites. Witness the knee-jerk responses to artists, film-makers, musicians and other creators who attempt work of drama, emotional weight, angst, joy, or any other experiences outside the realm of the emotionally stunted and intellectually safe zones of the ironic codes. Cries of “sentimental” or “corny” or “romantic” are jettisoned in much the same cowardly and knee-jerk manner that the Republican Party has managed to demonize the term “liberal” and turn it into a dirty word for its own evil perversion of a word rooted in the idea of freedom. Today’s artists, young art students in particular, are simply incapable of expressing or countenancing the human experience, art or otherwise, without some sort of self-referential or self-reflexive pause: to investigate the possible ironic or humorous angle. In other words, all experience is subsumed to its attributed semiotic surroundings, which are, by nature, for the cynical ironist, always meta-narratives filled with either “overly-romantic” sentiments or are simply dismissed as “out of date”, “passé”, or “uncool”. The cynical ironist is nothing, if not, cool.
Andy Warhol has won."
http://www.directionalforces.net/tuymans2.html
“I like that period of time in American films. I think America has produced the greatest films ever. No other country has ever come close.”
Japan, France? Not even close? Have you really thought this through, Bob?
And this jingoistic notion that simply because foreign films haven’t inspired Americans they aren’t inspirational, which is effectively what he said, is risible . Hard to say if he believes it or is having a good time jerking around Rolling Stone.
Give me Neil Young over Bob Dylan any day.
Using a vocoder in order to please your son with cerebral palsy is not only an awesome thing to do, but it demonstrates that he gives far less of a fuck what people think of his career than Dylan ever will.
Dylan is just sitting there swimming in his millions. Neil Young is still out there doing shit, embracing the new, remaining relevant, etc.
I just chose The Searchers as the one film I would leave planet earth with – so I found BD’s choice interesting.
I think he is saying something important in his choice, which I excerpted above from this article: “DirectionalForces”:http://www.directionalforces.net/tuymans2.html
Anyone bashing Ford doesn’t know his films. The allegory in The Searchers is about redemptive violence…… just like who?…. who else has that in his films?
At the end of the film, Ford is saying redemptive violence is wrong. That is a progressive message, unlike who? Gosh, who could I be thinking of? Someone really cool…..
Bob Stutsman: “His views aren’t any more special on this topic than anyone else.”
He’s an artist – that’s why his views matter more than any non-artist.
The number of films he has seen? Huh?
He creates stuff rather than having it fed to him.
Honestly, QT has everyone thinking that if they watch enough films they are… ever hear of the mirror neuron? Get over it – watching lots of films qualifies you as a consumer, nothing more, but I guess in a consumerist society that is something special.
////….creating the psychedelic phase of music.\\\
Maybe you meant:
creating his psychedelic phase of music.
He didn’t create psychedelic music or any phase of it.
In 1966 he released blonde on blonde creating the psychedelic phase of music. The next year when every one was expecting a seqeul (sic) he went COUNTRY, i repeat COUNTRY alinated fans
It’s not entirely accurate to suggest that Dylan suddenly “went country” with John Wesley Harding. The “country” influence had actually been in Dylan’s music all along, and he had already begun recording with Nashville session players (Chalie McCoy) during the Highway 61 Revisited sessions, and was actually recording tracks for Blonde on Blonde in Nashville starting in February 1966 after the NY sessions with the Hawks didn’t pan out. He later remarked that these sessions were “the closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind.”
As for the Ford testimonial, whatever you may think of Dylan’s work or of Ford’s, it’s not at all surprising given that Dylan’s always been obsessed with American folk culture. The two artist’s work draws from the same well.
@ BoloTie:
This isn’t to debate the merits of Dylan over Young. They’re both storied musicians and either or is fine by me.
I just wanted to state that Dylan isn’t sitting on his laurels though. He’s still doing what he’s always done. He just recently released Together Through Life and Modern Times before that. And they are both solid albums. It’s not a fair assessment to say he’s sitting on his millions.
What he meant was Dylan is not sharing his personal life with everyone, which Dylan should be lauded for, not criticized.
I agree with Jung Ji Sung. Young is one of the very few American artists that perhaps can be spoken of in the same breath as Dylan, but, one wonders how different Young’s career might be without the template Dylan established. As to Dylan’s recent work, he didn’t disappear—after a prolonged slump from the late 70s to the early 90s, starting with World Gone Wrong in 1993, Dylan returned to a more purely pre-rock music idiom (blues, R&B, folk, etc.).
I’ll take em both by needle injection into my jugular…even though my heart will burst out of my chest.
Funny how everyone forgets Neil Young is from Canada, I do it myself.
I’m seeing him in October!!! I’m so excited!
I took my two-year olds to see him last month, Drew, at the local minor league baseball stadium (along with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp).
This discussion needs more of Dylan’s finest album, Blood on the Tracks.
As for Bob’s comments: it’s understandable for someone to have pride in their country’s output, especially when the output has been of considerable quality. John Ford is one I don’t agree with, but I can definitely see the appeal for Dylan.
And somehow, this thread has yet another quote from Jean-Luc Godard. I’m convinced this is a running joke and that no one actually places value in what that man has to say to this extent.
Kenji