is Donovan really this much of a tw*t?

Honestly, this Dylan-is-the-true-twat-here! kinda thing is just reflexive contrarianism.

Which is fun and all, I know, but it leads to ghastly statements like these:

Does a Dylan song ever make anyone smile? Is he ever funny?

Someone else came up with the examples. But I do recommend that you try actually listening to Bob Dylan records someday, some are quite good.

And why tell your readers that Donovan has less influence than Dylan on young songwriters when influential characters like Devendra Banhart are citing Donovan and not Dylan in their interviews?

So -- by the "influence as measured by namechecks in interviews" standard, we have, in the Donovan corner, neo-freak-folkie Devendra Banhart.

Brooooce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Paul Westerberg, John fucking Lennon, Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Johnny Cash, and just about everyone else who ever picked up a guitar post-1964 to thread please.

Dylan was a speed-addled asshole in the Don't Look Back period, but to go from there to "Donovan is more influential" is just fucking madness.

I think the point, for me at least, is that ok, Dylan is obviously the greater songwriter and contributed more to music and on the whole I will have logged ten times as many hours listening to Dylan as Donovan in my life.

But that doesn't diminish Donovan, who was a really great songwriter and musician in his own right, and whose best work actually sounds nothing like Dylan and often does a fantastic job of gently mocking psychadelia while reveling in its excess. Yeah, Dylan is greater. I just hate the cliche that sad, weighty songs are "important" and pleasant, sweet songs are "fluff," and that Donovan sounded exactly like Dylan, except when he didn't, and then he wasn't any good anyway because he was too "light."

But hey, Donovan's a nice guy though.

I like hime better than Dylan bcz of Season of the Witch (and multifarious cover versions) and Get Thy Bearings. I'm not saying he's more important, but I am saying I listen to him and I don't Dylan.

He would, being British. Dude also hated Springsteen, apparently. No accounting for taste, etc.

"Season of the Witch" is a great song, though, and has been covered excellently. I also have a soft spot for "Atlantis" 'cause of Goodfellas.

Donovan plays him the saccharine To Sing for You

as:

Donovan plays him the Saccharine Trust.

that would have been more interesting.

yes. dylan's not humorless but a lot of his "followers" are.

people are definitely better looking today

TS: Hurdy Gurdy Man vs. Tambourine Man

It's irrelevant in terms of the two's quality, but not in terms of their legacy, of which I think Donovan has fairly little.

So I will.

And I like Donovan's music. A "Best Of" suffices, though.

haven't heard "honest with me," have you?

anyways, anybody who could come up with "first there is a mountain" needs no one to defend him

otm.

Although I will allow I had a thought about Dylan this past week when I heard him in a CD shop - "why do so many people seem to hate Dylan? I mean he's not my preferred thing to listen to, but the hate is hard to understand"

Giles Hattersley, eh? Any relation? Should we blame the parents, or instead blame the sham media meritocracy which continues to ensure that you can only earn a living as a broadsheet writer if you had the correct parents?

I can see them. We're both rather soft-spoken Scots with a line in whimsy and a certain kind of Aquarian starry-eyed quality, as well as a tendency to mock same. I sat in a hotel lobby in Paris with Donovan in April. It was just the two of us, and I was tempted to tell him "My records are often compared with yours!", but I thought it would have been a bit twattish, and I didn't want to disturb him as he read "Uriel's History: Uncovering the Secrets of Stonehenge, Noah's Flood and the Dawn of Civilization".

Hey, guess what Giles, these days people from Donovan's background still don't have "gap years"

----I am so sick of reading about the Don't look back scene. Donovan requested he play It's all Over now Baby Blue. The thick headed Dylan fans will never see this because they don't want to see it. Donovan hands him the guitar and says "I want to hear It's all over now Baby Blue." Then Dylan asks, "You wanna hear that." and he asks what tuning his guitar is in. Donovan tells him its in a D tuning. People really need to watch this movie more closely. Donovan wasn't embarrassed at the song he friggan requested, how could he be? Enough ranting.

You shouldn't be laughing, you should have been in awe that the greatest singer songwriter was performing right in front of your eyes. You should have been praising him, and by the way, Beat Cafe is an amazing album. Better then anything the old 60's artist are doing these days, including Dylan's recent album and McCartney's.

Don't put artists up on pedestals, they are ordinary people not gods. OK Donovan comes across as a bumptious twat sometimes, Dylan as a sneering clown, Lennon as a nasty piece of work ........ and so it goes on. Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were pretty wild when they were at their prime too.
You just have to consider their work, and either it appeals to you as an individual or it doesn't. Personally I think that Donovan's best work is of real value, I find his lyrics as close to real poetry as anyone in the realm of rock/pop has ever come and I love his voice. A fair guitar player too in my book.
This opinion does not disqualify me from similar feelings for loads of other artists nor does it blind me to the fact that Donovan's canon does inclue some lesser works. I don't think there is an artist born who has been consistently brilliant. I was just happy that Don came back with two pretty good albums.

Seems like the "Burrows" thing was down to the doubtless thrusting Thatcherkid STimes writer TOO BUSY to check the spelling of authors' names.

Either that or Donovan possesses the autobiography of top sixties/seventies session singer Tony Burrows (and anyway, isn't it "Burrowes"?).

Donovan plays him the saccharine To Sing for You, with which Dylan appears visibly unimpressed. After a pause, Dylan plays his formidable It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue and viewers experience the deep embarrassment of watching a lesser talent crushed.

Ah, received knowledge. It got so accepted that this was what happened. Funnily enough, I watched "DLB" not that long ago, and was surprised to hear Donovan actually request Bob to sing "Baby Blue". The only problem was, this fairly intimate scene got broadcast to millions, and earned an undertone that wasn't there at the time.

Since when did they cut and paste Feargal Sharkey into LANDMARK (or at least the Bed Shed) DYLAN FILM?

He's right. Anyone who says the 60s were great is right.

You were there were you?

fake Geir?

You were there were you?

I don't need to have been there to acknowledge that 60s music, along with 70s music and music from the first half of the 80s, was great.

james brown was in the 60s. therefore great. i am right.

he's right!

If only he left

I thought I heard something about this.. Was this the Mountain Goat band or something like that??

J0hn Darn1elle to thread.

-- A|ex P@reene (Pareene), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 18:32 (2 years ago) Link

people who get me drunk enough often get to hear this story, which involves Donovan turning up at a show and having his manager demand that he sit in and throwing an absolute shitfit when we said "no"

lololol

Good thing it wasn't Don McLean.

nb by "'get' to hear" I probably mean "are forced to endure"

I was feeling pretty groovy
when the radiator burst
So I ran across a meadow
a magical antelope saw me first
And then Jennifer Juniper
and then a floating merman from Atlantis

I loved my shirt so much I gave it to
a very friendly praying mantis

Don't worry, I'm done now

http://www.javno.com/slike/slike_3/r1/g2007/m04/x82137689653212655.jpg

and then a floating merman from Atlantis

dude you know I could seriously sell this line on that beat

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=73158&in_page_id=7&in_a_source=

Oh hey, that didn't work.

The gist was that Donovan is opening the "Invincible Donovan University". But this youtube link it better. He sings about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AldJWJk34ag

Listen to the cunts whooping.

lowl

Funny how when hippy dudes talk (brag) about how at peace and in tune with the universe they are, the more insecure and fucked up they sound.