Entertainment For Lively Minds
Something is happening here and you don't know what it is
Posted by David Hepworth on 13 July 2009 - 9:57pm.
OK, which no mark hack greeted the release of "Highway 61 Revisited" in November 1965 with these words?
"Dylan's cawing, derisive voice is probably well suited to his material - I say probably because much of it was unintelligible to me - and his guitar adapts itself to rock and ballad admirably. There is a marathon "Desolation Row" which has an enchanting tune and mysterious, possibly half-baked words."
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Gary Bushell?
You just made me...
snort.
I don't know, but
I thought it made perfect sense. Like the contemporary Beatles reviews, it doesn't carry the weight of history, and could be said to be a more objective viewpoint (maybe?). Or at least a more honest one...
Anyway, Donovan was more fun.
All What Jazz ?
He was better on jazz, Mr Larkin.
I don't agree
He was right on the money. Those words are half-baked, as are all Bob Dylan's. Half of it means something, the other half is there to get you to the end of the verse. That's the nature of popular songwriting. And who knew better than Philip Larkin?
They fuck you up, your stash of amphetamines...
they may not mean to but they do.
You are probably right
I re-read some of his jazz criticism recently and it was pretty spot on.
Maybe my response was half-baked. (ooh, meta-textual!)
I like that quote.
Knowing that its Larkin makes it better.
Word people, can you persuade Seamus Heaney into writing about popular culture like this? Too late to get him on Eminem maybe, but I love Heaney and I'd love to see him in your mag...
Larkin understood....
...
'What calls me is that lifted, rough-tongued bell
(Art, if you like) whose individual sound
Insists I too am individual.'
Substitute the trumpet for your instrument/musical genre of choice.
Larkin on Sidney Bechet...
"On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes"
Possibly the most generous line in his work, and one that signals how much popular music meant to him. Whenever I see that quote DH used above, what I'm most amazed by is not the "cawing, derisive" bit, but the "enchanting". It took the likes of Coltrane to truly raise his ire.
If you imagine
Murray Walker trying to sing with an American accent, I bet it would sound like Bob Dylan. Just a bit squeakier. Go on, I bet you're doing it right now..
"Desolation Row"..
..the words are enchanting and the tune is half-baked.
..but then, I'm not Phillip Larkin (now where are the keys to the library?)
They're
spoonfeeding casanova to get him to feel more assured,
then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words