Entertainment For Lively Minds
It's Bob O'Clock
Firstly, a nod to the Editorial Director from whom I pinched the title.
I was talking to my 19-year-old nephew at a party on Saturday night and he asked me to 'convince' him about Bob Dylan. He explained that he'd heard both Dylan's and 'that group's' versions of Mr Tambourine Man, and preferred the one by the group. You're not daft, I said.
Anyway, he's asked me to compile a Bob Dylan CD which will somehow cause the scales (and sleep, no doubt) to fall from his eyes. He plays guitar, sings and writes. He's pretty good, I think, and he knows his way around a lyric and a scale. Recently he has supported Neville Staples of The Specials, and Jim Bob from Carter USM (informed reports from the latter gig suggest that the billing should perhaps have been reversed).
A dozen tracks should do it.
Any suggestions? Apart from buying him any volume of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, of course.
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Blind Willie McTell
I think that should be on there.
EDIT : were you wanting one track nominated or were you wanting us to list our 12 most convincing Bob tracks ?
EDIT : a selection now below
Depends on what the brief is
If it's to get him to like Dylan quickly, it'd be one set of songs (your Lay Lady Lays and Just Like A Womans, etc.), but if it's a slow-burn project to turn him into a card-carrying Bobophile, then another set completely (your Positively Fourth Streets and Love Minus Zeroes, etc.).
I would refuse on principle
Putting together a "convince me" representation of ANYTHING is doomed. Music doesn't work like that. He's got lots of time to discover Bob Dylan and lots of other things.
And that's
the right answer.
Besides, a 19-year old who "writes and plays guitar" and hasn't made his mind about Dylan, sounds like a tosser to me. Presuming he doesn't play hard techno, grime or jazz rock on his guitar.
Steady!
It's the guys nephew your talking about here!
A wise man once said
"Bob will always be there when you're ready to come to him"
Of course, the same could be said about The Dooleys but, y'know... it's BOB
A wise man once agreed
That´s what happened to me, I was suddenly ready. I was 19 and watching BBC´s Dancing In The Street while doing my army duty. I´d had a best of on cassette for five or so years, given to me by a kind father of a friend. I sort of enjoyed it, but didn´t get what all the fuzz was about. Watching Dancing In The Street, though, all of a sudden he was there with big hair and that piano intro to Ballad Of A Thin Man. I had a ah-now-I-get-it-moment.
Sorry, what was the question?
Oh Mr Hepworth...
...stop being so studiously world-weary for once and answer the man's question!
I'm not being studiously world-weary
It's nothing to do with Bob Dylan either. It would be the same with Keats or Charlie Parker or George Formby.
Generally speaking, when people say "convince me", what they usually mean is "you'll never convince me".
It's music, not mathematics or the Origin Of Species. It's not amenable to reason. It interacts with your emotional state. If your emotional state is "I don't like this" then nothing in the world is going to make any difference.
Look. I don't like The Smiths. I like three of their songs and beyond that it's all just tiresome, tuneless whingeing. The notion that my mind is going to be changed by a really clever compilation is nonsense. But I don't have to like The Smiths any more than he has to like Bob Dylan. It really doesn't matter.
Tell you what. Just play him any old Dylan filler. "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue" or "Only A Pawn In The Game", say. Then when he comes back and says "I don't see what the fuss is about", say "Do you know? You're right."
That'll nag away at him.
Like Someone Once Said On The Podcast...
...about some subject on these pages, "lighten up, people."
Seriously Dave, I posted the original thing as a bit of fun and out of genuine interest in what the good people on here might choose, compare and contrast. We'd had a few at a birthday party and he brought the subject up. I didn't speak for Dylan, much as I like him, figuring that he's done OK for himself without my help so far and Will has every right not to be interested. However, I think he brought it up because he IS interested. Maybe the prospect of 40-odd albums is a bit daunting, or maybe the only one he's heard all the way through is Dylan And The Dead. But if he wants a free CD I'm happy to do him one and I hope he enjoys it, but if he doesn't I wouldn't dream of telling him he's wrong.
And anyone who can step out alone in front of lagered-up crowd of Specials fans who are looking forward to going nuts to Monkey Man, with just his guitar in one hand and his bollocks in the other has got my respect and deserves a present, wouldn't you say?
Frankly, Mr Shankly
Personally, if someone asks me to recommend them some Dylan, I'd try to recommend them some Dylan. If I started giving them a lecture on the sheer bloody futility of it all, they'd probably call me a pompous git, and not without reason.
It's not an unreasonable request. You may hate the Smiths (we'd pretty much figured that out a while back, by the way) but if someone said they would do me a compilation of a band I really loathed and couldn't see any point to, whatever - say, Pink Floyd - I'd think it worth my while to listen, just so i could decide whether it had any artistic merit. I'd do it to be polite anyway.
And by the way, John Keats - try "Ode To A Nightingale", "Bright Star", and "To Autumn" - not a bad poet, but he'll never be as good as Bob Dylan.
Now that didn't hurt, did it?
Quite agree...
...Dave, but the 'convince me' line was more the result of the lateness of the hour and the sea of empty glasses than a poor lad asking me for an education which I'm neither qualified (is anyone?) nor keen to give. So it's just a bit of fun, really.
The little bugger also asked me to replace The Beatles compilation I'd done for him a while ago as he'd 'lost it'. I never lost a Beatles record in my life, maybe because I had to save up and buy them. Kids, eh?
EDIT: Whatever you'd like to contribute elhombre is fine. At least by me.
EDIT #2 : "Quite Agree..." was in reply to D Hepworth's initial post.
EDIT #3 : Somewhat ironically, I thought that going down this avenue might save me a load of hard graft at the CD burner...
Following on from David H's comment
Why not just give him one album - the sum of which is greater than its parts, is unified as a moment in time, contains the classic elements of poetry which typify eloquent Dylan, is perhaps more accessible than many, but is also an undeniable classic.
My suggestion for this would be Blood On the Tracks. It was the first one I got into and it led me down the long and winding road which is devotion to all things Bob. .... Trust me it can't fail!
or perhaps one with a more accessible sound
such as Street-Legal? It's not the most Dylanesque of his albums but might be more approachable for a youngster.
I think you need
to have been stung by love's arrow at least once to really appreciate the emotional weight of BOTT.
Thanks grac...
...thanks.
I'd say that
Steerpike is right in that one album is the best way to go, and 'Blood On The Tracks' is probably the best choice.
If you do want an introductory compilation I would shy away from a 60s-heavy greatest hits set. Some of the very early material in terms of voice and production is going to sound very dated to a 19 year old. I personally can't bring myself to listen to much pre-1965. Nailing my colours to the mast, and it's entirely subjective of course, I've given people this playlist as an introduction in the past and then let them work out what era they want to jump into first ...
Hurricane
Odds and Ends
Slow Train Coming
Blind Willie McTell
Positively 4th Street
Changing of The Guard
Tangled Up In Blue
Shelter From The Storm
Most Likely You'll Go Your Way
Maggie's Farm (live version from 'Hard Rain')
Don't Think Twice
Most of The Time
Where Are You Tonight?
Pretty much ...
... what I thought but didn't have the time tio write. I'd choose Highway 61 if puching a single album, 60s or not, but the list is a pretty good selection to give someone who thinks of Bob as the guy with the acoustic guitar and wheezing harmonica.
I do agree
with Mr H on the subject of "convince me", and I too need some considerable convincing to listen to back-to-back Bob, though the best is very good.
My 19-year-old daughter has developed a very catholic taste in music, and introduced me to several things herself - though she is lucky enough to have spent her teenage years in a house with a music writer's collection to hand (not mine!).
We tend to play each other's music in the car, so it's not a question of listening with rapt attention, just asking what's what if something takes the fancy, and changing to something else if there's a violent reaction either way. Areas of overlap are sometimes surprising (she was taken by some Steely Dan a while back...).
Seed the replacement Beatles compilation with the odd Dylan track and some other stuff, depending on whether it's playlist or a physical format, or ask him for some kind of "convince me" compilation in return to highlight the difficulty? Or go for a drive together.
Nowt wrong with a selection to entice him in
It's easy and if wide ranging enough is a taster for the home turf from whence it came.
Here's 13, illustrating more the soppy romantic than the embittered misogynist, but a wee bit, inevitably, creeps in. Let's give the young guy some hope!
I Want You
Tangled Up In Blue
If You See Her, Say Hello
Forever Young
Dignity
Pretty Boy Floyd
Ring Them Bells
Sara
Trying To Get To Heaven
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Positively 4th Street
Like A Rolling Stone.
(But why not give him a best of the covers, too?)
off the top of my head
Blind Willie McTell
You Gotta Serve Somebody
Highway 61
Tangled Up In Blue
Don't Think Twice
Forever Young
Like A Rolling Stone
Most Of The Time
Things Have Changed
Absolutely Sweet Marie
I Shall Be Released (from Before The Flood)
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
Changing Of The Guard
Subterranean Homesick Blues
This lot would still fit on a CD, but I don't have time to re-listen to them all, fine-tune the sequence, drop 2 and add 1 so I'll offer this up : if none of these pique his interest, then maybe he can park the CD and come back to it in a while.
Just tell him that
Bob will get him through times of no dope better than dope will get him through times of no Bob.
Why not do what you say not to
and buy him the 'Greatest Hits.' Since these are his most popular songs they're pretty likely to chime with a newcomer.
As Danny Baker once said...
..."Greatest Hits? I'll be the judge of that, thank you..."
Hmmm...
Surely 'Greatest Hits' is quantifiable as those tracks that rose highest in the singles charts and/or sold the most?
'Best Of' on the other hand... I'll be the judge of THAT, thank you :-)
And you'd be right, Stimpy...
...apologies.
what I would do is this
Play him "All Along the Watchtower" by Hendrix and "Mama you've been on my mind" by Rod Stewart. That way if never tunes into Dylan - he'll have discovered two other great artists. Especially, Rod who - given your nephew's age - will have been assumed a clown.
Those two were my way into Dylan. That and "Knocking on Heaven's Door" which is accessible and he could cover in one of his shows to get the crowd on-side.
Then I would show him "The Last Waltz" footage of "I Shall be Released" which will show him how Dylan is revered by other greats - and again may have the parallel benefit of introducing him to those self-same greats.
Finally, I'd play him D.A Pennebaker's film clip to accompany to accompany "Subterranean Homesick Blues" - which is still the best music "video" ever made and will show a cool kid of today what made Dylan a cool kid - back in the day.
I would add
The Byrds' and Ferry's various Dylan covers.
The recent Don't Look Back DVD re-issue
came with a flicky-book of the SHB film, how neat is that? :-)
Compilation Tapes
We will have all done countless compilation tapes for friends and loved ones I'm sure. And the inescapable conclusion from all the tapes I've either done or received is that it is a lot more fun being the compiler than the recipient. The only song that I can remember hearing from a tape compiled by a friend that led me to that artist's catalogue was Tenessee Plates by John Hiatt. Never heard him before and from that song I found the Slow Turning and Bring The Family albums - wonderfull stuff.
If you are going to compile a CD for the chap then I suggest you satisfy yourself. Take one song off each studio album in chronolgical order until you run out of space.
He may like it; he probably wont. But you will pass a pleasant evenings putting it together for him.
And what's wrong...
..with jazz-rock anyway?!? As their biographer daringly, but I believe truthfully, put it as a subtitle to his biog, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, at the very least, were 'the greatest group that ever was'. And Jeff Beck is nothing if not jazz-rock. Lyrics? Who needs 'em...
Get Greatest Hits 3
You know, it's just that people like this... you know... they get all they want so they really don't understand, you know... about a life like Bob's. I mean, when you've loved and lost the way Bob has, then you, uh, you know what life's about
Thanks to all...
...who made useful suggestions.
As for the rest of you....
Go mid 70s for surefire winner
Blood On The Tracks
Desire
Hard Rain
Either, all or a mix of tracks from the three should be just the recipe.