Here is one of the best. In fact, there has been some interesting commentary on the song now underway here and here. Also some more commentary here. I do think Dylan is alluding to the past with an eye fixed on the world today.
UPDATE: Here is an interesting blog entry on Steve Jobs and Bob Dylan based on the new biography on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
Showing posts with label Bob Dylan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Dylan. Show all posts
Monday, November 07, 2011
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Breaking News: South Carolina Diocean Bishop Mark Lawrence targeted by 815 for "abandoning" The Episcopal Church
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| Bishop Mark Lawrence |
As The Episcopal Church descends into organizational chaos, the 815 leadership searches for a scapegoat to take the laity's mind off the little dustup. At the last House of Bishop's meeting in South America (no kidding), the former bishop of Lexington and now COO at 815 Stacy Sauls took a major PR stumble when he made a presentation to the House of Bishops calling for a Constitutional Convention before Bishop Schori leaves her post in 2015. It was met from a rather fascinating coalition of outcries by Episcopal Church social justice activists and institutionalists alike. So as that outrage has been heating up in recent weeks, what do the powers that be have to do to respond but to return to the old playbook of bread and circuses.
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| Presiding Bishop Schori |
It may be interesting to know that Mark Lawrence is a big time Bob Dylan fan. The last time I saw Bishop Lawrence we were all part of a group singing tunes from Dylan's Modern Times album while in Canterbury, the dust of Lambeth 2008 only just beginning to settle. The Dylan tunes will come in handy - that's one guy who knows what's it's like to get booed for telling the truth.
From here:
October 5, 2011
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
On Thursday, September 29, 2011, the Bishop received communication from the President of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops that “serious charges” have been made under Title IV of the Canons of The Episcopal Church. These are allegations that he has abandoned The Episcopal Church. Since several of these allegations also include actions taken by the Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, after sustained prayer and discernment, it has seemed appropriate to both the Bishop and the Standing Committee to make these allegations available to the members of the Diocese. These allegations may be found on the Diocesan website here.
Subsequently, the President of our Standing Committee, the Very Reverend Paul C. Fuener, received a letter from the Church Attorney assisting the Disciplinary Board seeking “Records maintained by the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina.” This letter may be found on our diocesan website here.
In order to understand the possible implications and to engage in corporate prayer for the diocese, I, as Bishop, have called a meeting of all our active and canonically resident clergy for this coming Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 10 a.m. —12:00 noon at the Ministry Center of St. James Episcopal Church, James Island.
Rest assured we will do all in our power to defend gospel truth and catholic order. We and the members of our Standing Committee ask your prayers for God’s guidance and wisdom.
Yours in Christ,
The Right Reverend Mark J. Lawrence
XIV Bishop of South Carolina
The Very Reverend Paul C. Fuener
President of the Standing Committee
So of course, what Dylan tune to play?
That's Thunder on the Mountain, by Bob Dylan from his album, Modern Times.
By the way, as Christopher Setiz notes, it is again the usual plan with the usual suspects. As the organizational infighting is gaining speed (the latest is that the House of Bishops isn't really a house, just a bunch of purple shirts getting together to swap howdies from time to time, bet that went over real well) the need for bread and circuses takes on a fever pitch, but we can't just put the laser beam on Bishop Lawrence all by himself, that would be so mean. So let's find a real nasty bishop, no matter that he's retired or that that other diocesan bishops might be married not once, not twice, but three times. So off we find retired Bishop Warner in the Grunge City of Seattle - okay it may be a bit odd to do the press releases for him since Bishop Warner is retired and probably thought he was just engaging in the "mutual joy of a committed, supportive, loving relationship" which is supposed to be all the rage in the Episcopal Church, well for some, not for others. Oops.
So now that Bishop Warner gets the heave-ho (and it reminds me of another bishop who divorced his wife of four decades too, but he got two thumbs up), the 815 laser beam turns to the real target. Just like last time - and in case you've forgotten what the next step is, remember this. Of course, this time they are in the land of the Swamp Fox. Might want to consider that.
UPDATE: ENS now has an article up. They take pains to say that no one from 815 was involved in the matter, but in fact the Executive Council is very much involved (having worked up a resolution in 2007 and finally telling South Carolina that it applies to them too and Bishop Lawrence responded) and Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is the President and Chair of the Executive Council and Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Bishops, is the Vice Chair. It's a strategy to have Disciplinary Board for Bishops handle it, last time Bishop Schori got into deep waters when she tried to ring up three senior bishops to take out Bishop Duncan and the majority voted no. It turned into the Bishop Schori show and obviously now that she has her own litigator on staff, they have rethought that strategy.
The part that really comes to the surface is this, "In late May, a group of South Carolina Episcopalians asked Jefferts Schori, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson and the Executive Council to investigate the diocese's actions." Does anyone think that this "group of South Carolina Episcopalians" were just sitting around Starbucks one day and said, golly, we need to write Bishop Katharine and Bonnie and tell them stuff. No - this is how "community activism" works. The community organizers initiate the action and recruit. This "group of South Carolina Episcopalians" are actually activists with "South Carolina Episcopalians," originally organized as the Episcopal Forum in South Carolina as part of the ViaMedia group, it is a progressive community action group designed to be an extension of 815's litigation strategy. Activist Melinda Lucka, who is the person designated to make the formal complaint, is with Episcopal Forum as well as the South Carolina Episcopalians.
Once Mark Lawrence is deposed, Episcopal Forum/South Carolina Episcopalians will be set up as the shadow diocese's standing committee for the litigation (i.e., Pittsburgh, Ft. Worth, San Joaquin). That's the strategy - the same strategy over and over. And 815? That's where the cash flow comes from.
By the way, you can still see minutes from the Via Media Steering Committee, September 29, 2005 here. Reading it you can see that after six years the strategy has remained the same. It still makes for interesting reading.
Obviously, this needs to be dealt with before General Convention next year because TEC will need to have in place their shadow diocese deputies to attend General Convention (can't have the media asking questions about why the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina didn't show up for General Convention- especially since the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire is having another bishop's election to replace Gene Robinson and again have timed it to require consent from General Convention - don't want to have disunity on display this time!). With the media (and hopefully Episcopalians') attention now focused on South Carolina, the growing disarray of the Episcopal Church reorganization plans and all its angst will take a back seat. Brilliant!
This means it's time for another Dylan tune. How about the masterpiece:
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Bob Dylan and other artists participate in the long-awaited album inspired by the Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
From here:
BOB DYLAN has long claimed Hank Williams as an influence and an inspiration. In his 2004 memoir, “Chronicles Volume One,” Mr. Dylan recounted his discovery of that country giant’s music in the 1950s. “I became aware that in Hank’s recorded songs were the archetype rules of poetic songwriting,” he wrote. “The architectural forms are like marble pillars.”
Mr. Dylan added that when he got word of Williams’s death at the age of 29 on New Year’s Day, 1953, the news “hit me squarely on the shoulder.”
“Intuitively I knew, though, that his voice would never drop out of sight or fade away,” he continued.
With a new project titled “The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams,” Mr. Dylan is doing his part to keep the work of one of America’s greatest songwriters — the author of classics like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Cold Cold Heart,” and “Hey Good Lookin’ ” — in the spotlight. The album collects the lyrics for a dozen unrecorded songs by Williams, set to melodies and recorded by an array of rock and country stars, including Jack White, Norah Jones, Merle Haggard and Sheryl Crow. “The Lost Notebooks” is being released on Oct. 4 on Mr. Dylan’s imprint, Egyptian Records, in conjunction with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Columbia Records. (The only previous release on Egyptian was a 1997 group tribute to the country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers.)
Artists who participated in the album, which has been in the works for almost a decade, expressed their sense of honor at being asked to complete the work of such a monumental musician. “There’s a lot of magic still left in these songs,” said Alan Jackson, who opens the album with “You’ve Been Lonesome, Too.” Ms. Jones, who sings the bluesy, melancholy “How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart,” said she found the idea behind the project “really daunting,” but that “the people who were putting it together were doing it with respect and love and creativity, and I had trust in that.”
Read it all here. Jakob Dylan also contributes to the album.
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| A page from Hank Williams' notebook. |
Mr. Dylan added that when he got word of Williams’s death at the age of 29 on New Year’s Day, 1953, the news “hit me squarely on the shoulder.”
“Intuitively I knew, though, that his voice would never drop out of sight or fade away,” he continued.
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| Bob Dylan |
Artists who participated in the album, which has been in the works for almost a decade, expressed their sense of honor at being asked to complete the work of such a monumental musician. “There’s a lot of magic still left in these songs,” said Alan Jackson, who opens the album with “You’ve Been Lonesome, Too.” Ms. Jones, who sings the bluesy, melancholy “How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart,” said she found the idea behind the project “really daunting,” but that “the people who were putting it together were doing it with respect and love and creativity, and I had trust in that.”
Read it all here. Jakob Dylan also contributes to the album.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Prairie Home Companion takes a Dylan-twist
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| Bob Dylan |
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tonight at the Cafe: Maggie's Farm
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| The former folkie Dylan at Newport. |
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| Then he plugged in and changed everything. |
The electrifying performance by Bob Dylan when he plugged in his guitar in Newport, Rhode Island in 1965, an act that shot shockwaves around the world.
Can sort of imagine Pete Seeger out looking for an ax backstage during this performance. Not exactly Kumbiyah. Who said the "Tea Party" was something new?
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Recording industry prepares to battle songwriters over their reclaiming ownership of mid-1970s recordings
Yep, that includes, you guessed it - Bob Dylan.
From here:
Since their release in 1978, hit albums like Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Billy Joel’s “52nd Street,” Kenny Rogers’ “Gambler” and Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” have generated tens of millions of dollars for record companies. But thanks to a little-noted provision in U.S. copyright law, those artists — and thousands more — now have the right to reclaim ownership of their recordings, potentially leaving the labels out in the cold.
When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted “termination rights,” which allow them to regain control of their work after 35 years, so long as they apply at least two years in advance.
Recordings from 1978 are the first to fall under the purview of the law, but in a matter of months, hits from 1979, like “The Long Run” by the Eagles and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, will be in the same situation — and then, as the calendar advances, every other master recording once it reaches the 35-year mark.
The provision also permits songwriters to reclaim ownership of qualifying songs. Bob Dylan has already filed to regain some of his compositions, as have other rock, pop and country performers like Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and Charlie Daniels, according to records on file at the U.S. Copyright Office.
“In terms of all those big acts you name, the recording industry has made a gazillion dollars on those masters, more than the artists have,” said Don Henley, a founder both of the Eagles and the Recording Artists Coalition, which seeks to protect performers’ legal rights. “So there’s an issue of parity here, of fairness. This is a bone of contention, and it’s going to get more contentious in the next couple of years.”
With the recording industry reeling from plummeting sales, termination rights claims could be another serious financial blow. Sales plunged to about $6.3 billion from $14.6 billion over the decade that ended in 2009, in large part because of unauthorized downloading of music on the Internet, especially of new releases, which has left record labels disproportionately dependent on sales of older recordings in their catalogs.
“This is a life-threatening change for them, the legal equivalent of Internet technology,” said Kenneth Abdo, a lawyer who leads a termination rights working group for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and has filed claims for some of his clients, who include Kool and the Gang.
As a result the four major record companies — Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner — have made it clear that they will not relinquish recordings they consider their property without a fight.
“We believe the termination right doesn’t apply to most sound recordings,” said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group in Washington that represents the interests of record labels.
As the record companies see it, the master recordings belong to them in perpetuity, rather than to the artists who wrote and recorded the songs, because, the labels argue, the records are “works for hire,” compilations created not by independent performers but by musicians who are, in essence, their employees.
Independent copyright experts, however, find that argument unconvincing. Not only have recording artists traditionally paid for the making of their records themselves, with advances from the record companies that are then charged against royalties, they are also exempted from both the obligations and benefits an employee typically expects.
“This is a situation where you have to use your own common sense,” said June Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at the Columbia University School of Law. “Where do they work? Do you pay Social Security for them? Do you withdraw taxes from a paycheck? Under those kinds of definitions it seems pretty clear that your standard kind of recording artist from the ’70s or ’80s is not an employee but an independent contractor.”
From here:
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| Bob Dylan |
When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted “termination rights,” which allow them to regain control of their work after 35 years, so long as they apply at least two years in advance.
Recordings from 1978 are the first to fall under the purview of the law, but in a matter of months, hits from 1979, like “The Long Run” by the Eagles and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, will be in the same situation — and then, as the calendar advances, every other master recording once it reaches the 35-year mark.
The provision also permits songwriters to reclaim ownership of qualifying songs. Bob Dylan has already filed to regain some of his compositions, as have other rock, pop and country performers like Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and Charlie Daniels, according to records on file at the U.S. Copyright Office.
“In terms of all those big acts you name, the recording industry has made a gazillion dollars on those masters, more than the artists have,” said Don Henley, a founder both of the Eagles and the Recording Artists Coalition, which seeks to protect performers’ legal rights. “So there’s an issue of parity here, of fairness. This is a bone of contention, and it’s going to get more contentious in the next couple of years.”
With the recording industry reeling from plummeting sales, termination rights claims could be another serious financial blow. Sales plunged to about $6.3 billion from $14.6 billion over the decade that ended in 2009, in large part because of unauthorized downloading of music on the Internet, especially of new releases, which has left record labels disproportionately dependent on sales of older recordings in their catalogs.
“This is a life-threatening change for them, the legal equivalent of Internet technology,” said Kenneth Abdo, a lawyer who leads a termination rights working group for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and has filed claims for some of his clients, who include Kool and the Gang.
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| Tom Petty and Bob Dylan seek ownership of songs. |
“We believe the termination right doesn’t apply to most sound recordings,” said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group in Washington that represents the interests of record labels.
As the record companies see it, the master recordings belong to them in perpetuity, rather than to the artists who wrote and recorded the songs, because, the labels argue, the records are “works for hire,” compilations created not by independent performers but by musicians who are, in essence, their employees.
Independent copyright experts, however, find that argument unconvincing. Not only have recording artists traditionally paid for the making of their records themselves, with advances from the record companies that are then charged against royalties, they are also exempted from both the obligations and benefits an employee typically expects.
“This is a situation where you have to use your own common sense,” said June Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at the Columbia University School of Law. “Where do they work? Do you pay Social Security for them? Do you withdraw taxes from a paycheck? Under those kinds of definitions it seems pretty clear that your standard kind of recording artist from the ’70s or ’80s is not an employee but an independent contractor.”
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan!
Today is Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday - and of course, all of us here a the Cafe are celebrating! Happy Birthday!
And here is a performance from the Rolling Thunder Tour, circa 1974-75. The song, Tangled Up on Blue, reflects on his life from his major works, Blood on the Tracks.
Oh, but he was so much older then, he's younger than that now.
Here's a fun - even charming - jamming session from 1999 from the television series Dharma & Greg. Enjoy!
Here is an interesting tour of Greenwich Village where Dylan lived in the early 60s:
And the first public performance of Blowin' in the Wind:
Here are some cool links to read up - and take a fun trivia test!
Tangled Up In Trivia: Are you a true Dylan fan? Take this 30 question quiz to find out. (Rolling Stone)
Busy Being Born: Read a tribute to Dylan that discusses what his music owes to his fans. (Slate)
I know I've Seen That Face Somewhere: See pictures from behind the scenes of Dylan's first electric tour of Europe in 1966. (TIME)
Hey, Hey Woody Guthrie: See pictures of people mentioned in Dylan's songs. (LIFE)
I Had to Say Something to Strike Him Very Weird: The AV Club rounds up some of Dylan's stranger moves. (AV Club)
How Does It Feel: You know Things Have Changed when Dylan graces the cover of AARP Magazine. (AARP)
Politician Got On His Jogging Shoes: Watch Rep. Joseph Crowley take a page out of Dylan's book. (The Daily What)
Talkin' New York Town: "I swung onto my old guitar/Grabbed hold of a subway car/And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride/I landed up on the downtown side/Greenwich Village." Watch a walking tour of Dylan's former stomping grounds: (TIME)
Here's a cool video of Dylan through the years:
And a fun surprise for an audience with David Crosby and the Byrds:
and finally, these songs are making a big comeback, finally, finally, finally ...
And here is a performance from the Rolling Thunder Tour, circa 1974-75. The song, Tangled Up on Blue, reflects on his life from his major works, Blood on the Tracks.
Oh, but he was so much older then, he's younger than that now.
Here's a fun - even charming - jamming session from 1999 from the television series Dharma & Greg. Enjoy!
Here is an interesting tour of Greenwich Village where Dylan lived in the early 60s:
And the first public performance of Blowin' in the Wind:
Here are some cool links to read up - and take a fun trivia test!
Tangled Up In Trivia: Are you a true Dylan fan? Take this 30 question quiz to find out. (Rolling Stone)
Busy Being Born: Read a tribute to Dylan that discusses what his music owes to his fans. (Slate)
I know I've Seen That Face Somewhere: See pictures from behind the scenes of Dylan's first electric tour of Europe in 1966. (TIME)
Hey, Hey Woody Guthrie: See pictures of people mentioned in Dylan's songs. (LIFE)
I Had to Say Something to Strike Him Very Weird: The AV Club rounds up some of Dylan's stranger moves. (AV Club)
How Does It Feel: You know Things Have Changed when Dylan graces the cover of AARP Magazine. (AARP)
Politician Got On His Jogging Shoes: Watch Rep. Joseph Crowley take a page out of Dylan's book. (The Daily What)
Talkin' New York Town: "I swung onto my old guitar/Grabbed hold of a subway car/And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride/I landed up on the downtown side/Greenwich Village." Watch a walking tour of Dylan's former stomping grounds: (TIME)
Here's a cool video of Dylan through the years:
And a fun surprise for an audience with David Crosby and the Byrds:
and finally, these songs are making a big comeback, finally, finally, finally ...
Friday, May 20, 2011
Nine Questions
#7 of the Rolling Stone Readers Picks of the their favorite Bob Dylan songs. Rolling Stone writes:
The song that first branded Dylan a prophet asks nine questions and answers none of them. A rewrite of the anti-slavery spiritual "No More Auction Block," Dylan claimed to have knocked out this meditation on humanity’s inhumanity in 10 minutes. The version of the song most people heard in 1963 wasn’t Dylan's – it was Peter, Paul and Mary's cover, which hit Number Two on the pop chart. But in any version, the words are so simple, it sounds like they'd been handed down from the sky on stone tablets. "It’s absolutely wonderful writing," says Merle Haggard. "It was timely then and is still timely today."
You can read the article and hear the pieces here.
And the Tenth Question ...
Number One however is not a big surprise - oh yes, Dylan did do that one in China. He always does that one in concert. Rolling Stone calls it the single greatest song of all time. And it rocks at the Dylan's concerts, when the lights come up and the audience sings along asking perhaps a bigger question then all nine asked in Blowin in the Wind (and a question that, you may remember, even Spock couldn't answer in The Voyage Home), especially when it drips with his signature sarcasm that no doubt is aimed - like so many of his greatest songs are as well - at himself.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Breaking News: Bob Dylan writes a letter
Bob Dylan today released a letter to his "fans and followers" regarding news stories that erroneously circulated that he had somehow been "censored" at his concerts in China. This is a very rare event for him to speak publicly - and he signs off with his signature wit. Here is his letter:
So on this note, here's a inventive video for Dylan's Mostly Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine from the landmark Blonde on Blonde.
Rolling Stone writes about the letter:
We had our own thoughts on Ms. Dowd's column here. Never thought we'd see both Maureen Dowd and NT Wright hitting their mid-air motorbikes in the same year.
Allow me to clarify a couple of things about this so-called China controversy which has been going on for over a year. First of all, we were never denied permission to play in China. This was all drummed up by a Chinese promoter who was trying to get me to come there after playing Japan and Korea. My guess is that the guy printed up tickets and made promises to certain groups without any agreements being made. We had no intention of playing China at that time, and when it didn't happen most likely the promoter had to save face by issuing statements that the Chinese Ministry had refused permission for me to play there to get himself off the hook. If anybody had bothered to check with the Chinese authorities, it would have been clear that the Chinese authorities were unaware of the whole thing.
We did go there this year under a different promoter. According to Mojo magazine the concerts were attended mostly by ex-pats and there were a lot of empty seats. Not true. If anybody wants to check with any of the concert-goers they will see that it was mostly Chinese young people that came. Very few ex-pats if any. The ex-pats were mostly in Hong Kong not Beijing. Out of 13,000 seats we sold about 12,000 of them, and the rest of the tickets were given away to orphanages. The Chinese press did tout me as a sixties icon, however, and posted my picture all over the place with Joan Baez, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The concert attendees probably wouldn't have known about any of those people. Regardless, they responded enthusiastically to the songs on my last 4 or 5 records. Ask anyone who was there. They were young and my feeling was that they wouldn't have known my early songs anyway.
As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play.
Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.
-Bob Dylan
So on this note, here's a inventive video for Dylan's Mostly Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine from the landmark Blonde on Blonde.
Rolling Stone writes about the letter:
In an unprecedented move, Bob Dylan posted a message on his official website this morning addressing the controversy surrounding his concerts in China last month. Unconfirmed reports had circulated that Dylan had allowed the Chinese government to censor his setlist.
Some pundits took shots at Dylan over the allegations, particularly New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. "The idea that the raspy troubadour of ’60s freedom anthems would go to a dictatorship and not sing those anthems is a whole new kind of sellout," she wrote in a widely mocked column. "Even worse than Beyoncé, Mariah and Usher collecting millions to croon to Qaddafi’s family, or Elton John raking in a fortune to serenade gay-bashers at Rush Limbaugh’s fourth wedding."
She went on to chastise him for not playing "Hurricane" (which he hasn't played anywhere since 1976) and wrote that Dylan "sang his censored set, took his pile of Communist cash and left."
We had our own thoughts on Ms. Dowd's column here. Never thought we'd see both Maureen Dowd and NT Wright hitting their mid-air motorbikes in the same year.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Maureen Dowd Jumps the Shark
And Maureen Dowd now seems to be right up there with them. If she could, she might have been seen backstage in Beijing last week with her own fire ax pushing the hapless Pete Seeger aside so she can chop the Beijing cables herself.
Bob Dylan is consistently turned into a blank canvas for each successive generation so that when they heave their own cultural paint onto him, they then whine when it doesn't stick.
Here in this article she throws a tantrum because her canvas of Dylan was all wrong - wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong - and then blames him for it! Does she not know? Has she not heard? He doesn't do "finger-pointing" songs. He told them all to take that job and stuff it and that started when? Why, in 1963. Was anybody listening? And no, he hasn't sung Hurricane in decades. The last time he did, he had painted his own face for them. Yes, the erstwhile aging hippies do pop up at his concerts from time to time, shouting Hurricane over and over and no, he doesn't even blink an eye.
He rarely does Blowin' in the Wind either and when he does you find yourself passing folks after the show like I did at the Merriweather Post Pavilion a few years back asking one another in bewilderment if he had actually sung, Blowin' in the Wind that night, and when told that he had indeed, they comment, "He did?" If Maureen Dowd wasn't so busy revving up her motorcycle for the big jump, she might have paused last year when Dylan did offer one of his rare performances of The Times They Are Changin' at the White House of all places, while a majority in the room seemed rather stunned that he had turned their defiant anthem of self righteous contempt into a wry and somewhat regretful lament that seemed to say (and who can say for sure?) well, you know, may be we were all young and stupid after all.
So in honor of this forty-years-too-late-shark-jumping-tantrum (did she even see the playlist from the Beijing show where he opened with Gonna Change My Way of Thinking?), we offer this little selection that won him the Oscar (which in his winking way is now not so serendipitously ducktaped to his on-stage amp) and hope that someone somewhere will find the poor lady a binky.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Bob Dylan goes to China
From here:
Read it all here. Tip of the Tinfoil to BL.
UPDATE: Dylan has finished his debut concert in China. LiveBlogging was here. Thrilled of course to see he played It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The Telegraph LiveBlog reported that he sang Gotta Serve Somebody, but that does not appear on the setlist from the ever-faithful, ever-diligent BobLinks. Can a theme be detected from the setlist? Such things are highly subjective (who knows whether he just plays a form of Refrigerator Poetry with his songs before printing out the setlist?). We see - from the very first opening song, themes of change, of turning away from the past, but not necessarily toward a glorious future either. He mixes his old with his new, including Beyond Here Lies Nothing. What is of note is that he does two encores - something I haven't seen him do in recent memory.
Here is the setlist:
Here is a photo from tonight's (China time) performance:
Time Magazine was also on hand at the concert and writes:
Time takes a crack at interpreting his setlist, but again through the lens that he is a "protest" artist, which of course, Joan Baez pointed out he was not in Martin Scorsese documentary, No Direction Home. She remembered how people would come up to her during the 60s protest years and asked where Bob was and over and over again she'd have to say, he's not coming, he never comes. What I find interesting in the setlist is that he doesn't look forward to some glorious future here on earth either - so much for the joys of revolution.
Love it that It's All Over Now, Baby Blue got through the censors. That just sort of makes one day. Obliviously the Chinese censors haven't got a clue. The folkies in Newport got it in 1966, but not so the Beijing officials who reportedly packed 2,000 minders into the concert. And so we shall dedicate this performance to them. Because we can.
Here is the opening statement from a fascinating press conference held prior to Bob Dylan's concert scheduled for April 10th in Vietnam.
You can see the entire three-video press conference here.
UPDATE: Cafe friend Sean Curnyn over at Cinch Review writes this gem regarding the press stories that Dylan has had to submit his lyrics before his setlist is approved for public performance in both China and his upcoming concert in Vietnam. Sean writes:
Perhaps they can shed some light on Visions of Johanna. Or perhaps not. Read all of Sean's post here.
NOTE: By the way, Dylan opened his first China concert with Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, a bold bold thing to do. Here are the lyrics:
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools
So much oppression
Can’t keep track of it no more
So much oppression
Can’t keep track of it no more
Sons becoming husbands to their mothers
And old men turning young daughters into whores
Stripes on your shoulders
Stripes on your back and on your hands
Stripes on your shoulders
Stripes on your back and on your hands
Swords piercing your side
Blood and water flowing through the land
Well don’t know which one is worse
Doing your own thing or just being cool
Well don’t know which one is worse
Doing your own thing or just being cool
You remember only about the brass ring
You forget all about the golden rule
You can mislead a man
You can take ahold of his heart with your eyes
You can mislead a man
You can take ahold of his heart with your eyes
But there’s only one authority
And that’s the authority on high
I got a God-fearing woman
One I can easily afford
I got a God-fearing woman
One I can easily afford
She can do the Georgia crawl
She can walk in the spirit of the Lord
Jesus said, “Be ready
For you know not the hour in which I come”
Jesus said, “Be ready
For you know not the hour in which I come”
He said, “He who is not for Me is against Me”
Just so you know where He’s coming from ...
B. Dylan 1979
You can hear an excerpt from the original recording at BobDylan.com here. Bob Dylan performs in Shanghai on Friday.
Bob Dylan will make his debut in China tomorrow, starting with a sell-out concert in Beijing followed by a gig in Shanghai on Friday.
It may be that Dylan has some way to go to win mass popularity in China, though. When the Xinmin Evening News, one of Shanghai's most-read newspapers, wrote a story previewing his concert, they inadvertently used a picture of Willie Nelson.
"In China, maybe many people have heard of Dylan, but not many really know who he is," said Zhang Xiaozhou, a Beijing music critic.
Dylan, whose first attempt to come to China last year was reportedly vetoed by the culture ministry, is being brought in by concert promotion giants Live Nation.
Dylan, who turns 70 in May, will play his first mainland show at the Workers' Gymnasium of Beijing, followed by another at Shanghai Grand Stage on 8th April.
Read it all here. Tip of the Tinfoil to BL.
Here is the setlist:
| 1. | Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on lap steel) |
| 2. | It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob on guitar, Donnie on pedal steel) |
| 3. | Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (Bob on guitar, Donnie on trumpet) |
| 4. | Tangled Up In Blue (Bob center stage on harp, Donnie on pedal steel, Stu on acoustic guitar) |
| 5. | Honest With Me (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on lap steel) |
| 6. | Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob on guitar, Donnie on pedal steel) |
| 7. | Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Bob on guitar, Donnie on pedal steel) |
| 8. | Love Sick (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on electric mandolin) |
| 9. | Rollin' And Tumblin' (Bob on keyboard) |
| 10. | A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on electric mandolin) |
| 11. | Highway 61 Revisited (Bob on center stage on harp then keyboard, Donnie on lap steel) |
| 12. | Spirit On The Water (Bob on keyboard and harp, Donnie on pedal steel, Tony on standup bass) |
| 13. | Thunder On The Mountain (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on lap steel) |
| 14. | Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob center stage on harp, Donnie on lap steel) |
| (1st encore) | |
| 15. | Like A Rolling Stone (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on pedal steel) |
| 16. | All Along The Watchtower (Bob on keyboard then guitar, Donnie on lap steel) |
| (2nd encore) | |
| 17. | Forever Young (Bob on keyboard and harp, Donnie on pedal steel) |
Here is a photo from tonight's (China time) performance:
After 50 years of performing, Bob Dylan finally received a stamp of approval from the Chinese Culture Ministry and made his first Chinese stage appearance in Beijing Wednesday.
Dylan, who has been refused and had Chinese tour dates canceled in the past, played under a stipulation that he only performed approved content. In front of a 5,000-person crowd at the Worker's Gymnasium, the 69-year old singer-songwriter croaked out a 17-song set list that mixed modern and vintage pieces, ranging from the hugely popular to the virtually unknown. Highlighting the performance were famous hits "Like a Rolling Stone," "Tangled Up In Blue" and "All Along the Watchtower."
Love it that It's All Over Now, Baby Blue got through the censors. That just sort of makes one day. Obliviously the Chinese censors haven't got a clue. The folkies in Newport got it in 1966, but not so the Beijing officials who reportedly packed 2,000 minders into the concert. And so we shall dedicate this performance to them. Because we can.
Here is the opening statement from a fascinating press conference held prior to Bob Dylan's concert scheduled for April 10th in Vietnam.
You can see the entire three-video press conference here.
UPDATE: Cafe friend Sean Curnyn over at Cinch Review writes this gem regarding the press stories that Dylan has had to submit his lyrics before his setlist is approved for public performance in both China and his upcoming concert in Vietnam. Sean writes:
Dylan plays in Vietnam on April 10th, and this Voice of America article states:
As with other concerts here, Vietnamese authorities required Dylan to submit the lyrics of songs he plans to perform for review.I can’t help wondering how Dylan went about this, both for the Vietnamese and the Chinese authorities. Did he just send them a copy of his book, Lyrics: 1962-2001? Of course, that would leave out his most recent songs, but they could have been printed out and appended.
The mental image of these communist bureaucrats going through all of those songs, trying to figure them out, is an oddly pleasant one.
Perhaps they can shed some light on Visions of Johanna. Or perhaps not. Read all of Sean's post here.
NOTE: By the way, Dylan opened his first China concert with Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, a bold bold thing to do. Here are the lyrics:
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools
So much oppression
Can’t keep track of it no more
So much oppression
Can’t keep track of it no more
Sons becoming husbands to their mothers
And old men turning young daughters into whores
Stripes on your shoulders
Stripes on your back and on your hands
Stripes on your shoulders
Stripes on your back and on your hands
Swords piercing your side
Blood and water flowing through the land
Well don’t know which one is worse
Doing your own thing or just being cool
Well don’t know which one is worse
Doing your own thing or just being cool
You remember only about the brass ring
You forget all about the golden rule
You can mislead a man
You can take ahold of his heart with your eyes
You can mislead a man
You can take ahold of his heart with your eyes
But there’s only one authority
And that’s the authority on high
I got a God-fearing woman
One I can easily afford
I got a God-fearing woman
One I can easily afford
She can do the Georgia crawl
She can walk in the spirit of the Lord
Jesus said, “Be ready
For you know not the hour in which I come”
Jesus said, “Be ready
For you know not the hour in which I come”
He said, “He who is not for Me is against Me”
Just so you know where He’s coming from ...
B. Dylan 1979
You can hear an excerpt from the original recording at BobDylan.com here. Bob Dylan performs in Shanghai on Friday.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Bob Dylan slated to perform at Grammy Awards
 |
| Bob Dylan will perform at the 2011 Grammy Awards. |
Read more about it here.
Here is a video of Bob Dylan receiving the Album of the Year Award for his masterpiece album, Time Out of Mind (1997).
Monday, January 24, 2011
Fifty Years Ago Today
With that in mind, we play this early recording from 1961 recorded four months after Dylan's arrival at the Indian Neck Folk Festival of Woody Guthrie's Slipnot.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
And now a word from our sponsor ...
This song, here covered by Adele, has taken off recently. Written by Bob Dylan, on first glance it appears to be a simple love song - and it is. But of course, being Dylan, it goes deeper as it comes from his great album, Time Out of Mind. It's not hard to imagine the Lord himself sings this to you. Because He does.
When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love
When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love
I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I’ve known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong
I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love
The storms are raging on the rollin’ sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet
I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love
B. Dylan
Dylan Update: Bob Dylan Signs Six-Book Deal
Dylan told Rolling Stone in a 2006 interview that "he was stunned by the overwhelmingly positive response to the first volume of Chronicles. "The reviews of this book, some of 'em almost made me cry - in a good way," Dylan said. "I'd never felt that from a music critic, ever ..."
In 2006 Dylan told Rolling Stone about his possible plans for Chronicles: Volume 2:
"I think I can go back to the Blonde on Blonde album — that's probably about as far back as I can go on the next book," he said. "Then I'll probably go forward. I thought of an interesting time. I made this record, Under the Red Sky, with Don Was, but at the same time I was also doing the [second] Wilburys record. I don't know how it happened that I got into both albums at the same time. I worked with George [Harrison] and Jeff [Lynne] during the day — everything had to be done in one day, the track and the song had to be written in one day, and then I'd go down and see Don Was, and I felt like I was walking into a wall. He'd have a different band for me to play with every day, a lot of all-stars, for no particular purpose. Back then I wasn't bringing anything at all into the studio, I was completely disillusioned."No official word from Bob Dylan yet so stay tuned!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Wednesday at the Cafe: Not Dark Yet
Thursday, November 18, 2010
At the Cafe: Ballad of a Thin Man
Last Saturday night Bob Dylan ended his initial set (before the traditional encore with the standard favorites) with this particular song originally from his album Highway 61 Revisited. This version is from his landmark 1966 Tour of England.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Monday, November 08, 2010
Late Night at the Cafe: Love Rescue Me
Bob Dylan with U2 on a song written by Dylan and Bono. We're doing a long-distance dedication to the leadership on both sides of the divide in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. Love rescue us all.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Bob Dylan's America
Princeton professor Sean Wilentz, author of The Age of Reagan and The Rise of American Democracy has a new book: Bob Dylan in America. Time Magazine writes, that Prof. Wilentz "traces Dylan's influences across wide swaths of 20th-century history and culture — from the socialist movement of the 1930s to Bing Crosby's Christmas carols — to explore his place in America, and America's place in his music."
From Time Magazine:
From Time Magazine:
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