And this is important because so many "clever" singer-songwriters have no idea how to emote comedically and their jokes just don't translate well to being sung.
― jody (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 19:47 (twenty years ago) link
― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 19:49 (twenty years ago) link
Idiot Wind: Listening to Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan turned 60 this week, and there's been a predictable wave of tributes and analysis and retrospectives and so forth. But I couldn't help noticing that, except for some puzzled mentions, nobody really talked about one of Dylan's most important contributions to American music: his singing.
I understand why, of course. That reedy, nasal, jarring voice, part sneer and part howl, has always been the dividing line between people who "get" Dylan and people who don't, between those who will allow that "he's written some really good songs" and those who consider him one of the greatest artists of the past century. And so it often goes unexplored and unexplained, either tolerated or venerated but not much examined.
So what is it with his singing? What is he up to? What's it all about?
Well, I've been listening to him for years, and I'm still trying to get a handle on it. When I was a kid, Dylan was the one major element of my dad's record collection that I resisted. I loved the Beatles; I sang along with Simon and Garfunkel; I jumped around my bedroom to The Who; I listened with a sense of daring and danger to the Rolling Stones, who seemed steeped in dark and mysterious adult things. But Dylan? He looked weird. More to the point, he sounded weird. "He can't sing," I would say to my dad, and my dad would just say something along the lines of "You'll understand it someday."
I don't know if that's quite true; Dylan to me seems like someone you don't understand so much as live with, constantly revisiting and rediscovering. But the voice does make more sense to me now. It's the kind of voice I think Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg were looking for, a fundamentally American construction drawn from the country's deeply twined and contradictory roots.
He started out as a folk singer, more an imitator than an innovator, working squarely in white traditions drawn from European balladry and squeezed through the Appalachian hills. But once Dylan mastered that idiom—and he did master it, like no one else—he expanded it. When he went "electric," he plugged in more than his guitar. His singing opened up and got rangier and deeper, his phrasing started incorporating blues rhythms and textures. He didn't just want to be Woody Guthrie or Dock Boggs anymore; he wanted to be Howlin' Wolf, too.
I remember seeing an Esquire magazine list of the all-time greatest blues singers several years ago. Dylan was the only white singer on the list, which was exactly right. People talk about Elvis combining white singing with black music, but that's not really true. Elvis liked the feel of R&B, and he got the bump and grind, but he softened it in the process. Dylan softened nothing, not the white mountain whine or the black Delta moan. He's not comfortable to listen to, and he's not trying to be. He's the sound of cultural tectonic plates shifting and colliding, throwing up mountain ranges where they meet.
That a Jewish kid from northern Minnesota could so completely internalize the great ragged musics of the nation, and that he did it at a time when the people and places that produced them were disappearing and assimilating into the great TV monoculture, is what, as much as anything, makes Dylan a great and uniquely American artist. His voice reaches from end to end of the 20th century, echoing where we've been and calling to us from somewhere up ahead.
I saw him play at Chilhowee Park a few weeks ago. He sounded loose and confident and playful. The stage was full of great musicians. But there was no instrument anywhere to match the one Dylan has carried with him, inside his chest and throat and lungs, for 60 years.
― spittle (spittle), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 19:56 (twenty years ago) link
― spittle (spittle), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 19:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Tab25, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 20:32 (twenty years ago) link
as for his voice i'm a big fan who must attest to having trouble with his voice of late--his phrasing is still marvelous, he even does certain things better than he ever did. but there's something in the natural incapacity of his 'new' voice that i can't get past, the mountain of phlegm coughed up with each line, the range that's dwindled to a minor third or whatever...
dylan did some really interesting things with his voice 'back in the day' that don't get acknowledged; i think he really pushed the limits of his natural range for a long time (not so much with the late 60s from-the-throat stuff and the occasional falsetto but the heavy duty mid-60s singing like 'it's all over now baby blue') and that might account for his voice's character now (that and the cigarettes)
― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 20:44 (twenty years ago) link
yeah, i'm not trying to convince anyone they're brilliant...
― jody (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 20:47 (twenty years ago) link
seriously though i admire you a lot, for being so goddam sensible and smart when the culture here seems to mitigate against that so often
― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 20:49 (twenty years ago) link
Is he still capable of doing cool things with it? Yes. Can it be an expressive tool? Yes. Has he even invented new ways of using his voice - ie., adapting his style to what's left of it? Yes. However, the main part of my criticism is that I think he still hasn't completely adapted himself to it- i.e., sometimes it sounds like he's still trying to sing as though he has his old range, and he doesn't. I think he should probably try to use more concision and brevity - do more with less - stick to a narrower range - perhaps go more bluesy - I think the bluesy numbers on Love and Theft tended to be more successful from a vocal performance standpoint. Because those epic ballads are becoming a bit tiring to listen to, and they didn't use to be.
(xpost)
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 20:54 (twenty years ago) link
There are superstar pop-cult icons beloved by millions who were or are meaner, nastier, and more spiteful than Bob Dylan (your mom for instance - followed closely by the likes of Lucille Ball, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, and Bill Cosby), but he's within spitting distance of the head of the pack. An idiot windbag and bully from the git-go, his tooth & nail-filled words (his tongue on fire like liar's pants) simultaneously functioning as self-righteous harangues aimed at everyone who doesn't get it/ain't us/in the know, wake up calls for any Mr. or Mrs. Jones-to-be who feels that their freedom is impinged upon by the responsibilities and duties thrown at them by, you know, church/state/manifest destiny/gym teachers/etc..., and hyper-literate (though often clouded with beatnik bombast and trickster whatzits) revenge fantasies designed not only to comfort bespectacled boys wronged by girls from the right counties but also assuage the fears ofthose people who worry that the right fingers will not be pointed at people on the wrong side.Early Dylan fans, not content with the murder balladeers and chain gang troubadours of previous generations, understandably wanted a blowhard to call their own. And as the thinking person's Elvis, Dylan single-handedly trumped the Depression-era love of hard work, war wounds, craftsmanship and dirt with youth, wit, and a cool-ass hair-do. His early appropriation of a dustbowl vocalese and aesthetic (what could be more natural for a 20-year-old kid from the sticks then to sound like a black-lunged miner with miles of bad road behindhim) may have been borne out of a deep and abiding love for dead and dying rail-riding pinkos, but more realistically it was his ticket in to a burgeoning folk scene always on the lookout for sympathetic fellow travelers who would show the proper respect for the decrepit eldersand originators of La Vie de Hootenanny. Once he was through genuflecting at Woodie Guthrie's bedside (and patted on the head by the story-song master), and once he wasthrough using his Midwestern wiles to get into Joan Baez's back pages (she the shining young star pre-Bob), he had made his mark and could proceed to do what he did. Which was: ruin everything! He was too cool! He was punk as fuck! His sneer was a mile wide! He raised the bar too high! His songs were too good! He looked really cool in pointy boots! He corrupted The Beatles! He made rock "important"! And "serious"! He subjected the world to thousands of horrible singersongwritercountryrockstreamofconsciousnessbroodingbadpoetry bands! He made people who had no business playing the blues play the blues! He was too big for rock, and ever after people wanted to be bigger than rock without ever realizing that rock is plenty bigenough already for whatever they could add to it. Rock before Dylan was mostly fun and then it wasn't (because of him), and it mostly isn't now (because of him). And the rock & roll that most people love doesn't have as much to do with him (it has more to do with Chuck Berrythan Bob Dylan), thus the most popular rock & roll is usually a lot more fun to listen to. As a rule, people who don't listen to Bob Dylan are usually a lot more fun to hang out with. Having said that, everyone should own at least four Bob Dylan albums (Freewheelin', Highway 61,Blood on the Tracks, and Desire will do). It's funny that the only people who actually approached the ferocity of early pre-motorbike crash Dylan (1966 being the dividing linebetween scary can-do-no-wrong Dylan and bloody, beaten, bowed, sometimes scary & good-when-he-feels-like-it Dylan) were the artless garage and punk bands of the 60's and 70's. The artistes of those eras mainly pegged the corn pone/po'boy/nasally/fake Carterfamily/should sound like you're 60 when you're 20/spaghetti western Dylan that he could get away with because he was and is a freak of nature and because he invented the shit in the first place. That ferocity was hunger and could previously be heard on Charles Ives andEartha Kitt records, and thus it was alien to any pop or folk scene. The juvenile delinquents heard Dean and Brando in his voice, but unfortunately his words were too good and the boring people heard Shakespeare.
― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 21:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:09 (twenty years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:11 (twenty years ago) link
― chuck, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:14 (twenty years ago) link
Any Dylan alb is automatically 'interesting'
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:45 (twenty years ago) link
If anyone else had written these albums, they'd be considered genius.
And the scary thing is, the stuff Dylan left on the floor, the outtakes, are undeniably better than the official albums!
― Tab25, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:50 (twenty years ago) link
― nonthings (nonthings), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:50 (twenty years ago) link
Yeah, I do like it....the Watchtower rocks, and hey, the band is tight.
― Tab25, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:54 (twenty years ago) link
― nonthings (nonthings), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 23:01 (twenty years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 23:23 (twenty years ago) link
― Sym (shmuel), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 23:28 (twenty years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 23:34 (twenty years ago) link
― Sym (shmuel), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 23:38 (twenty years ago) link
― morris pavilion (samjeff), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 00:00 (twenty years ago) link
― morris pavilion (samjeff), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 00:04 (twenty years ago) link
― morris pavilion (samjeff), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 00:06 (twenty years ago) link
― maryann (maryann), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 00:25 (twenty years ago) link
This comes through plainly, and I think, brilliantly in the Budokan album (and in his other live albums, esp. Hard Rain and the Rolling Thunder Bootleg). He loves fucking with his songs, changing the cadence and lyrics, changing the whole damn melody sometimes. And its amazing how different the songs can sound. Listen to Simple Twist of Fate from Budokan. Or the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol from the Rolling Thunder Review. Or listen to the narrator shift from early versions of tangled up in blue. Or listen to his version of "Make you Feel My Love," then listen to Garth Brooks' version and tell me he doesn't know how to fill a song with meaning. To me, this is not idle fiddling, but reflects his mastery of the form of popular song and its different possibilities.
In case it's not clear yet, my answer to the thread's question is "No. No. No. What? Are you uhh... NO!" and I think live at Budokan is great. I think it is fair to say he is UNDER-RATED as a singer/general performer.
And, yes, I understand that it is people like me that lead to other people asking the question, "Is Bob Dylan Over-rated"
― Scott, Wednesday, 18 February 2004 00:30 (twenty years ago) link
― maryann (maryann), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 00:43 (twenty years ago) link
I like this: Dylan to me seems like someone you don't understand so much as live with, constantly revisiting and rediscovering from spittle's piece. And I also realised that, despite basically growing up to an almost exclusive soundtrack of little Apple Label Beatles 45s, just as someone else said upthread, I rarely listen to the latter yet regularly throw on some Dylan still.
I can't imagine ever getting tired of Dylan. There's always something you've overlooked, or forgotten, about him. Hence the polarized disagreements on so many of his records (Budokan, Planet Waves, Slow Train Coming, Street Legal, etc.).
(Yet, at the same time, i can understand the Boomer adulation/canonization putting a lot of people off, and don't really blame them for their initial responses -- however, I do think it's fair to expect those people to at least give him a chance, as he isn't going away even when he goes away, if you know what I mean.)
― David A. (Davant), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 03:34 (twenty years ago) link
― Ian Grey (Ian_G), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 03:54 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 10:32 (twenty years ago) link
― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 10:39 (twenty years ago) link
Dylan as comedian: Underrated. He's not bad, but apparently Leonard Cohen was better when he did stand up!!!! (Fact!!!!!)― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 16:39 (twenty years ago) link
He's not bad, but apparently Leonard Cohen was better when he did stand up!!!! (Fact!!!!!)― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 16:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 16:39 (twenty years ago) link
― QuantumNoise, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Hurting 2, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― EZ Snappin, Friday, 2 March 2007 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― QuantumNoise, Friday, 2 March 2007 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate, Friday, 2 March 2007 20:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, 2 March 2007 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate, Friday, 2 March 2007 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100816/ennew_afp/entertainmentdenmarkusmusicartdylan_20100816152417
― P oco, Monday, 16 August 2010 16:50 (thirteen years ago) link
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--
― P oco, Monday, 16 August 2010 16:51 (thirteen years ago) link
"hmmm...yes...art"
*sips cappuccino*
cups empty imo
― markers, Monday, 16 August 2010 16:52 (thirteen years ago) link
overarted
― buzza, Monday, 16 August 2010 16:53 (thirteen years ago) link
that scott post up there is great, should be in some liner notes somewhere or other
i think dylan was overrated lyrically at times. something like "it's alright ma" is undeniably brilliant, but Blonde on Blonde, though a great record, suffers from too much jester/clown/random dated imagery that works far less often than it should. and though that record was supposed to capture the "thin...wild mercury sound" that he was after, it's ultimately flat and bloodless-sounding when compared to "royal albert hall concert"
i also never understood why people freaked out over Blood on the Tracks, which to me is sort of boring, with the exception of a couple of tracks (esp. you're a big girl now). the oft-maligned Self Portrait is leagues better, i think
that being said, of course he was amazing. so many little-seeming things, like titling a song (positively 4th street) w/no reference whatsoever to the lyrical content, i think was virtually unprecedented in pop music world up until that point? or suddenly and totally changing his trademark singing voice for nashville skyline?
so, i don't think that he's overrated, necessarily, but more that people rate him for the wrong reasons! but same could probably be said about the grateful dead. or the doors, for that matter...
― dell (del), Monday, 16 August 2010 17:28 (thirteen years ago) link
I remember reading that "Boots of Spanish Leather" appeared in the Norton Anthology of American Literature and this seems so appropriate in a way.
― jeevves, Monday, 16 August 2010 23:28 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8zu0tf8hp4
funny dylan bit here
― corrs unplugged, Thursday, 14 March 2024 07:47 (one month ago) link