Amiri Baraka, a major figure in the “Black Arts” movement of the ’60s and ’70s, is dead.
He was 79 years old.
Baraka once said, “We want poems that kill.”
Wikipedia: “Rather than use poetry as an escapist mechanism, Baraka saw poetry as a weapon of action. His poetry demanded violence against those he felt were responsible for an unjust society.”
“Somebody Blew Up America”:
The New York Times wrote:
Amiri Baraka, a poet and playwright of pulsating rage, whose long illumination of the black experience in America was called incandescent in some quarters and incendiary in others, died on Thursday [January 9. 2014] in Newark. He was 79.
His death, at Beth Israel Medical Center, was confirmed by his son Ras Baraka, a member of the Newark Municipal Council. He did not specify a cause but said that Mr. Baraka had been hospitalized since Dec. 21.
Mr. Baraka was famous as one of the major forces in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which sought to duplicate in fiction, poetry, drama and other mediums the aims of the black power movement in the political arena.
Among his best-known works are the poetry collections “The Dead Lecturer” and “Transbluesency: The Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones, 1961-1995”; the play “Dutchman”; and “Blues People: Negro Music in White America,” a highly regarded historical survey.
“Black Art,” Amiri Baraka reads his poem with Sonny Murray on drums, Albert Ayler on tenor saxophone, Don Cherry on trumpet, Henry Grimes on bass, Louis Worrell on bass, for the album Sonny’s Time Now:
For the rest of the New York Times obit, head here.
Baraka was a friend of Allen Ginsberg.
Wikipedia: “In 1954, he joined the US Air Force as a gunner, reaching the rank of sergeant. After an anonymous letter to his commanding officer accusing him of being a communist led to the discovery of Soviet writings, Baraka was put on gardening duty and given a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty.[citation needed]
“The same year, he moved to Greenwich Village working initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began during this period. At the same time he came into contact with avant-garde Beat Generation, Black Mountain poets and New York School poets. In 1958 he married Hettie Cohen and founded Totem Press, which published such Beat icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Their literary magazine Yugen lasted for eight issues (1958–62). Baraka also worked as editor and critic for Kulchur (1960–65). With Diane DiPrima he edited the first twenty-five issues (1961–63) of their little magazine Floating Bear.”
A July 6, 1994 lecture by Amiri Baraka on the politics of poetics. The lecture ends with a question and answer period covering topics such as jism and jazz, grants in music, whores, hypocrisy, Bob Dylan, and Noam Chomsky.
“Dope”:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Forty-Four years ago, on January 6, 1971, according to Tim Dunn’s “The Bob Dylan Copyright Files 1962-2007,” Bob Dylan’s song “I Shall Be Free #10” was copyrighted.
What’s odd about that is that the song was written and recorded nearly six and a half years earlier. It appeared on Dylan’s fourth album, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, which was released August 8, 1964.
I guess it slipped through the cracks.
Some (Clinton Heylin for one) think this song is a throwaway. I disagree. It provides a good counterpoint to the heavier material on the album, and it contains plenty of great lines.
While it’s a humorous song, it’s also an example of Dylan beginning to move away from traditional, straightforward songwriting.
The more surreal writing of later albums (Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, John Wesley Harding) is alive and well in this song.
And it contains at least one classic Dylan line:
“I’m a poet, I know it, hope I don’t blow it.”
According to Clinton Heylin, there were some verses that Dylan chose not to record. Here’s one of them:
now malcolm x is on my trail
robert welch wants to throw me in jail
bishop sheen says i got no belief
rabbi greenbaum says I’m a thief
Below are two outtakes plus the version that’s on Another Side Of Bob Dylan.
“I Shall Be Free” (official version as it appears on Another Side of Bob Dylan), recorded June 9, 1964:
“I Shall Be Free #10” (outtake #2), recorded June 9, 1964:
“I Shall Be Free #10” (outtake), recorded June 9, 1964:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
A few days ago I did a post about books Dylan has read and appreciated. There was a lot of interest, and I thought readers would be interested in a second post with more Dylan faves.
These books are either featured on Dylan’s website, or he talks about them in his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One.
1 The White Goddess by Robert Graves
Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Invoking the poetic muse was something I didn’t know about yet. Didn’t know enough to start trouble with it, anyway. In a few years’ time I would meet Robert Graves himself in London. We went for a brisk walk around Paddington Square. I wanted to ask him about some of the things in his book, but I couldn’t remember much about it.
2 The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax
From Publishers Weekly (via Bob Dylan’s website):
Working for the Library of Congress and other cultural institutions, legendary roots-music connoisseur Lomax ( Mister Jelly Roll ) visited the Mississippi Delta with his father, folklorist John Lomax, and black folklorist Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s; with African American sociologists from Fiske University in the 1940s; and with a PBS film crew in the 1980s, researching the history of the blues in America. Addressing this wonderfully rich vein of scarcely acknowledged Americana, Lomax has written a marvelous appreciation of a region, its people and their music. Burdened early with now long-forgotten technology (500-pound recording machines, etc.) and encountering pronounced racial biases and cultural suspicions about black and white people mixing socially and otherwise, Lomax sought out those in the Delta who knew Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton and others acquainted with musicians once less well known, such as Doc Reese, young McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters), Dave Edwards, Eugene Powell and Sam Chatmon. Traveling across the South “from the Brazos bottoms of Texas to the tidewater country of Virginia,” Lomax discovers the plantations, levee camps, prisons and railroad yards where the men and women of the blues came from and the music was born. In a memoir that will take its place as an American classic, Lomax records not just his recollections but the voices of hard-working, frequently hard-drinking, spiritual people that otherwise might have been lost to readers.
3 The Blues Line by Eric Sackheim, editor
From Bob Dylan’s website:
Transcribed from 78 rpm recordings and preserved here long after many of the records have disappeared, this collection of nearly three hundred songs from more than one hundred singers celebrates the diversity of feeling and form that defines the blues. Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, Memphis Minnie, Robert Johnson, and Muddy Waters are represented with their lesser-known contemporaries—Barefoot Bill, Barbecue Bob, Bumble Bee Slim, and Black Ivory King. This complete anthology also features lyrics by Blind Blake, Victoria Spivey, Blind Willie Johnson, “Funny Paper” Smith, Texas Alexander, Lightning Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Ma Yancey, King Solomon Hill, Skip James, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Son House, Willie Brown, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White, Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes, Rev. Gary Davis, Roosevelt Sykes, Peetie Wheatstraw, Sonny Boy Williamson, Kokomo Arnold, Tampa Red, Howlin’Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Patton, and more than 100 others. Dozens of illustrations by Jonathan Shahn are included.
4 Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps by Emmett Grogan
From Bob Dylan’s website:
Ringolevio is a classic American story of self-invention by one of the more mysterious and alluring figures to emerge in the 1960s. Emmett Grogan grew up on New York City’s mean streets, getting hooked on heroin before he was in his teens, kicking the habit and winning a scholarship to a swanky Manhattan private school, pursuing a highly profitable sideline as a Park Avenue burglar, then skipping town to enjoy the dolce vita in Italy. It’s a hard-boiled, sometimes hard-to-believe, wildly entertaining tale that takes a totally unexpected turn when Grogan washes up in sixties San Francisco and becomes a leader of the anarchist group known as the Diggers. The Diggers, devoted to street theater, direct action, and distributing free food, were in the thick of the legendary Summer of Love, and soon Grogan is struggling with the naive narcissism of the hippies, the marketing of revolution as a brand, dogmatic radicals, and false prophets like tripster Timothy Leary. Above all, however, he struggles with himself.
Ringolevio is an enigmatic portrait of a man and his times to set beside Hunter S. Thompson’s stories of fear and loathing, Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night, or the recent Chronicles of Bob Dylan, who dedicated his 1978 album Street Legal to the memory of Emmett Grogan.
5 Luck and Leather by Honore de Balzac
6 Le Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac
Bob Dylan in Chronicles: I liked the French writer Balzac a log… Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. Horde your energy. That’s the secret of life. You can learn a lot form Mr.B. It’s funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk’s robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, “What does this mean?” He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious.
7 Kaddish and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
From Dylan’s website: Allen Ginsberg’s epic poem inspired by the death in 1956 of his mother Naomi.
Dylan said in 1965: I came out of the wilderness and just naturally fell in with the Beat scene, the bohemian, Be Bop crowd, it was all pretty much connected. It was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti … I got in at the tail end of that and it was magic … it had just as big an impact on me as Elvis Presley.
8 On War by Carl Von Clausewitz
From Bob Dylan’s website: Bob Dylan mentions Clausewitz on pages 41 and 45 of his Chronicles: Volume One, saying he had “a morbid fascination with this stuff,” that “Clausewitz in some ways is a prophet” and reading Clausewitz can make you “take your own thoughts a little less seriously.” Dylan says that Vom Kriege was one of the books he looked through among those he found in his friend’s personal library as a young man playing at The Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village.
9 Don Juan by Lord Byron
Bob Dylan in Chronicles: I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems to see if I could remember anything I read about in the beginning. I trained my mind to do this, had cast off gloomy habits and learned to settle myself down. I read all of Lord Byron’s Don Juan, and concentrated fully from start to finish.
10 Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues by Arnold Shaw
From Bob Dylan’s website: “The best history of R&B and all its components ever published.”
—John Hammond
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –
Bob Dylan reads, and over the years he’s read an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction. He’s name-dropped writers in his songs and in his interviews. “Ballad of a Thin Man” famously mentions F. Scott Fitzgerald:
You’ve been through all of,
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books,
You’re very well read,
It’s well known.
In “Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again,” he sings:
Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley,
With his pointed shoes and his bells,
Speaking to some French girl,
Who says she knows me well.”
Dylan spends pages of his memoir “Chronicles” talking about books and authors.
Below I’ve listed ten books that Dylan has read and appreciated. Some are featured on his website, others he’s spoken about in interviews.
In some cases I’ve included text off Dylan’s website. In others there are quotes from Dylan about the book.
1 Bound For Glory by Woody Guthrie
Bob Dylan, in “Chronicles”: I went through it from cover to cover like a hurricane, totally focused on every word, and the book sang out to me like the radio. Guthrie writes like the whirlwind and you get tripped out on the sound of the words along. Pick up the book anywhere,turn to any page and he hits the ground running. “Bound for Glory” is a hell of a book. It’s huge. Almost too big.
2 The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel “Izzy” Young by Scott Barretta
From Dylan’s website: Israel G. “Izzy” Young was the proprietor of the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The literal center of the New York folk music scene, the Center not only sold records, books, and guitar strings but served as a concert hall, meeting spot, and information kiosk for all folk scene events. Among Young’s first customers was Harry Belafonte; among his regular visitors were Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger. Shortly after his arrival in New York City in 1961, an unknown Bob Dyan banged away at songs on Young’s typewriter. Young would also stage Dylan’s first concert, as well as shows by Joni Mitchell, the Fugs, Emmylou Harris, and Tim Buckley, Doc Watson, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt.
The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel “Izzy” Young collects Young’s writing, from his regular column “Frets and Frails” for Sing Out! Magazine (1959-1969) to his commentaries on such contentious issues as copyright and commercialism. Also including his personal recollections of seminal figures, from Bob Dylan and Alan Lomax to Harry Smith and Woody Guthrie, this collection removes the rose tinting of past memoirs by offering Young’s detailed, day-by-day accounts. A key collection of primary sources on the American countercultural scene in New York City, this work will interest not only folk music fans, but students and scholars of American social and cultural history.
3 The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry by Angel Flores, editor
From Dylan’s website: Introduction by Patti Smith.
4 On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Bob Dylan on his website: “I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else’s.”
Bob Dylan in “Chronicles”: Within the first few months that I was in New York I’d lost my interest in the “hungry for kicks” hipster vision that Kerouac illustrates so well iin his book, “On the Road.” That book had been like a bible for me. Not anymore, though. I still loved the breathless, dynamic bob poetry phrases that flowed from Jack’s pen, but now, that charaacter Moriarty seemed out of place, purposeless — seemed like a character who inspired idiocy. He goes through life bumbing and grinding with a bull on top of him.
From Dylan’s website: Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On The Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “beat” and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that “set them free.” Based on Kerouac’s adventures with Neal Cassady, On The Road tells the story of two friends whose four cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naïveté and wild abandon, and imbued with Kerouac’s love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On The Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up.
5 One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding by Robert Gover
Dylan praised the book during an interview with Studs Terkel on radio station WFMT in 1963. “I got a friend who wrote a book, it’s called ‘One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding,’ it’s about this straight-A college kid, fraternity guy, and a 14-year-old negro prostitute, and it’s got two dialogues in the same book. One chapter is what he’s doing and what he does, and the next chapter is her view of him. It actually comes out and states something that’s actually true… This guy who wrote it, you can’t label him. He’s unlabelable.”
6 The Oxford Book of English Verse by Christopher Ricks, editor
From Dylan’s website: Here is a treasure-house of over seven centuries of English poetry, chosen and introduced by Christopher Ricks, whom Auden described as “exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding.” The Oxford Book of English Verse , created in 1900 by Arthur Quiller-Couch and selected anew in 1972 by Helen Gardner, has established itself as the foremost anthology of English poetry: ample in span, liberal in the kinds of poetry presented. This completely fresh selection brings in new poems and poets from all ages, and extends the range by another half-century, to include many twentieth-century figures not featured before–among them Philip Larkin and Samuel Beckett, Thom Gunn and Elaine Feinstein–right up to Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.
Here, as before, are lyric (beginning with medieval song), satire, hymn, ode, sonnet, elegy, ballad, but also kinds of poetry not previously admitted: the riches of dramatic verse by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster; great works of translation that are themselves true English poetry, such as Chapman’s Homer (bringing in its happy wake Keats’s ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’), Dryden’s Juvenal, and many others; well-loved nursery rhymes, limericks, even clerihews. English poetry from all parts of the British Isles is firmly represented–Henryson and MacDiarmid, for example, now join Dunbar and Burns from Scotland; James Henry, Austin Clarke, and J. M. Synge now join Allingham and Yeats from Ireland; R. S. Thomas joins Dylan Thomas from Wales–and Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet, writing in America before its independence in the 1770s, are given a rightful and rewarding place. Some of the greatest long poems are here in their entirety–Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’, Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, and Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’–alongside some of the shortest, haikus, squibs, and epigrams.
7 Thucydides: The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians by Thucydides (Author) , Jeremy Mynott (Translator)
Dylan in “Chronicles”: “[It’s ] A narrative which would give you the chills. It was written four hundred years before Christ and it talks about how human nature is always the enemy of anything superior. Thucydides writes about how words in his time have changed from their ordinary meaning, how actions and opinions can be altered in the blink of an eye. It’s like nothing has changed from his time to mine.”
8 Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick
From Dylan’s website: Train to Memphis was hailed on publication as the definitive biography of Elvis Presley. Peter Guralnick’s acclaimed book is the first to set aside the myths and focus on Elvis’ humanity, as it traces Elvis’ early years, from humble beginnings to unprecedented success. At the heart of the story is Elvis himself, a poor boy of great ambition and fiery musical passions, who connected with his audience and the age in a way that has yet to be duplicated.
9 The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, by Sonny Barger
Bob Dylan in the 2012 Rolling Stone interview: Look who wrote this book. [Points at coauthors’ names, Keith Zimmerman and Kent Zimmerman.] Do those names ring a bell? Do they look familiar? Do they? You wonder, “What’s that got to do with me?” But they do look familiar, don’t they? And there’s two of them there. Aren’t there two? One’s not enough? Right? [Dylan’s now seated, smiling.]
I’m going to refer to this place here. [Opens the book to a dog-eared page.] Read it out loud here. Just read it out loud into your tape recorder.
“One of the early presidents of the Berdoo Hell’s Angels was Bobby Zimmerman. On our way home from the 1964 Bass Lake Run, Bobby was riding in his customary spot – front left – when his muffler fell off his bike. Thinking he could go back and retrieve it, Bobby whipped a quick U-turn from the front of the pack. At that same moment, a Richmond Hell’s Angel named Jack Egan was hauling ass from the back of the pack toward the front. Egan was on the wrong side of the road, passing a long line of speeding bikes, just as Bobby whipped his U-turn. Jack broadsided poor Bobby and instantly killed him. We dragged Bobby’s lifeless body to the side of the road. There was nothing we could do but to send somebody on to town for help.” Poor Bobby.
10 Confessions of a Yakuza, Dr. Junichi Saga
In the 2012 Rolling Stone interview Bob Dylan was asked about some lines in songs on Love and Theft that seem to be very close to lines in Saga’s book and Dylan responded: Oh, yeah, in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It’s true for everybody, but me. I mean, everyone else can do it but not me. There are different rules for me. And as far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who’s been reading him lately? And who’s pushed him to the forefront? Who’s been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it’s so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. It’s an old thing – it’s part of the tradition. It goes way back. These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.
Seriously?
I’m working within my art form. It’s that simple. I work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It’s called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Del the Funky Homosapien says of this new album, Iler Than Most, which you can listen to below: “Lyrically ill but fun to listen to, nothing super heavy. I did the production on it as well.”
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Patti Smith was one of many who read at the 40th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading Benefit at St. Mark’s Church.
Jim Fouratt shot great video which he posted to YouTube.
Below Patti Smith reads a piece called “The List” from a book she’s currently writing — three minute excerpt:
And here are a bunch of other performances from the benefit. The last clip — Tracy Morris and Elliot Sharp — is really terrific:
Phillip Glass:
Justin Sayre:
Joseph Keckler:
Jonas Mekas:
Jennifer Bartlett:
Edwin Torres:
John Giorno:
Lenny Kaye:
Tracy Morris and Elliot Sharp:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Today being the beginning of this new year, 2014, I was thinking about songs that really get me going in the morning, songs that when I hear them, I feel an energy and I want to get things rolling. Or songs that make me laugh, or smile, or dance around the room.
Bob Dylan has quite a few of those kinda songs, and today I feature a selection of them. Enjoy.
“New Morning” always makes me smile. It’s one of Dylan’s most upbeat songs, a great way to start any day and certainly a great way to kick off the new year:
“Black Crow Blues” off Another Side of Bob Dylan starts off a bit down and out but it’s filled with Dylan’s humor. I dig his honky tonk piano the most, and there’s a drive to it that energizes me:
“Girl From the North Country” off Nashville Skyline always blows my mind because the song itself is a classic and both Dylan and Johnny Cash deliver terrific vocals. Their voices go together so well here. I always smile at the end when they trade off and repeat the line “true love of mine”:
“Country Pie,” also from Nashville Skyline, is a throwaway, but what the hell, it’s upbeat and fun and if I get this one playing in the morning no way can things go any way but right:
“Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” from Bringing It All Back Home false starts with Dylan and his producer cracking up, before Dylan launches in to a shaggy dog story that presents a surreal view of pre-Columbus America. This one nails it on so many levels:
“Romance In Durango” off Desire is a beautiful Spanish-flavored song with a great ragged vocal; this one makes me want to dance around the room:
“Please, Mrs. Henry,” from the “Basement Tapes” is so much fun. How can the new year be anything but great when music this good exists:
“Open the Door, Homer,” another crazy track from the “Basement Tapes” that is more fun than two barrels of monkeys:
“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” off Blonde On Blonde is the perfect way to end this mix of Dylan songs to start off the new year with an oomph. Dig it!
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Artists including Chuck Berry, Elvis Costello, Keith Richards and Shawn Colvin performed at the PEN New England’s first Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Awards, held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on February 26, 2012 when Chuck Berry and Leonard Cohen were honored.
Below is a video of the entire presentation, including Keith Richards and Elvis Costello performing Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” and Chuck Berry messing up “Johnny Be Good.” The video quality and sound is professional.
I’ve also included two fan clips that provide a different view. Sound is quite is quite good.
Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land”:
Short clip from a different angle:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
On September 16, 1974, Bob Dylan showed up at A&R Studios in New York for the first of the seven sessions that would produce the recordings for Blood On The Tracks.
He began by recording a version of “Up To Me,” a song that didn’t ultimately make the cut. Next up were two takes of “Tangled Up in Blue.”
And then, with just his acoustic guitar for accompaniment, Dylan recorded the first take of “If You See Her, Say Hello” — and hit a home run.
The version that ended up on the album is nothing like that first one, and it seriously misses the mark. The arrangement features a slower pace, celestial organ, and what sounds like a 12-string guitar that brings to mind the Stones’ “Lady Jane.” It doesn’t do justice to the song. Nor does Dylan’s more calculated vocal.
When you hear the first take you realize it could have helped make a really good album a great one.
The vocal he recorded the first time he played the song in the studio is perfect. There is a passion and a natural quality I hear that wasn’t repeated either on the second take he did that day, nor on the version cut at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis two and a half months later that he used.
Below you can hear that first version, followed by take two, and then the much different take that made it onto the album.
“If You See Her, Say Hello” – New York outtake which appeared on The Bootleg Series Volume 1-3:
“If You See Her, Say Hello” – Unreleased Test Pressing-
“If You See Her, Say Hello” – Released version off Blood On The Tracks:
The headline in today’s New York Times: “Bob Dylan: Musician or poet?”
I’m always happy to see Dylan written about in the New York Times. They’re no johnny-come-lately as supporters of Bob Dylan.
It was their music critic Robert Shelton who gave Dylan his first serious, high-profile review, following a performance at Gerdes Folk City in the Village, September 26, 1961.
Still, here at the end of 2013, do we really have to ask? Is Bob Dylan a poet? Would the New York Times run an essay today titled “Was Einstein a genius? Well maybe, possibly.
I guess the question bothers me because it seemed so obvious from the start. I always thought Dylan was a poet. And a rock star. And a singer. And a musician. And he was damn funny too.
I first heard Bob Dylan on the radio singing “Like a Rolling Stone” in 1965 and it knocked me sideways, it was listening to one of Picasso’s cubist masterpieces, sent me right into some other world. I was 12 years old. When I bought Highway 61 Revisited, once I got past looking at the amazing cover photo, there was a lengthy piece of writing by Dylan that was clearly (to me) a poem.
Soon enough, by the time I was 13, I was reading Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind” and e. e. cummings’ “a selection of poems” and Ginsberg’s “Howl.” If “Howl” was a poem, why not “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” or “Bob Dylan’s Dream” or “Desolation Row”?
We really don’t need the Times asking if Dylan is a poet 50 years too late.
Still, both essays in today’s Times — by Francine Prose and Dana Stevens — are worth reading (and are well written), but not because you need anyone to tell you whether or not Bob Dylan is a poet. You don’t need a weatherman, To know which way the wind blows.
John Corigliano – “Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan”:
Greil Marcus talks with composers John Corigliano and Howard Fishman at the CUNY Graduate Center about their respective projects based around the works of Bob Dylan. September 17, 2009:
– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
