Bob Dylan borrowing more phrases--this time from Civil War era poet

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Oh come on, we all know that many people considered to be the greatest songwriters have done, and will continue to do this.

Pete Seeger on Woody Guthrie:

"...I didn't really start writing songs until I met Woody Guthrie. And I suddenly learned something that was awful important. And that was: Don't be so all-fired concerned about being original. You hear an old song you like but you'd like to change a little, there's no great crime in changing a little." (from an interview with Paul Zollo).

― shorty (shorty), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

hootie stole a whole verse from him, dude figured he could do it too.

― john, a resident of chicago. (john s), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

“I’m glad Timrod is getting some recognition”

Hahaha.

This actually makes me want to buy this album.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:56 (nineteen years ago)

i think it's funny how many reviews of the album approvingly quote the "i sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the fall" line, without noting that it's part of standard blues vocabulary.

seems to me that people who think that this kind of thing can validate or invalidate bob dylan don't really get bob dylan. or at least, they're getting (or looking for) something different out of dylan than i am.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

Feet in the hall, surely?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

I heart Pete Seeger. He seems like such a nice man. I like listening to him talk. He can use phrases like "all-fired" and not sound like it's a put on! so cuet!

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

Unless it's american for

"I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the autumn time"

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

haha, yes "hall." although maybe blues vocabulary plus typos = dylan's surrealism.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 14 September 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

That was one of the funnier music articles I've read in a while. Actually, I'm not sure what I think about the ethics of this kind of unacknowledged borrowing, but I can't say it bothers me much on a gut level.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Thursday, 14 September 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

why are people still writing this article

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Thursday, 14 September 2006 14:06 (nineteen years ago)

it's part of the folk process.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 14 September 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

How many folk singers does it take to write this article?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 14 September 2006 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

how many civil war poets can dance on the head of a pin?

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 14 September 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

The next one is called "How Bob Dylan Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life"

― vingt regards (vignt_regards), Thursday, 14 September 2006 15:20 (nineteen years ago)

first song: "He's Just Not That in to You"

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 14 September 2006 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

written by Motoko Rich (frank's half-wit nephew?) nepotism at the Times shockah!

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 14 September 2006 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

also, the fact that his NAME isn't even his own.

― mdesjardins (desjardins), Thursday, 14 September 2006 15:52 (nineteen years ago)

To Mr. Warmuth, who found 10 phrases echoing Timrod’s poetry on “Modern Times,” Mr. Dylan’s work is still original. “You could give the collected works of Henry Timrod to a bunch of people, but none of them are going to come up with Bob Dylan songs,” he said.

Bingo!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 14 September 2006 19:27 (nineteen years ago)

didn't this subject get beat to death a week or two ago?

― Bass-man (bassguy), Thursday, 14 September 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

This is the first I've heard of it.

― I'm at WORK, Otto! (samjeff), Thursday, 14 September 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

It's interesting that he half-cribbed, "Sleep is like a temporary death," since that line has seemed awkward to me, when I've listened to the album. (Is sleep really like a temporary death?)

I like the verse from the poem better:

You will perceive that in the breast
The germs of many virtues rest,
Which, ere they feel a lover's breath,
Lie in a temporary death

― I'm at WORK, Otto! (samjeff), Thursday, 14 September 2006 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

(The fact of Dylan's cribbing in general doesn't bug me, btw.)

― I'm at WORK, Otto! (samjeff), Thursday, 14 September 2006 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

he also "borrows" the real life trials and tribulations of a very young ms.alicia keys on this album.

― Ryan Walsh (rhw), Thursday, 14 September 2006 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

And James Brown ain't mad at *her*.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 14 September 2006 21:05 (nineteen years ago)

Was this article inspired by every other article about dylan taking from others or is it a poetic allusion to those articles? I don't see citations! This guy is a phoney baloney!

― Period period period (Period period period), Thursday, 14 September 2006 21:11 (nineteen years ago)

neither here nor there, but motoko rich =/= "guy".

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 14 September 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

That tune Dylan is singing in the I-tunes commercials sounds a whole lot like Muddy Waters "Trouble No More". It took a couple of times seeing the commercial to realize that it was an original with a similar tag line.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Thursday, 14 September 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

Here's the previous thread discussing Dylan's musical borrowings. This was before the Timrod stuff (Which NPR discussed as well)

Bob Dylan: Borrower or thief?

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 15 September 2006 03:11 (nineteen years ago)

at least we know he casts a wide net when it comes to reading material

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 15 September 2006 03:12 (nineteen years ago)

"under a spreading chestnut tree
miss alicia keys she stands
miss keys a mighty woman is she
with small and sinewy hands"

that's my favorite part of the album.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 15 September 2006 03:25 (nineteen years ago)

i prefer

Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned by Alicia Keys
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 15 September 2006 04:46 (nineteen years ago)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was listening to "Highway 61 Revisted" the other day and that whole "God said to Abe, God told Isaac...etc" that whole story is straight out of the Bible. He adds, like, nothing to it of his own. Some people!

― Cunga (Cunga), Friday, 15 September 2006 16:55 (nineteen years ago)

>That’s exactly what bothers Chris Dineen, a middle school Spanish
>teacher

Well, bollocks, if he can't please this guy than nothing's sacred.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

Of course, if Bobby's shagging Keys now, I guess that's a given.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

Chris Dineen, a middle school Spanish teacher and casual fan of Mr. Dylan's in Albuquerque

I've always wondered how journalists find random people like this to interview for articles like this one. Friends of friends? Cold calling?

― Excuse me while I fold my pants... (samjeff), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

myspace

― p@reene (Pareene), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:52 (nineteen years ago)

He says "worry" instead of "trouble" but otherwise it's pretty much the same song with new verses, no?

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 15 September 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

Muddy Waters didn't exactly invent "Trouble No More" out of whole cloth.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

No one's saying he did, though his is probably the most imitated version.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

I could be wrong, but I believe Muddy is listed as the composer on his original 1956 hit recording. But I don't know if it was based on an older blues song or not.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

Of course Muddy also took writing credit for "Rollin and Tumblin" which was based on an earlier song by Hambone Willie Newbern, so who knows.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

The point is that in blues the line between composition and performance was very fuzzy indeed. They weren't handprinting immaculate scores and signing them flairfully.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:56 (nineteen years ago)

sleep is a temporary death for religous folx, esp xians

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 16 September 2006 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

i was hoping he stole the line from Nas instead. : (

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Saturday, 16 September 2006 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

The point is that in blues the line between composition and performance was very fuzzy indeed. They weren't handprinting immaculate scores and signing them flairfully.

I agree. Which is why I think it's acceptable if Dylan wants to give himself a solo writing credit for "Rollin and Tumblin" and "Someday Baby" - even though both are pretty much standards in the blues repertoire, his new verses and other modifications are enough to qualify them as "new" songs within the standards of the genre. On the other hand, you have the Rolling Stones suing the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" off the face of the earth because of the relatively tiny amount of copyright infringement in that song, so who knows where the line is drawn these days. All I'm saying is that without Muddy Waters I doubt anyone would be recording versions of those songs today, especially not versions that sound like that.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

twelve years pass...

My dad referenced the Alicia Keys lyric in an iMessage chat today; I had totally forgotten about it.

(this was the only thread I could find on Modern Times)

― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, 6 September 2019 03:36 (six years ago)

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