HBD Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan)

[DMT]

Turns 70 today. I'd list my favorite songs but I'm going to try to get a Bob Dylan song draft going. It's been forever since we've done one of those, hopefully we can get one going.

[Gregg]

Bob Dylan is also a fraud. Happy birthday anyways, ya crazy bastard!

What do you mean fraud?

[senorsheep]

What do you mean fraud?

I think weed counts as a performance-enhancing drug in Dylan's profession.

[TranaGreg]

He's a sell out, a plagiarist, and a hypocrite who was held up by adoring fans to be much more than the sad little man he really was.

His early stuff was pretty decent, though.

well as bono said, ...

Every artist is a cannibal. Every poet is a thief.

[Mithrandir]

He's a sell out, a plagiarist, and a hypocrite who was held up by adoring fans to be much more than the sad little man he really was.

His early stuff was pretty decent, though.

Arguably the greatest lyrics of all time:

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

[Judge Jude]

Rolling Stone has an edition out with his 70 best songs of all time. They'll be leaving out some beauties, for sure.

I get that people don't like his voice, and yeah he went awfully corporate later on, but I'll still claim that Dylan is the best songwriter of the 20th century. There's a pretty good book out there that does a "close reading" of his work, a la studies of Milton or Chaucer. Yes it's that complicated if you want it to be. He'll take a line from a Rimbaud or a Verlaine poem, and funk it up to 1960s or 1980s sensibility. Effortlessly.

He also never was, at his core, a civil rights activist, or liberal per se, or so many of the other caricatures created by "prose people" about the ultimate poet.

So Dylan went electric when he was supposed to stay a folk icon, and then religious, and then country, and then surreal and then so many other things. He goes where the muse takes him. Still.

I mentioned a few months ago that I saw him play a small midtown Manhattan venue at this time.
TONS of 20-somethings in the audience, going hog wild to "Like A Rolling Stone."
Almost a half-century ago, he wrote a song that resonates for them line after line after line.

A favorite:

"You always said people don't do what they believe in, they just do what's most convenient, then they repent." - Brownsville Girl

Dylan wrote this in the 1960s, but don't think it was ever released until "Biograph" over 20 years later:

If I’d thought about it I never would’ve done it, I guess I would’ve let it slide
If I paid attention to what others were thinkin’, the heart inside me would’ve died
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity
Someone had to reach for the risin’ star, I guess it was up to me

[Gregg]

He's a sell out, a plagiarist, and a hypocrite who was held up by adoring fans to be much more than the sad little man he really was.

His early stuff was pretty decent, though.

Nope. Not a hypocrite or a plagiarist. And I am not sure about the sell out.



Regarding the plagiarism:

From writer Ben Corbett-

Many contemporary music critics and professors argue that pastiche is the most culturally advanced form of creative expression today, which would partly account for Dylan's massive success as a songwriter. Likewise, hip hop and DJ electronica explore pastiche with the use of samples from other songs. As far as borrowing melodies, Beck's song “Loser” sounds frighteningly close to the Allman Brother Band's hit “Midnight Rider,” while Vanilla Ice's “Ice Ice Baby” blatantly borrowed the bass line from Queen/David Bowie's hit “Under Pressure.”

Whether Dylan's controversial use of other artist's lines and melodies is ethical is the decision of the listener. But Dylan has always seen songs in the public domain as templates to build upon, and his borrowing of others' material is more likely his way of paying tribute to those who have had a major influence on him. In turn, next-generation artists often pay homage to Dylan for the impact he had on their music. In a nod to Dylan, in the video for the 1987 song “Mediate,” INXS front man Michael Hutchence holds up and discards small hand-written signs, mimicking the black and white footage of Dylan's visual interpretation of “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” And in their song “Finger Lickin' Good,” the Beastie Boys used a sample—“I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough”—lifted from Dylan's “Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.” How's that for irony

[Hornsby]

I know the argument and I still think the guy is a plagiarist. Honestly, I don't even really care all that much about that as there is a long and storied history of ripping off other artists in music.

He is, though, very obviously both a hypocrite and a sell out.


However, these things are all about Bob Dylan the person. Bob Dylan the person can suck it. Bob Dylan the musician put out some pretty awesome songs, especially early in his career. I love his very earliest stuff and some stuff even all the way up to Hurricane. My mom absolutely loved Dylan so his music holds a place in my heart, as a lot of his songs bring back very specific and nice childhood memories for me.

I'm curious to know what horrible things Bob Dylan the person has done...

[Gregg]

Me, too! Let's find the person who said that Dylan did horrible things and ask him!

Where I come from hypocrite and sell out are negative comments. I would be interested as to why you think these things about him.

[johnnya24]

I know the argument and I still think the guy is a plagiarist. Honestly, I don't even really care all that much about that as there is a long and storied history of ripping off other artists in music.

He is, though, very obviously both a hypocrite and a sell out.


However, these things are all about Bob Dylan the person. Bob Dylan the person can suck it. Bob Dylan the musician put out some pretty awesome songs, especially early in his career. I love his very earliest stuff and some stuff even all the way up to Hurricane. My mom absolutely loved Dylan so his music holds a place in my heart, as a lot of his songs bring back very specific and nice childhood memories for me.

You gotta buy-in to sell-out ... Dylan never bought into anything. He has no control over other peoples expectations.

I agree that his work after the mid 70's is less interesting ... but damn ... how do you follow that?

TW mentioned the brilliant Chronicles ... which is a must read for any music fan ... Scorsese's brilliant (3 or 4 hour) "No Direction Home" is an excellent accompaniment to that.

[senorsheep]

Huh, that's pretty interesting about the plagiarism charges; I missed that entire controversy. Probably not surprising, as I lost interest in his career after Blood On The Tracks. Though fans often tell me I should give Desire a shot.

I don't get too animated about incendental musical plagiarism - there are only so many ways you can arrange major chords such that they are pleasing to the human ear. I thought the legal decision against George Harrison's My Sweet Lord was just ridiculous. Ice, Ice, Baby is way over the line, of course, and they knew they were going to pay if that song hit it big. I can't think of any classic Dylan that qualifies as melodic theft.

Lyrically, a lot of my favorite artists - Beastie Boys, Camper Van Beethoven - lift lines ironically. No problem there - it's obvious and self-aware. That's art. I think Robert Plant's lifting of old blues lyrics for early Zeppelin songs frequently crossed the line. Dylan was always lyrically referential - I've got no problem with how he did it on his 60's and 70's records - but having Googled some examples of his "borrowing" from Henry Timrod and Junichi Saga on Modern Times and Love And Theft, I'd say he crossed the line, and should have provided attribution.

[senorsheep]

I'm curious to know what horrible things Bob Dylan the person has done...

1.01 - Shagged Joan Baez

[Judge Jude]

"You gotta buy-in to sell-out ... Dylan never bought into anything. He has no control over other peoples expectations."

Wow, that is so well put!

[johnnya24]

"You gotta buy-in to sell-out ... Dylan never bought into anything. He has no control over other peoples expectations."

Wow, that is so well put!

I was actually quite proud of that comment when I wrote it I was writing out a long reply and then realised how pointless it was to argue anything about Dylan because he has gone through so many phases and changes in the past 55 years that there will always be a counter argument that will go on endlessly.

Feel free to plagiarise with gay abandon

[senorsheep]

Sweet Jesus, he sounds really bad these days...