Me And Bobby

[poliphilo]

Scorsese's documentary about Dylan's youth has taken me back to my own "bliss was it in that dawn to be alive" moment. It's 1968, there are mountains outside the window and me and Graham Leader and Marc de May are going to change the world tomorrow, but today, in preparation, we're about to lean back, shut our eyes and listen to John Wesley Hardin just one more time...

Mind you, I didn't get it. Still don't. John Wesley Harding, I mean.

I have a rocky relationship with Dylan. I've always wanted to like him more than I actually do. I think the early stuff is dated and the "poetry" often facile- and yet scattered throughout his career, right up to the present, are songs I love. My very favourite is a thing called Dark Eyes which comes off a mid-80s album which many of the critics rate as his worst ever....

The second part of Scorsese's film is showing tonight. I'll be there.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

We're deeply tied up in other stuff right now, but we're taping the programmes and really looking forward to them.

Interesting that you think Dylan's "early stuff" is dated: what, Blowing in the Wind / Times Are A-Changing? Yes, perhaps - although I think you could dust off Hard Rain and tell the kids it was written yesterday... And I wonder if one reason for the revival of respect for the old man is that it's so long since he did anything new that we can go back to listening to his great period, instead of the more recent, weaker stuff (I'll have to look out Dark Eyes, which I don't know, though...)

I like his voice, but then I've had a long time to get used to it: my sister-in-law can't stand it, and has to be played cover versions before she can bear to listen to the songs.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Maybe what I'm really saying is that the early 60s folk style is dated. It's possible to imagine new arrangements of the best of those songs that would bring them right into the present.

Even so, I prefer middle period Dylan. Blood on the Tracks, Desire- those are probably my favourite albums. And I like his recent stuff too. Love and Theft is an interesting piece of work, very playful, and it's predecessor Time Out Of Mind is as good as anything he's ever done.