is Donovan really this much of a tw*t?

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Who on this thread is actually saying that Donovan is more influential than Dylan?

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."

Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 10 September 2005 17:40 (eighteen years ago) link

But ... Donovan's "sweet songs" really are just that: fluff.
Whereas Dylan's "sweet songs" -- "Girl from the North Country," "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," "Shelter From The Storm," "She Belongs To Me," "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," "Buckets Of Rain," etc, etc., are gorgeous, substantive tunes which will be still be around and covered a couple of centuries from now. "Catch the Wind" is a good enough song, but it's not really up to the same level.

But hey, Donovan's a nice guy though.

Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Saturday, 10 September 2005 18:37 (eighteen years ago) link

"which will still be around" duh

Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Saturday, 10 September 2005 18:39 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't usually hear people call The Beatles "fluff", and even their sad weighty songs are kind of fluffy (Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home, etc.)

Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 10 September 2005 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Furthermore, like The Beatles, Donovan's music was often tongue-in-cheek. He wasn't going for the same thing Dylan was and shouldn't be judged for his failure to be Dylan.

Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 10 September 2005 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link

I love the Beatles but I think plenty of their stuff (written by McCartney, natch) is fluff: "When I'm 64," "Your Mother Should Know," "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and lots more.

Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Saturday, 10 September 2005 19:09 (eighteen years ago) link

John Peel rated Donovan higher than Dylan.

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.

Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Saturday, 10 September 2005 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

I like Donovan's "fluff" a lot better than much of McCartney's actually. Donovan sounds like he has a healthy sense of irony about it, whereas McCartney just sounds like he's saying "Well, I'm such a sweet boy, aren't I?"

Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 10 September 2005 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link

John Peel rated Donovan higher than 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.

disco violence (disco violence), Saturday, 10 September 2005 21:11 (eighteen years ago) link

(OK, scratch that "he would, being British" part, which is unnecessarily contentious and something I don't feel up to defending.)

disco violence (disco violence), Saturday, 10 September 2005 21:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Very wise.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 10 September 2005 21:25 (eighteen years ago) link

misread this:

Donovan plays him the saccharine To Sing for You

as:

Donovan plays him the Saccharine Trust.

that would have been more interesting.

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Saturday, 10 September 2005 21:34 (eighteen years ago) link


Furthermore, like The Beatles, Donovan's music was often tongue-in-cheek. He wasn't going for the same thing Dylan was and shouldn't be judged for his failure to be Dylan.

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

simian (dymaxia), Saturday, 10 September 2005 21:54 (eighteen years ago) link

In the Sixties the girls looked better, the guys looked better...

people are definitely better looking today

BeeOK (boo radley), Sunday, 11 September 2005 02:06 (eighteen years ago) link

With all the talk about Donovan's "fluff," I have to peek in and note that, while this is generally true, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" rocks harder (and darker) than anything Dylan's done.

TS: Hurdy Gurdy Man vs. Tambourine Man

joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Sunday, 11 September 2005 02:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha ha, I just listened to two Donovan albums today- "Barabajagal" AND "The Hurdy Gurdy Man". Totally love that Donovan, so eat shit Sunday Times!

Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Sunday, 11 September 2005 02:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Dylan=great Donovan=2nd rate is just kind of a tired truism, so it's obnoxious to see an article that starts with that idea as its premise.

Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 11 September 2005 02:59 (eighteen years ago) link

I wonder how many people under the age of 25 could name one Donovan album.

The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Sunday, 11 September 2005 03:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Fewer under-25ers than you think could probably name a Dylan album. Irrelevant question anyhow.

Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 11 September 2005 03:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, I'd wager the ratio's something like ten to one on that.

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.

The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Sunday, 11 September 2005 03:21 (eighteen years ago) link

good point

BeeOK (boo radley), Sunday, 11 September 2005 03:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm 25 and I listen to Donovan. Do I count?

Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 11 September 2005 04:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Anyway, they're musicians, not presidents.

Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 11 September 2005 04:02 (eighteen years ago) link

No one has taken the viewpoint that both the writer AND Donovan come off like twats.

So I will.

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

Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Sunday, 11 September 2005 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link

"With all the talk about Donovan's "fluff," I have to peek in and note that, while this is generally true, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" rocks harder (and darker) than anything Dylan's done."

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

pus bop, Sunday, 11 September 2005 17:16 (eighteen years ago) link

I've met him a few times - pretty sweet and relatively humble guy, actually. The writer here sounds as if he has some axe to grind.
-- Dee Xtrovert (migrain...), September 10th, 2005.

otm.

piscesboy, Sunday, 11 September 2005 18:04 (eighteen years ago) link

*whistles*

donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Monday, 12 September 2005 02:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Donovan smacks Dylan in the SMACKDOWN, ya'll, get it straight.

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"

There's a Tipsy Ghost on the edge of my couch (Bimble...), Monday, 12 September 2005 02:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Donovan has his moments but I think T.O. has been the real tw*t in all of this. But I think they will both get it together and kick Atlanta's ass tomorrow night.

bah, Monday, 12 September 2005 02:52 (eighteen years ago) link

more donovan hatin from Ben Ratliff in todays Devendra review in th Times.."On 76 recorded tracks in only three years, he has proven that he has absolutely nothing to do with Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. Excellent: there's been too much of that among our folksingers whom we take the most seriously. He has more to do with Donovan, which isn't so excellent."

dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 12 September 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Season of the Witch - class.

lexurian (lexurian), Monday, 12 September 2005 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Hey, Bob dylan had his "to sing for you" years about five years later.

mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 12 September 2005 15:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Listening to I Love My Shirt and the rest of Barabajagal the other weekend, my friends and I were struck by a bunch Donovan / Momus similarities.

dan. (dan.), Monday, 12 September 2005 17:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Not relating at all to the twatyness highlighted in the thread title as I don't agree.

dan. (dan.), Monday, 12 September 2005 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link

The "Burrows" error was the writer's, not Donovan's. Also Don't Look Back was made in 1965 not 1967.

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?

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 05:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Listening to I Love My Shirt and the rest of Barabajagal the other weekend, my friends and I were struck by a bunch Donovan / Momus similarities.

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".

Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 11:48 (eighteen years ago) link


I like Donovan because he's groovy and his music has aged really well for something so sixties. It's the groove and eclecticism, and I noticed that he fits in well on eclectic mix tapes.

simian (dymaxia), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Perhaps, in the early 1960s, it was shocking for a teenage boy to spend a few months in St Ives washing dishes, making love and getting high. These days we’d call that a gap year

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

Raymond Douglas Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 12:42 (eighteen years ago) link

What, whimsical folk singers?

A|ex P@reene (Pareene), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 13:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Donovan is like 10 million billion times better than Devendra Banheart.

Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Do people not get that Donovan's lyrics are FUNNY?

Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link

he played in our office once and sat in a chair next to mine singing "you ying my yang" from his very, very sad "beat" album of recent. i had to pinch myself to keep from laughing out loud.

katie, a princess (katie, a princess), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 16:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I'd like to see David Brent (the British one) cover that one.

shookout (shookout), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 23:51 (eighteen years ago) link

poor guy. that scene in don't look back is really painful to watch.


----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.

hurdy gurdy man, Wednesday, 21 September 2005 11:50 (eighteen years ago) link

he played in our office once and sat in a chair next to mine singing "you ying my yang" from his very, very sad "beat" album of recent. i had to pinch myself to keep from laughing out loud.
-- katie, a princess (kati...), September 13th, 2005.


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.

hurdy gurdy man, Wednesday, 21 September 2005 11:54 (eighteen years ago) link

The writer of this article has his head way up his ass, or his you know what way up Dylan's ass. I would love to email him and go off. He obviously is not a Donovan fan and should not have been interviewing him.

hurdy gurdy man, Wednesday, 21 September 2005 11:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Clearly the author is also a jaded, snotty person, but Donovon's quotes also speak for themselves.

Still though, I don't see how anyone could say Donovan's in the same class as Dylan, that's just insane, on many levels, beginning with volume alone. For every transcendend moment Donovan has, Dylan's got 20.

Also, I've read large portions of his book (which no one has mentioned), and it's unintentionally hilarious, evidence of massive self-involvement and an ego spun far out of proportion to actual ability.

shookout (shookout), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 12:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Sorry, I do not agree, I have every single album that Dylan has released and every single one that Donovan released. I find every single Donovan album minus his Lady of the Stars album from 1983 to be better then every single Dylan album. I do agree that Donovan is a bit bitter about not getting the attention he deserves all these years. Rightfully so, he is totally forgotten about and it sucks. Does Dylan have 13 top 40 singles? I am only asking because i'm not sure how he has charted over the years. Don's guitar playing and singing are worlds apart from Dylan. Donovan has more range in different styles of songwriting. Don sings of love and fairytales and Dylan is a story teller, they are totally two different artists and comparing them is a waste of time. A good comparison to Donovan is Cat Stevens or Mike Heron and Robin Williamson from ISB.

hurdy gurdy man, Wednesday, 21 September 2005 13:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Bob Dylan is the greatest songwriter of the rock era. Donovan is a guilty pleasure.

Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 14:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I know that sounded troll-like, but I have a hard time believing that anyone can seriously place Donovan ahead of Dylan on any level. It's preposterous.

Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 14:31 (eighteen years ago) link

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

Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 13:49 (sixteen years ago) link

You were there were you?

Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 14:08 (sixteen years ago) link

fake Geir?

Thomas, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 14:14 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 14:27 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Thomas, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 14:30 (sixteen years ago) link

he's right!

Mark G, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 14:55 (sixteen years ago) link

If only he left

nabisco, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 21:07 (sixteen years ago) link

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"

J0hn D., Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:10 (sixteen years ago) link

lololol

s1ocki, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:12 (sixteen years ago) link

Good thing it wasn't Don McLean.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:12 (sixteen years ago) link

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

J0hn D., Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:13 (sixteen years ago) link

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

nabisco, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:25 (sixteen years ago) link

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

nabisco, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:28 (sixteen years ago) link

Don't worry, I'm done now

nabisco, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 22:28 (sixteen years ago) link

and then a floating merman from Atlantis

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

J0hn D., Thursday, 7 February 2008 00:32 (sixteen years ago) link

Oh hey, that didn't work.

jim, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:01 (sixteen years ago) link

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

jim, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:02 (sixteen years ago) link

Listen to the cunts whooping.

jim, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:03 (sixteen years ago) link

lowl

am0n, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:09 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

Bodrick III, Thursday, 14 February 2008 22:12 (sixteen years ago) link


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