Modern Times
I hardly ever recommend movies or music to people. Movies. If I like a movie I get so excited about it that the person I talk to about said movie either is disappointed or just plain annoyed by my enthusiasm.
Music. I’m a terrible fan of music. That may go too far. I don’t seek it out that hard and I don’t carry the torch for too many records…insisting that you can’t call yourself a music fan if you haven’t heard blah blah (or Iggy Pop’s Blah Blah Blah for that matter). I’m more like the Scottie Pippen of music fans. Everything is ok when I just sit back and let it (good music) come to me. Fortunately I know a lot of Michael Jordans.
Maybe that’s the thing with me, I’ve got good taste in friends.
Stating my limits as a judge of good records is not false modesty but honest honesty. I don’t hate much and I know I’ve liked too many records for all the wrong reasons. I’ve thrown myself into the record making process a few times in my life (unnecessarily…but that’s what you do when you’re in love) and I’ve lost some perspective on records, songwriting and what they’re supposed to be.
These things are so mish-mashed in w/ what I am, to talk about such stuff (for me) is like saying ‘Boy that pancreas sure secretes the proper amount of juices and helps regulate the things it's supposed to’
I’m sure I sound like a pompous ass…but critiquing someone’s songs (in a way) is like me saying something good or bad about their limbic system.
The point is not to be pompous (even though that’s how I sound) but rather to say that if I’ve accomplished anything as a music fan, I’ve started putting things in order and enjoying stuff in the best light – part of living not the sole reason for it.
This week is something of a holiday for me. The new Bob Dylan record is out. I’m having a blast listening to the record and ignoring the print. What could they possibly say?
By the way, this is not to say I think music critics serve no purpose. Critics good bad and otherwise (I’m critiquing the critics now?...Now that’s absurd)…but these folks have turned me on to some great music and at least given me some shit to talk about with my friends who know more about these things than I do.
Back to Bob Dylan. His last record (Love and Theft) has become one of my all time favs by the new, old Paw Rugg. This one is like Love and Theft Part II (or maybe it’s not, I dunno) but I’m starting to enjoy it for all the same reasons. I don’t care to celebrate how far Dylan fell in the 80’s and part of the 90’s...how far he's risen from the crap ashes
I LIKED WIGGLE WIGGLE!
…and Brownsville Girl...like Sam Shepard, I’d see anything with Gregory Peck in it.
When I was a kid, Cousin Mike gave me a copy of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. I remember listening to it in my bedroom and saying to no one in particular: “Oh, you can write a song about anything you want. It doesn’t even have to make sense. Cool.”
The rest of course is less than history.
My love of words comes from Bob Dylan.
Lyrics
Prose
Poetry
Grocery Lists
Arranging words on the
page
Yeah it’s that kind of party and time that we all stick our collective dicks in the mashed potatoes.
In some of the print on Modern Times that I didn’t ignore, Dylan said that he feels like he is in his middle years right now. I don’t know about that. It sure takes balls for Captain Heart Fungus to talk that way…but c’mon that’s part of what we should love about Dylan (see, I’m talking like one of those pricks now)….
He’s got balls the size of Tennessee. Everyone loves an old coot with balls. I’m sure near the end he’s gonna be all Walter Brennan, holding his new record next to a campfire with a rusty coffee pot by his side saying: “If you don’t like it, make it yer own damn seff!”
Dylan’s stuff makes me laugh, cry, angry, self-confident and riddled with doubt and guilt. I’ve felt like the insignificant center of a universe full of meaning in a collection of lines and images (some that guy just pulled out of his talented ass)
And the minute I get so wrapped up in the music that I think I want to follow the guy who invented garbalogy and steal BD’s dogshit…I’m reminded of the good sense of an interview with Dylan that I was lucky enough to pay attention to…
“I’m just a song and dance man.”
Or to quote Steve Martin: “I’m just trying to make the rent…for the next 25 years.”
But in this world that Bob Dylan’s created…half real life, half show biz there have always been wonderful things to hear, remember and even pass on…
“The skeletons play their harmonica keys in the rain” – I mean, what the blip does that mean? I dunno, but it sure is a cool thing to say.
“You can always come back but you can't come back all the way”
“And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coals
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you”
“The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken!”
I look at my five year old, think of…
“May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift”
I start to cry like a five year old.
…and I know there will be a dark moment in my life (hopefully not near the end) when I will remember the words:
We live and we die
We know not…why
But I’ll be with you when the deal goes down
God bless you Bob Dylan. Your music helps me to see what is possible and what is realistic. Keep up the good work and try not to croak for awhile if you can help it.
I could go on but it’s late and I’ve already listened to Modern Times 3x’s today. Like Bob Dylan, I’m getting older and I need my rest. There’s fun to be had this weekend and I’m gonna have it if I can overcome the Sick of Moltar. Maybe that’s the only sort of recommendation I can give re: this or any record. No need to overdue it. Art is best if ingested in the context of life and life has to come first. If you live your life you can enjoy good stuff and not get everything inverted…placing too much stock in the words of showbiz wingnuts trying to make the rent for the next 25 years.
Everything in its right place.
I think Thome Yorke said that.
Music. I’m a terrible fan of music. That may go too far. I don’t seek it out that hard and I don’t carry the torch for too many records…insisting that you can’t call yourself a music fan if you haven’t heard blah blah (or Iggy Pop’s Blah Blah Blah for that matter). I’m more like the Scottie Pippen of music fans. Everything is ok when I just sit back and let it (good music) come to me. Fortunately I know a lot of Michael Jordans.
Maybe that’s the thing with me, I’ve got good taste in friends.
Stating my limits as a judge of good records is not false modesty but honest honesty. I don’t hate much and I know I’ve liked too many records for all the wrong reasons. I’ve thrown myself into the record making process a few times in my life (unnecessarily…but that’s what you do when you’re in love) and I’ve lost some perspective on records, songwriting and what they’re supposed to be.
These things are so mish-mashed in w/ what I am, to talk about such stuff (for me) is like saying ‘Boy that pancreas sure secretes the proper amount of juices and helps regulate the things it's supposed to’
I’m sure I sound like a pompous ass…but critiquing someone’s songs (in a way) is like me saying something good or bad about their limbic system.
The point is not to be pompous (even though that’s how I sound) but rather to say that if I’ve accomplished anything as a music fan, I’ve started putting things in order and enjoying stuff in the best light – part of living not the sole reason for it.
This week is something of a holiday for me. The new Bob Dylan record is out. I’m having a blast listening to the record and ignoring the print. What could they possibly say?
By the way, this is not to say I think music critics serve no purpose. Critics good bad and otherwise (I’m critiquing the critics now?...Now that’s absurd)…but these folks have turned me on to some great music and at least given me some shit to talk about with my friends who know more about these things than I do.
Back to Bob Dylan. His last record (Love and Theft) has become one of my all time favs by the new, old Paw Rugg. This one is like Love and Theft Part II (or maybe it’s not, I dunno) but I’m starting to enjoy it for all the same reasons. I don’t care to celebrate how far Dylan fell in the 80’s and part of the 90’s...how far he's risen from the crap ashes
I LIKED WIGGLE WIGGLE!
…and Brownsville Girl...like Sam Shepard, I’d see anything with Gregory Peck in it.
When I was a kid, Cousin Mike gave me a copy of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. I remember listening to it in my bedroom and saying to no one in particular: “Oh, you can write a song about anything you want. It doesn’t even have to make sense. Cool.”
The rest of course is less than history.
My love of words comes from Bob Dylan.
Lyrics
Prose
Poetry
Grocery Lists
Arranging words on the
page
Yeah it’s that kind of party and time that we all stick our collective dicks in the mashed potatoes.
In some of the print on Modern Times that I didn’t ignore, Dylan said that he feels like he is in his middle years right now. I don’t know about that. It sure takes balls for Captain Heart Fungus to talk that way…but c’mon that’s part of what we should love about Dylan (see, I’m talking like one of those pricks now)….
He’s got balls the size of Tennessee. Everyone loves an old coot with balls. I’m sure near the end he’s gonna be all Walter Brennan, holding his new record next to a campfire with a rusty coffee pot by his side saying: “If you don’t like it, make it yer own damn seff!”
Dylan’s stuff makes me laugh, cry, angry, self-confident and riddled with doubt and guilt. I’ve felt like the insignificant center of a universe full of meaning in a collection of lines and images (some that guy just pulled out of his talented ass)
And the minute I get so wrapped up in the music that I think I want to follow the guy who invented garbalogy and steal BD’s dogshit…I’m reminded of the good sense of an interview with Dylan that I was lucky enough to pay attention to…
“I’m just a song and dance man.”
Or to quote Steve Martin: “I’m just trying to make the rent…for the next 25 years.”
But in this world that Bob Dylan’s created…half real life, half show biz there have always been wonderful things to hear, remember and even pass on…
“The skeletons play their harmonica keys in the rain” – I mean, what the blip does that mean? I dunno, but it sure is a cool thing to say.
“You can always come back but you can't come back all the way”
“And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coals
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you”
“The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken!”
I look at my five year old, think of…
“May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift”
I start to cry like a five year old.
…and I know there will be a dark moment in my life (hopefully not near the end) when I will remember the words:
We live and we die
We know not…why
But I’ll be with you when the deal goes down
God bless you Bob Dylan. Your music helps me to see what is possible and what is realistic. Keep up the good work and try not to croak for awhile if you can help it.
I could go on but it’s late and I’ve already listened to Modern Times 3x’s today. Like Bob Dylan, I’m getting older and I need my rest. There’s fun to be had this weekend and I’m gonna have it if I can overcome the Sick of Moltar. Maybe that’s the only sort of recommendation I can give re: this or any record. No need to overdue it. Art is best if ingested in the context of life and life has to come first. If you live your life you can enjoy good stuff and not get everything inverted…placing too much stock in the words of showbiz wingnuts trying to make the rent for the next 25 years.
Everything in its right place.
I think Thome Yorke said that.
posted by edP | 9:41 PM
9 Comments:
God bless you Bob Dylan indeed .. I'm planning to buy Modern Times today, and probably listen to it at least once a day for the next weeks or so, probably finding some new lyrical treasure with each listen .. great review, by the way
Thanks reel fanatic. By the way, Spinal Tap changed me too...
Good luck to both of us.
Who's Thome Yorke? Well written, honey. Thanks for loving Bob Dylan!
The Radiohead guy...it's a song from Kid A (I think)
I heard on the radio a while back that Dylan had very little in common with the people who annointed him the "voice of a generation." He didn't identify with the peace and love crowd and didn't really have a political agenda. He just wrote songs because it was his job. I thought that was fascinating.
You couldn't be more on top of things olekobe...Dylan rejected that peace and love shit from the get go...even the protest stuff - he was never Pete Seger or Joan Baez or any of those idiots...they were politicians...he was just a talented writer that could capture the spirit of the times without being trapped by them (the times)
It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) captures what Dylan was...every generation (stupid or otherwise) can stand up and cheer the line "Even the president of the United States must some time have to stand naked"
Dylan could've named Lyndon Johnson or Nixon - but he was too shrewd for that
Dylans worth a hundred Phil Ochs, Joan Baezesssszzzes, Pete Segers etc...because the world has plenty of politicians - it can always use more talent.
By the way Cuz, I've always said the floating Basement was the voice of a generation...a very stupid generation that deserved what it got.
All that pent-up rage the previous generation couldn't suppress.
In his "Chronicles," he says he was a Goldwater fan, but kept quiet about it.
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