Tag: bob dylan

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Maureen Dowd slams “sellout” Bob Dylan in New York Times

The Cinch Review

In a strange way, it feels almost like a victory, albeit an exceptionally perverse one. After all the writing Yours Truly has done — over the course of a sad, wasted youth — lambasting the dang “liberal media” for their persistent misportrayal of Bob Dylan as a left wing protest singer type, now we have this. In that great iconic Mother of All Liberal Media Outlets that is the New York Times, the poisonous princess of the Op-Ed page herself, Maureen Dowd, rips Bob Dylan in 2011 as a sellout (Blowin’ in the Idiot Wind). Further, she attaches herself to the notion that Bob Dylan never really was that lefty utopian true-believer he’s so often been sketched as being, but merely an opportunist who saw the folk scene of the early 1960s as providing his quickest entré to fame and fortune. Continue reading “Maureen Dowd slams “sellout” Bob Dylan in New York Times“

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Bob Dylan in Shanghai

The Cinch Review

The set list from Bob Dylan’s April 8th show in Shanghai is now up at Bob Links and goes as follows:

1. Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
2. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
3. Things Have Changed
4. Tangled Up In Blue
5. Honest With Me
6. Simple Twist Of Fate
7. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
8. Blind Willie McTell
9. The Levee’s Gonna Break
10. Desolation Row
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Spirit On The Water
13. Thunder On The Mountain
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man

(encore)
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. Forever Young

This second set list to look at from mainland China lends some credence to the theory that he may have been prohibited from playing Times They Are A-Changin’ or Blowin’ in the Wind, and — I’m thinking — Masters of War. However, I’d continue to caution that no one has cited a specific source for any list of banned songs. I do hope that Bob Dylan’s “camp” will make the record clear at some point; perhaps when he’s safely out of communist airspace (which won’t be until he leaves Vietnam, where he plays on April 10th). Continue reading “Bob Dylan in Shanghai”

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Bob Dylan in China, continued

The Cinch Review

Stories in the press continue to proliferate, implying or sometimes even asserting that Bob Dylan was prohibited from singing The Times They Are A-Changin’ or Blowin’ in the Wind by the Chinese regime, in the wake of his concert yesterday in Beijing. (Previous post: Dylan goes to China.) However, I still have yet to see anyone cite a real source for this; they seem to simply be making a guess based on his set list. Continue reading “Bob Dylan in China, continued”

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Dylan goes to China: Bob in Beijing

The Cinch Review

Bob Dylan played his first gig in communist China today, having played first a few nights ago in Taiwan. By Beijing time, the gig took place last night, the night of April 6th, in a venue called the Workers’ Gymnasium. Already, some media outlets are engaged in trying to interpret Bob’s setlist; a hobby usually limited to obsessive fans with too much time on their (or our) hands. From Reuters (Bob Dylan gets rapturous reception at China concert):

Famous for his songs against injustice and for civil liberties and pacifism, Dylan struck a cautious line in Beijing and did not sing anything that might have overtly offended China’s Communist rulers, like “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”

There’s been many references to the fact that Bob Dylan’s songs had to be “approved” by the Chinese regime in advance — and there’s no question that they do employ those tactics with foreign entertainers — but I don’t know that anyone has concrete evidence of any songs he was ordered not to sing. So the above kind of thing is speculative. Continue reading “Dylan goes to China: Bob in Beijing”

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Daily Mail Deserves Raspberry for Bob Dylan “Story”

The Cinch Review


The story in the Daily Mail contains undated photographs of Bob Dylan, said to be taken recently outside of a synagogue in Los Angeles, California. Fine: Dylan visited a synagogue. Those interested in the subject are aware that Bob makes observances of this kind, and good for him. However, the bulk of the story seems without source or evidence, and is really just a cheap violation of Dylan’s privacy. Continue reading “Daily Mail Deserves Raspberry for Bob Dylan “Story””

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Tomorrow Is a Long Time

The Cinch Review

Consider it a palate cleanser, if you will, after that last thing on Rebecca Black and Friday. The clip below features a lovely take on Bob Dylan’s song, Tomorrow Is a Long Time, courtesy of our friends the Higher Animals.

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Friday: Bob Dylan covers Rebecca Black

The Cinch Review

I guess this is too funny to let pass; that is, Bob Dylan’s cover version of Rebecca Black’s, er, song, Friday — if anyone hasn’t yet seen it. [Update: Yes, I know it’s not actually Bob Dylan.]

To get it you need to endure at least a minute of Rebecca Black’s original. It takes the genre of prepubescent pop to a new level of utterly inane and maddening atrociousness. (But it’s not nearly as good as I’m making it sound there.) Continue reading “Friday: Bob Dylan covers Rebecca Black”

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Saint Patrick’s Day: One Irish Rover

The Cinch Review

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit.

It came as news to me today that there are now (unofficial) Van Morrison clips on YouTube again. Perhaps only for a time, although the one below has been there for five months. It’s an acoustic duet with Bob Dylan on Van’s song, One Irish Rover. Done for a British documentary show in the 1980s, it’s very rough, but has a certain sweet quality.

Tell me you see the light
Tell me you know me
Make it come out alright
And wrap it in glory
For one Irish rover

Originally from ornery ol’ Van’s rather sterling long playing record: No Guru No Method No Teacher

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Bob Dylan: Approved to play in China

The Cinch Review

Having just asserted in a different venue that I’m not going to try to keep up with everything happening in the Dylan universe anymore, this story nevertheless requires follow-up. It is now reported that the Chinese Ministry of Culture has approved two Bob Dylan concerts to take place in April, one in Beijing and one in Shanghai.

The official Bob Dylan website has not confirmed these as of writing, but everything else seems now to indicate that they will take place — and I’m guessing the same will be true for the proposed shows in Taiwan and in Vietnam. Continue reading “Bob Dylan: Approved to play in China”

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Last Words on Retirement from Bob Dylan

Keith R. writes, in relation to this retirement debate, that he’s surprised no one has mentioned the 60 Minutes interview which the late Ed Bradley did with Bob Dylan from 2004:

Ed asks him, in so many words, why Bob doesn’t retire. Bob made a deal with the Chief Commander on this Earth and in the World We Can’t See, he says. It’s all in the cards. He can’t retire, wasn’t part of the deal.

The article [on whether Dylan should retire] – and most of the responses that I’ve seen – seem very tied to this world that we can see, but isn’t Bob one of the great messengers between this world and that world we can’t see? Isn’t that one of the reasons we love him? and one of the reasons he can’t retire?

I think that Keith is right in every respect. It’s funny — this exchange didn’t even occur to me in the context of the retirement discussion, even though it’s the “infamous” one which a few freakazoids out there claim as proof that Bob sold his soul to the Devil. The clip is below along with the transcription:

Bradley: … you’re still out here doing these songs, you’re still on tour ..

Dylan: I do, but I don’t take it for granted.

Bradley: Why do you still do it — why are you still out here?

Dylan: Well, it goes back to the destiny thing. I made a bargain with it a long time ago and I’m holding up my end.

Bradley: What was your bargain?

Dylan: To get where I am now.

Bradley: Should I ask who you made the bargain with?

Dylan: With the — you know, with the Chief Commander.

Bradley: On this earth?

Dylan: On this earth and in the world we can’t see.

People with more than one hundred active gray cells know that when Bob says “the Chief Commander” that he is referring to God, and not to Satan. So, there’s Bob Dylan’s own explanation of why he continues to tour. Why people choose to continue to buy tickets and go see him is up to them — I think we’ve heard enough eloquent testimonies as to why they do.

Another quote from Bob that could figure into this is one he gave to Jon Pareles in the New York Times, when talking in 1997 about the writing and recording of Time Out of Mind:

“Environment affects me a great deal,” Dylan says. ”A lot of the songs were written after the sun went down. And I like storms, I like to stay up during a storm. I get very meditative sometimes, and this one phrase was going through my head: ‘Work while the day lasts, because the night of death cometh when no man can work.’ I don’t recall where I heard it. I like preaching, I hear a lot of preaching, and I probably just heard it somewhere. Maybe it’s in Psalms, it beats me. But it wouldn’t let me go. I was, like, what does that phrase mean? But it was at the forefront of my mind, for a long period of time, and I think a lot of that is instilled into this record.”

Well, I have an idea where Bob heard it. I don’t think it’s in the Book of Psalms, but rather a paraphrase of the words of Jesus from the Gospel of John, chapter 9, verse 4:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. (John 9:4, King James Version)

Is Dylan comparing himself to Jesus? Well, it would hardly be the first time! But clearly it’s a good maxim for anyone to live by. And it seems that more modern and presumably more accurate translations have that verse this way:

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. (John 9:4, English Standard Version)

Beginning with the word we effectively makes that statement into a commandment, and it seems that Bob has quite appropriately internalized it as such.

I’ve written often enough before on the ways in which Dylan, by playing his music, is ultimately doing the Lord’s work (like here) so no need to get into all that again today.

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Christopher Hitchens on Ricks, Bob Dylan and Bach


In a previous post I mentioned the writer Christopher Hitchens, who is suffering from some serious cancer, and posted a clip of an interview with him which was bookended by Bob Dylan’s song “Gates of Eden.” Thanks to Sue who responded with a note titled “The Two Christophers”:

Just recently finished Christopher Ricks’ “Dylan’s Visions of Sin” – on your recommendation. A very interesting book and, thankfully, very easy to read. I fairly raced through it. Two things i particularly liked about Ricks was firstly his unwillingness to belittle Dylan’s faith – and at the same time speak quite rightly about the hypocrisy of those who did; and his digs at the “works” of Michael Gray and his ilk. Fascinating stuff.

On the subject of Christopher Hitchens…. I too like him a lot, but tend to agree with him on a lot of things. It was a shock to see him in that clip. I hadn’t heard of his illness and the last time I saw him was looking his usual self on The Daily Show. It so happens I’m reading “Hitch-22” at the moment – and also racing through it – and found a quote regarding Christopher Ricks that may interest you.

Hitchens speaks about how, at a meeting of his school Poetry Society, he was first urged to listen to this Bob “Dillon” person and soon became hooked:

“…I’ve since had all kinds of differences with Professor Christopher Ricks, but he is and always has been correct in maintaining that Dylan is one of the essential poets of our time, and it felt right to meet him in the company of Shelley and Milton and Lowell and not in one of the record shops that were then beginning to sprout alongside the town coffee bars.”

Perhaps that explains for you the choice of music for the clip…

It’s interesting that Hitchens makes that tribute to Christopher Ricks. Professor Ricks’ book, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, got generally favorable reviews as I recall, along with some bemused ones, but Hitchens himself actually gave it a pretty brutal treatment in the Weekly Standard. I looked that review up to refresh my memory as to what bones he had to pick with it. Perusing it again, I personally think his chief problem with the book came down to not being able to take Ricks’ playful and in a way quite guileless sense of humor.

Be that as it may, in looking up that article I also came across a so-called “Proust Questionnaire” that Hitchens answered in the pages of Vanity Fair, just a few months ago (but before his cancer diagnosis — which inevitably imparts a degree of irony to some of the answers). To the question of who is his favorite musician, Hitchens answers: “J. S. Bach, Bob Dylan.” Solid choices, albeit that he’s cheating by choosing two, but I think that’s entirely appropriate in order to cover both classical and popular music.

However, his choices also raise a question, which has surely been raised before regarding these recent highly-vocal advocates for atheism (the most high-profile being Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins). The question is this: How many of them would really like to live in a world where everyone agreed with them that there was no God (or that if there was a God that he must be either evil or entirely unknowable)? It’s hard to figure what kind of music J.S. Bach and Bob Dylan would have made had they been without any belief in God (and not just in any god, but the particular God of the Bible). I have to honestly doubt that in such a scenario Johann’s and Bob’s music would have achieved that transcendent quality necessary to have earned them this selection by Christopher Hitchens as his favorite musicians on his Vanity Fair questionnaire.



Of-course many atheists or agnostics are smart enough to acknowledge this; i.e. that while they themselves may not find any reason for faith, they are grateful that many others can, not only for the value that faith has brought to things artistic, but for what it has meant for the ordering of human society, and in particular what the Judeo-Christian bedrock has meant to Western societies.

This is as opposed to those now ubiquitous voices who blame “religion” for “causing all the wars,” blindly ignoring what are by far the bloodiest death tolls of all history, which are those that came as a result of the anti-God ideologies of Communism and Nazism.

Related articles across the web

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Spirit on the Water: A Return to Paradise

Bob Dylan’s song “Spirit on the Water” from his album Modern Times has been mentioned a few times on this website. It’s difficult for this listener to hear the tune any other way but as a kind of playful love song to God, or perhaps more interestingly as a playful dialogue between the creature and the Creator. I don’t think there’s any need (and at any rate this writer doesn’t have the appetite) to go down line by line and impose a rigorous interpretation. Each time I hear the song I hear something a little different, and that’s one of the great joys of Dylan’s work, after all.

One verse that has gotten close attention here previously, however, is the penultimate verse, the lyric of which goes like this:

I wanna be with you in paradise
And it seems so unfair
I can’t go to paradise no more
I killed a man back there

This gets one thinking just because it seems wrong, or seems like a puzzle demanding to be solved. On the face of it, if the singer is talking about joining God in heaven, then why is he saying that it’s impossible for him to do it, due to the killing of a man? It is biblically pretty much beyond question that even murder does not put one beyond God’s capacity for mercy and for love (though far be it from my intention here to unduly promote the behavior). And how could the singer have killed a man in paradise, anyway?

Well, some time back, a reader named Kim wrote and suggested a really neat way of hearing this verse. She suggested that Bob might be referring to an actual Earthly place named Paradise, e.g., Paradise, Texas (pop. 459). This opens up a new and amusing interpretation; basically, this involves hearing it as a pun which the singer is making to his Creator. He’s saying, “I want to be with you in paradise,” as if making a straightforward prayer, and then comically mourning the fact that he can’t go back to Paradise (the town) because he shot a man there — something that maybe only God knows; i.e., it’s like a private joke between them. Of-course, I’m destroying all possible humor in it by spelling it out, but it fits both because we know how much Dylan loves even the silliest-seeming puns and because we also know how he enjoys Western motifs.

So that’s one way of understanding the verse.

However, another reader, recently coming across the post where that idea was discussed, suggests an alternative understanding. Thanks to Kent for his e-mail:

I saw elsewhere on your site where one reader proposed the idea that the line: “I can’t go to paradise no more; I killed a man back there…” Was referring to Paradise as a town, perhaps in Paradise, TX, etc…

May I also make another proposal: Is it possible that in said line, “Paradise” could be referring to the fleshly desires of the old man, aka sinful nature, and Mr. Dylan is saying that it seems unfair, but he can’t go to “paradise” no more (returning to the sinful nature) because he “killed a man back there,” meaning he put to death the misdeeds of his own body when he became “crucified with the Messiah,” upon his salvation through Him?

That’s a fascinating idea. I honestly think that something like it has flitted through my own mind on listening to the song, but I never stopped to put it into words for myself. The reference would be to the New Testament, and St. Paul in Romans, chapter 6. Here’s part of where he writes on the concept of “dying with Christ” beginning at verse 6 (ESV):

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.



So, with this in mind, when the singer refers to the fact that he “killed a man back there,” he’s actually referring to the death of that self which was enslaved to sin. This is very interesting and resonant indeed. The idea of paradise as a metaphor for that life enslaved to sin is not as obvious, but, on the other hand, total indulgence of one’s sinful desires can appear like a temptation of paradise. And who on this Earth isn’t sometimes guilty of mistaking paradise for that home across the road?

At a minimum, it’s another fruitful area of reflection to throw into the mix. It’s an illustration of how even the problematic or difficult-to-interpret lines in some of Dylan’s songs of faith can make their contribution simply by compelling one to ponder what they might mean.

Some might say that’s giving way too much leeway to a songwriter who is not getting across his point with sufficient clarity — but around these parts, we just call it a normal day.

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Bob Dylan Obit

There’s an exceptional article on Dylan — in particular latter day Dylan — written by Robert Roper, in an online magazine called Obit today. Thanks a lot to Karen for the link. It’s called Bob Dylan: Together Through Life.

While the Baby Boomers were busy building their ordinary lives, buying vacation homes and packing their IRA’s with ready dough, then getting foreclosed on a lot of those houses and seeing a third of the value of their pensions disappear overnight, Dylan was off somewhere shaking his head, sucking an eye-tooth, pulling at that mean little moustache he wears these days. He’s not surprised. Bad news is to be expected. Life is about harm, the collapse of hope; and then, at the very end, that unavoidable date with the Reaper. Whoopee! Thanks a lot, Bob! We needed to hear that.

Actually, many of us did, and do. When Dylan says it, it stays said. The credibility he enjoys is enormous among a certain demographic; he is the most honored American songwriter of our time, and by virtue of the prominence of American cultural product in the world, the most honored and influential songwriter on earth. Among Americans and Europeans and South Americans and Russians and South Africans and Israelis and Norwegians he enjoys the status that two centuries ago was accorded the preeminent poets – he is the Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth of our time, our Emerson, Dickinson, and Whitman, and our Auden and Neruda and Mandelstam to boot. He has fulfilled for nearly 50 years the classic functions of the seminal poet, that is, to register his times in vivid and memorable words, and to prophesy.

It’s appropriate that an unusually perceptive article about Bob would appear in a publication that is devoted (I take it) to death, from various angles. The way in which Dylan’s work has always faced up to “death’s honesty” is arguably the single most distinguishing characteristic of it, in the context of the last fifty years of pop culture. That alone has qualified it to be called prophetic.

Of-course, one can in a certain sense “face” death’s honesty and come up with nihilism — and many have done just that and still do — but another distinguishing characteristic of Dylan’s work is that this is not his conclusion. It’s not the taste left on one’s lips after consuming his songs. He once joked back in some 1960s interview that all his songs end with: “Good luck, hope you make it.” In actuality, they do. “Everything’s collapsing, the world is depraved, you can’t trust anyone, you’re gonna die … hope you make it!” The question is what making it really means.

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Follow the Light: The Heart in Bob Dylan’s Christmas

Christmas in the Heart Bob Dylan

(Warning: Contains spoilers for those who still believe in Santa Claus)

Bob Dylan’s album Christmas In the Heart struck me both strongly and delightfully upon the very first listen, and it continues to strike me that way after many further spins. However, rather than try to make a grand case here as to why others ought to like the album (I know that some people love it and some people feel quite otherwise) I’m just going to explore why it seems to work better for me personally than most Christmas albums. I do suspect that how I have inwardly responded to it is true for quite a few others as well, whether or not they have analyzed it for themselves in the same way I do here. Continue reading “Follow the Light: The Heart in Bob Dylan’s Christmas”

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Some Good Words for Christmas

Let’s get back to some positivity around here. There have been many appreciative reviews of Christmas in the Heart, and here’s a smattering of those.

From U.S. Catholic and John Christman (yes, that’s his name, folks): Bob Dylan puts the mystery back in Christmas.

For some it’s a perplexing mess: traditional instruments, back-up singers who seem to have recently stepped out of a studio session with Patsy Cline, mention of former presidents “Nixon, Bush and Clinton” with reindeers Donner and Blitzen, and finally, Bob Dylan sings in Latin. But some may find delight where others find confusion. But when Dylan sings “Winter Wonderland” it is certainly a musical landscape filled with bizarre and strange wonders.

But with this album, Dylan has given us a little of the mystery that lies at the heart of Christmas. Childhood memories of Christmas, for many, do recall a sense of wonder. Dylan’s unexpected handling of Christmas music can remind us of the unexpected that resides at the heart of Christmas: the Incarnation. That mystery continues to perplex and delight.

This is not to say that I think Dylan intended this mystery as the central focus of his Christmas album. But, the gift of mystery or a true surprise at Christmas can be wonderful for those whose lives are burdened by hardships and the relentless mundane routine of Christmas festivities. Something new that strikes of mystery is welcome. I, for my part, had to wipe the tears from my eyes as I laughed whole heartedly at Dylan’s curious renditions.

From Detroit’s Metro Times, Bill Holdship gives us: Croakin’ around the Christmas tree.

One probably imagines blindly that a vocalist like Dylan should never croon “Do You Hear What I Hear?” or “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” — but neither rendition is at all bad, and they’re even actually kinda touching. There are parts of “Little Drummer Boy,” where he harmonizes with the choir, that are actually quite beautiful. And when he verbally croaks (literally) on other parts of the album, a true fan might simply think, “Well, that’s Bob!” and be kinda touched by that as well. He’s never been a traditional “singer,” but he’s almost always been able to “sell” a song.

[…]

What almost no one mentions about this album, though, is its great production, once again by Dylan under his “Jack Frost” pseudonym. Musically, it sounds just like those albums baby boomers of a certain age certainly, but I’d imagine most Americans in general, grew up hearing every year around this time, right down to the female backing singers. You could almost substitute Bob’s voice with Andy Williams’; that’s how authentic it sounds. Bottom line: You may very well hate this album, especially if you’re not a fan of Christmas music or Bob Dylan. But if you are a fan, you may think that — even though it’s one of the most inconsequential albums of Dylan’s career — it’s still pretty damn good … and a total hoot on top of it all.

From Douglas Newman in Houston’s Culture Map, we have: Isn’t it ironic? Dylan surprises again with holiday CD.

Surreal? That’s an understatement. A colossal miscalculation on par with the “Self Portrait” debacle of 1970? Not even close. While it certainly confirms his Colbert-sized testicles and a penchant for sly humor, more than anything else it solidifies his standing as a master stylist whose interpretive skills nearly match his songwriting acumen.

Once I got over the initial shock of hearing Dylan in such a warm and fuzzy setting, I soon realized that his haggard croak and simple arrangements added new life to these old chestnuts. “Silver Bells” is rendered as a stately waltz with an underpinning of pedal steel and Dylan’s overly-deliberate delivery. “Little Drummer Boy” marches along at a mellow pace, nudged forward by a haunting guitar reverb and steady drum roll, all of which is layered beneath Dylan’s vocal and the harmonies of a female back up singer. You can almost envision this song sitting alongside some of the darker tracks on “Oh Mercy” or “Time Out of Mind.”

I like how both of the reviewers above give props to Dylan’s production and to the musicians and vocalists on the album. Too many articles I’ve seen (written by people who’ve never made records themselves) have been dismissive of these elements, as if making the album sound like it does was effortless for all involved. No: it only sounds effortless.

From Cross Rhythms, Darren Hirst says a lot including this:

The first track, “Here Comes Santa Claus”, tells us a lot about where this album is going. The backing vocalists and Dylan’s lead vocal are hopelessly at odds. The backing vocalists sound like they’ve stepped out of another era. Imagine a pre-second world war vocal group who have not aged and who have not been effected by any musical ideas that have washed up on the world’s shores since that time. That is what you have here. Dylan, by contrast, sounds every bit of his 68 years and every bit an old blues singer who has been on the road for ever. There is a line on Dylan’s previous album about him having the blood of the land in his voice. You can hear here what he means by that sentiment. He sounds as old as the earth.

Also the childishness of the song, a real appreciation of the sentimentality of the holidays and the true meaning of Christmas come face-to-face in another clash of ideas: “Peace on earth will come to all/If we just follow the light/Let’s give thanks to the Lord above/.Because Santa Claus comes tonight.” On one hand, it might seem ridiculous but on the other it might actually work. I think it might depend on how much you like Christmas songs and how much you can tolerate Dylan’s voice.

That sense of three things coming together is all over this album – right down to its design.

We could go on forever here. And certainly, for every positive and appreciative review you can find a completely flummoxed and negative one, but that’s to be expected. I think all in all Dylan ought to be pretty happy with the press.

Currently in the U.S. charts Billboard has it at number 1 … in the category of “Folk Albums;” number 21 in “Holiday Albums” (where it originally entered at number 1); number 24 under “Rock Albums,” and number 95 overall on the main album chart.

With some gift copies that I have yet to buy (and I know I’m not alone), I would expect its sales are going to pick up further towards December 25th …

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Bob Dylan talks to Bill Flanagan about Christmas In The Heart

Just as there is no distance in the performances on Christmas In The Heart, there is little to wonder about in the conversation Bob Dylan has with Bill Flanagan, published by the North American Street Newspaper Association.

BF: You really give a heroic performance of O’ LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM The way you do it reminds me a little of an Irish rebel song. There’s something almost defiant in the way you sing, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” I don’t want to put you on the spot, but you sure deliver that song like a true believer.

BD: Well, I am a true believer.

BF: You know, some people will think that Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album is meant to be ironic or a put-on. This sounds to me like one of the most sincere records you’ve ever made. Did anybody at your record company or management resist the idea?

BD: No it was my record company who compelled me to do it.

BF: Why now?

BD: Well, it just came my way now, at this time. Actually, I don’t think I would have been experienced enough earlier anyway.

BF: Some critics don’t seem to know what to make of this record. Bloomberg news said, “Some of the songs sound ironic. Does he really mean have yourself a Merry Little Christmas?” Is there any ironic content in these songs?

BD: No not at all. Critics like that are on the outside looking in. They are definitely not fans or the audience that I play to. They would have no gut level understanding of me and my work, what I can and can’t do – the scope of it all. Even at this point in time they still don’t know what to make of me.

[…]

BF: The Chicago Tribune felt this record needed more irreverence. Doesn’t that miss the point?

BD: Well sure it does, that’s an irresponsible statement anyway. Isn’t there enough irreverence in the world? Who would need more? Especially at Christmas time.

[…]

BF: Why did you pick Feeding America, Crisis UK and The World Food Program to give the proceeds of this record to?

BD: Because they get food straight to the people. No military organization, no bureaucracy, no governments to deal with.

[…]

BF: Do you have a favorite Christmas album?

BD: Maybe the Louvin Brothers. I like all the religious Christmas albums. The ones in Latin. The songs I sang as a kid.

BF: A lot of people like the secular ones.

BD: Religion isn’t meant for everybody.

Read it all, of-course.

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Dylan and Dion

On the current tour, Bob Dylan’s shows have not included an opening act. That will change for the final three (or four?) nights of the tour in New York City. The opening act on those nights will be the artist concisely known as Dion. Most famous for his big 1960s hits The Wanderer and Runaround Sue, he’s had an active career in music since 1957. He is a New Yorker, born in the Bronx in 1939 as Dion DiMucci.

Why the addition of an opening act for these New York shows, and why Dion? Who knows? However, one can’t help noticing a few interesting and sometimes poignant intersections and coincidences between the lives and careers of Dion and Dylan.

Dion (with his group the Belmonts) was part of the Winter Dance Party tour along with Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. The young Bobby Zimmerman saw their show on January 31st at the Duluth Armory. Three days later, as we know, the plane carrying those other artists crashed and they all were lost. Dion had declined to travel to the next gig by air, apparently thinking the $36 ticket price excessive.

Another intersection is a song: Abraham, Martin and John. Dion was the first to have a hit with the Dick Holler ballad, in 1968. Bob Dylan later performed the song in concert more than twenty times from November 1980 through June 1981.

And then there’s this: on his website, in an essay he titles “My Spiritual Journey,” Dion describes a pivotal moment in his life.

On December 14, 1979, I went out jogging, like I did every morning. It was a time when I could be alone with my thoughts — thinking about the past, thinking about the future. There was a lot going on in me then, a mid-life crisis, or something. My emotions were everywhere. In the middle of that confusion, all I could pray was “God, it would be nice to be closer to you.” That’s all it took.

I was flooded with white light. It was everywhere, inside me, outside me — everywhere. At that moment, things were different between me and God. He’d broken down the wall. Ahead of me, I saw a man with His arms outstretched. “I love you,” He said. “Don’t you know that? I’m your friend. I laid down My life for you. I’m here for you now.” I looked behind me, because I knew I’d left something behind on that road. Some part of me that I no longer wanted. Let the road have it; I didn’t need it anymore.

God changed my life that morning, and things have never been the same.

Sounds not so unlike the experience Bob has described having, doesn’t it? Dion went on to record gospel and Christian-themed music for the next several years, returning to more general material in the late 1980s.

In 1995, he recorded a Christmas album entitled Rock ‘n Roll Christmas.

As far as I can tell, it received some very good reviews and some very bad ones.

So, while I don’t know to what extent the two Mr. D’s may be on familiar terms already, it seems that they might have more than a few notes to compare backstage, or over a beer after the gig.

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Addendum: Thanks very much to Ron Radosh for emailing this additional note:

You missed one other Dylan-Dion connection. Last year, Dion released his wonderful “The Bronx in Blue” CD, of all traditional blues songs. Of course, Bob has been playing these for quite some time. Dion fingerpicks them all on acoustic guitar. I happened to hear Dion interviewed on the radio, and he said that most people don’t know, but he hung out in the Village in the 60’s, and was close to Dave Van Ronk and both took lessons from him, jammed with him etc. And as we know, Dylan too was close with Dave Van Ronk. So it is not far fetched to think that both Bob and Dion came into contact with each other at that time. Right?

Sounds good to me.

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Addendum II (11/9/2009): Thanks to Fred who emails that Dion wrote about Dylan’s influence on him in his 1988 autobio, The Wanderer. However we don’t have access to a copy or quotes at the moment, and the book is out of print.

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Addendum III (11/9/2009): And thanks to Frank for his email today:

I saw the Dylan/Paul Simon tour here in South Florida about 8 years ago. Dion lives here in Boca Raton. During the part of the show where Dylan and Simon played together Dylan said “Here’s a song by Dion … that’s him sitting right there.” Then they did the Wanderer, with Dion sitting in the fifth row. Seems clear they know each other.

Exactly right — Frank is referring to this show from September 2nd, 1999. And the review at Bob Links also refers to Dylan giving a shout-out to Dion in the audience.

I’d forgotten, but Paul Simon and Dylan performed a medley of That’ll Be The Day and The Wanderer a whole bunch of times during their tour together.

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Addendum IV (11/9/2009): And thanks to Jeff R. ( “left-wing Bobster”) for this additional angle and info:

Hello … the main connection between Dylan and Dion is that they were labelmates at Columbia in the mid-’60s. Dion’s A&R guy’s office was down the hall from John Hammond’s, and one day he heard strange music emerging from the record player down the hall… had never heard anything like that before, was drawn to it like a moth to a flame… went in and met Hammond who introduced him to the blues, proceeded to turn him on to Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and all the greats… and to new folk singer-songwriters like Dylan and Tom Paxton, making available demos of unreleased Dylan songs to him. Dion went on to record many amazing blues and folk covers, but Columbia squelched his career development in this direction as it didn’t jibe with the clean-cut pop smoothie image they wanted to maintain for him. If only he could have switched A&R reps to Hammond he might have been known as a true folk-rock pioneer. As it is, his album with backing band The Wanderers, Wonder Where I’m Bound (title song by Paxton) stands as a hint of what might have been, and later collections such as Bronx Blues (not to be confused with recent blues covers cd Bronx In Blue) and The Road I’m On brilliantly fleshed out this stage of his career with many un- or barely-released tracks. Dion’s contemporaneous Dylan covers, Farewell and Baby I’m in the Mood for You, are some of the best of their era. If he had been allowed to develop as an artist, he might never have instead developed a serious heroin habit. Though when he got clean he was ultimately vindicated, returning to the Belmonts’ original label, Laurie, to cut his self-titled folk-rock album which contained monster hit Abraham, Martin and John. Wow, I wish I could see one of those shows! Thanks for your interesting site.

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Addendum V (11/10/2009): And finally (or maybe finally) thanks once again to Fred who found a copy of Dion’s memoir at the library, and offers this quoted passage:

Dylan was another big influence on me. I’d met him once before, back at the Winter Dance Party when Bobby Vee had turned out to fill in for Buddy [Holly] the night after the crash. Vee’s keyboard player was a young kid named Zimmerman from Hibbing, just across the border in Minnesota.

He’d come a long way since then. I’m not saying anything a hundred critics haven’t said a thousand times better, but when Dylan burst on the scene, starting with his first Columbia album in ’62, it marked the clear end of one era in American music and the quick beginning of a brand-new one. Before Bob, no one dreamed you could tie the simplest melodies, the roughest arrangements, and the quickest takes together and come up with music that made everything else sound half baked. It was readily accepted at the time that the kid had no voice, but, of course, that only enhanced his mystery and appeal. It wasn’t how Dylan sang, or who was backing him up; it was what he said–his words–that stopped us all in our tracks. I fancied myself a songwriter because I could carve out a tune that caught people’s ears. With Dylan, for the first time, I knew how much more music could do. He was funny and tormented, vulnerable and guarded, mysterious and up-front, all at the same time. I wanted to be like him because he was being himself.

Eventually I got tight with Dylan’s producer at Columbia, a talented young guy named Tom Wilson. Wilson played some of the tracks Bob had been putting down in the studio and, as usual, it was awesome. Maybe I’d had my ear on the top of the charts too long, but it suddenly occurred to me that, with some players jamming behind some of those songs, he had a chance on Top Forty radio. Wilson thought it was worth a try, so he rounded up a bunch of session cats and took the tapes down to the old Columbia studios. Tom and I worked out some rock ‘n’ roll arrangements for Dylan’s folk stuff and let the musicians rip. I was right. It was totally in the pocket. Tom agreed and took the doctored songs back to Dylan. He went electric on his next album, Bringing It All Back Home. I really liked that album. Later, when I’d drop in to listen while he put his words into the razor-sharp work-outs cooked up by players like Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, I realized this guy had rock ‘n’ roll in his blood from the very beginning. It was all raw expression. Those sessions cooked.

So, we can add Dion to the list of people who got Dylan to go electric! Anyway, great stuff.

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Addendum VI (11/11/2009): A correction: Thanks to Dan H. who emails to point out that Dylan’s three shows in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Palladium did also feature opening acts, a different one each night. They were, respectively, Johnny Rivers, John Doe, and George Thorogood. (Someone else can go dig out the parallels between those artists and Dylan.)

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Christmas with the Critics

It’s past time to look at an additional smattering of reviews of Bob Dylan’s Christmas In The Heart.

Ken Tucker at WBUR says:

As is consistent with current Dylan, the album operates as a further exploration of American popular song in all its forms, no matter how uncool. In the same spirit as his satellite radio show, Christmas in the Heart contains some put-ons, some sincerity, some goofy humor and some deep dives into the mystery of what it means to celebrate the birth of Christ in both Latin and the language of kitsch.

The Salt Lake Tribune gives it a “D”, calls it “ill-conceived,” and goes on:

Dylan’s voice is a unique, interesting, compelling instrument used to best effect on his own bluesy, harrowing work. But it is, and never should be, comforting, as it strives to be here.

Further evidence of the decline of the practice of proofreading in the major media. I take it that the writer means to say that Dylan’s voice is not and never should be, comforting. As for the sentiment itself, it’s ridiculous of-course. Dylan’s voice has never been one-dimensional, and neither has his work — it’s a false dichotomy he’s attempting to create, between that which is comforting and that which is — what? — disturbing, I suppose. You can be stirred in many complex ways by Dylan’s songs and by his performances. To say that Dylan on this album is striving to be merely “comforting” with his voice is absurd. In fact it’s the unconventional and subversive nature of his singing that gives Dylan’s versions of these songs their unique quality.

A very spirited defense of Dylan’s album against various critics is that of Ian Bell in the Herald Scotland. (I’d missed this, thanks to David B. for sending me the link.)

Bob Dylan Makes Fun Record Shock. Having spent time being mistaken for Woody Guthrie, or Rimbaud, or late Picasso, or Whitman, Frost and Kerouac, you too might feel in need of a break, or even a Christmas album. So here’s more trivia: Dylan’s nom de plume/guerre when he these days produces his own albums is “Jack Frost”. You would almost think he saw Christmas In The Heart coming.

Now he sings Cahn & Holt’s “The Christmas Blues” like a man building his own bar, drink by drink. He sings a truly weird thing called “Christmas Island” (with gratuitous “aloha”) as though Ry Cooder is waiting to be invented. He sings some Latin on “Adeste Fideles”, which is funny, and claims the “arrangement” too, which is funnier.

But when the talk turns to Americana, national identity, and the sense of cultural origin and roots, someone had to say: “There has to be a Christmas record”. It’s the poetry of the mundane and heartfelt. If it also includes a saucy Betty Page nostalgia pin-up and a Leonard Freed sax-playing Santa photograph in the package, so much the better. Dylan is utterly, as William Carlos Williams had it, in the American grain. Corny, corny at Christmas, corny to make you smile, is entirely American.

Sean Wilentz (who of-course is the “BobDylan.com Historian-in-Residence”) astutely examines many of the echoes, influences and resonances audible on Christmas In The Heart.

But the most salient thing about Christmas in the Heart is how much of it consists of hits written and originally recorded in the 1940s and early 1950s—the years of Dylan’s boyhood when these songs formed a perennial American December soundscape, even for a Jewish kid. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” first appeared in the film Meet Me in St. Louis in 1944, as sung by Judy Garland. Other standards on the album come from the same era: “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” (1944) later made famous by Nat King Cole; the Andrews Sisters’ “Christmas Island” (1946); Autry’s and, later, Presley’s “Here Comes Santa Claus” (1947); and Dean Martin’s “The Christmas Blues” (1953).

It is also striking that, much as Charley Patton’s shade presides over Dylan’s superb album of 2001, Love and Theft, the benign spirit of Bing Crosby haunts Christmas in the Heart. This is not entirely surprising: After Crosby recorded “White Christmas” in 1942, he practically owned the franchise on making popular recordings of Christmas music. Still, it cannot be coincidental that, of all the Christmas material available to him, Dylan has included three of the songs most closely identified with Crosby—“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (1943), “Silver Bells” (1952), and “Do You Hear What I Hear?” (1962)—as well as other songs that were successful for Crosby, including “Here Comes Santa Claus” (written in 1947, recorded by Crosby with the Andrews Sisters in 1949), “The Christmas Song” (recorded by Crosby in 1947), and “Winter Wonderland” (written in 1934 and recorded by Crosby in 1962). In all, 13 of the 15 songs on Christmas in the Heart, including all of the carols, were also recorded by Crosby.

And there are so many reviews out there — I know I’m missing a lot of good ones, not to mention a lot of good bad ones. But even I don’t have the appetite for reading this quantity of stuff about one record. It’s a lot more rewarding and fun to listen to it. Indeed, it’s sheer pleasure for me (temporarily putting aside the too-loud mastering of the CD), and it’s really hard to erase the smile off my face from the opening notes of Here Comes Santa Claus to that great and final amen. There’s more I want to write about how I believe the album works in a way that’s quite distinct from most other Christmas albums, but that’s for another day.

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Tears of Rage: The Great Bob Dylan Audio Scandal

Modern Times Bob Dylan

Modern Times Bob Dylan

At the outset, I should say that I am no extreme hi-fi buff, in my own estimation; perhaps not even a moderate hi-fi buff. It’s well that I remember being a teenager and how intensely I enjoyed music, some of which I still listen to today, on some of the worst equipment imaginable: a monophonic compact cassette player that would eat up my precious tapes; an old portable mono phonograph with a buzzing speaker and a tendency of the arm to skip right down a perfect brand new album. Ah, my poor deprived childhood! It was a hellish effort just Continue reading “Tears of Rage: The Great Bob Dylan Audio Scandal”

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Christmas In The Heart by Bob Dylan: Coming Soon!

Bob Dylan’s Christmas album, entitled Christmas In the Heart, is to be released on October 13th. All of Bob Dylan’s American royalties on the album, “in perpetuity”, are to go to Feeding America, a charity which provides food to the needy. All of Dylan’s international royalties, in perpetuity, are to go to similar international charities. Apparently a donation equivalent to the value of four million meals has already been guaranteed for this year to Feeding America.

More details at BobDylan.com, including this:

Bob Dylan commented, “It’s a tragedy that more than 35 million people in this country alone — 12 million of those children – often go to bed hungry and wake up each morning unsure of where their next meal is coming from. I join the good people of Feeding America in the hope that our efforts can bring some food security to people in need during this holiday season.”

Christmas In The Heart will be the 47th album from Bob Dylan, and follows his worldwide chart-topping Together Through Life, released earlier this year. Songs performed by Dylan on this new album include, “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy” and “Must Be Santa.”

The phrase “Christmas in the heart” can’t help but bring to mind the words of the reformed Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ famous story, when he promises, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

However, there is also a quote attributed to a man named William T. Ellis, which includes Dylan’s title more precisely: “It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”

And there are more famous quotations on the subject of Christmas with mentions of the heart, not so surprisingly. Washington Irving said, “Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.”

And George Matthew Adams wrote, “Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years… Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart.”

In any case, Bob Dylan’s gesture is honoring all of the above sentiments. Bless you, Bob.