Bob Dylan Song #13: See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

So here we are, the end of the line, the final song of Bob Dylan's debut album, and it's this classic blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson. I'd mentioned in the last post that I really thought "Song for Woody" should have closed things out, and I think that if Dylan was a little more established it would have (although, come to think of it, if Dylan was more established, he wouldn't have recorded an album of mostly covers to begin with). However, since Dylan wasn't that established and didn't have that kind of pull, a song like this would have to do. I'm okay with the decision.

I'm not exactly what you'd call a theologian by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think that there's any mystery as to why a) people in abject poverty, like most bluesmen, would write songs dedicated to death and the everlasting beyond, and b) why people in abject poverty often turn to Christianity as inspiration for their lives. After all, Christianity made its mark in its earliest days by appealing to the poor, illiterate, toiling masses through its promise of everlasting salvation and a kingdom of Heaven that awaits those that pray real hard and stay on the straight and narrow. Most pagan religions tended to ask worshippers to live their lives as fully as possible, to reap the benefits of earthly life, and that a good life lived is the real reward. I'm not saying Christianity doesn't, either, but they're more about the carrot at the end of the stick. And, when you haven't got much in your earthly life, that carrot looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Without getting too deep here, there's always been a thread running throughout human existence of attempting to understand the prospect of death and what comes after, trying to unravel that ultimate mystery. There's no real answer you can get, of course, but that doesn't stop people from thinking, occasionally obsessing on it. If nothing else, it's something that binds all of us - maybe the one thing we all, no matter the race or creed, have in common. That's a hell of a downer, but it feels true enough. And bluesmen, who tended to keep things simple in their songs (you're not going to find Thom Yorke's fractured lyrical style in, say, "Cross Road Blues"), could find plenty to mine in that subject, if only because it's one that will never go out of style. Synthesizers sound dated as all hell, most of the 1960s folk movement sounds hopelessly naive and over-optimistic, but people will never stop getting chills when they hear a song like "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean".

Young Bob, apparently knowing that this one's going to be the closer, puts his all into singing the song (with only his acoustic as accompaniment, that's all he could really do anyway), and there are moments where it's hard not to feel your heartstrings tug, just a tad, at how much he pushes himself here. His voice, already raspy to begin with, is as coarse and strained as it ever is on the album. And the last verse, in particular, features Dylan pushing every last vocal cord - you can hear his voice waver and shake in the first lines of that verse, as though he's one false move away from completely losing it and having a breakdown. It suits the mood, as you'd expect, but it's also entirely moving that somebody so young would go to such lengths to sell himself that way. It's enough to make you wish more people had bought the album, if only to reward that kind of exertion, to say to Bob "we get it, and we appreciate the effort".

So that's that - Dylan's debut in the books, and it only took me 2 months to knock this baby out. The next post will be a reaffirmation of the blog's mission statement, since I'm going to actually be advertising its existence and try to write for more than 5 people, and then comes The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I, for one, cannot wait. Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #12: Song To Woody

(1)

When I'd written about how artists often end up as a mishmash of the styles of their heroes, I should've made another, equally salient point: more often than not, our own personal way of life is modeled on those of our heroes. Whether it's your mother and father, your eighth-grade algebra teacher, Superman, John F. Kennedy, or somebody you had a conversation with on the subway 5 years ago, it is inevitable (and perfectly understandable) to absorb some of their traits through osmosis and adopt them as your own. Take me, for example; my natural walk has a slight strut to it I got from my brother (which is funny, because anybody that knows me knows I'm not the strutting type), I like to throw in phrases I've heard from TV and the radio during everyday conversation, and I play around with my cousins the same way my mother and aunts played with me when I was 3 years old. Of course, my natural personality always comes to the forefront, but all the extraneous traits help magnify and amplify it; sort of like icing on a cake.

So, with the knowledge that you've adopted some of the characteristics of your heroes, how to properly pay tribute to them? With your parents, it's easy; with other people, not as much. Plenty of famous people express their admiration and admission of debt in various ways - essays, novels, movies, and songs. David Bowie and Cat Power have even written songs about our man in question. There's no real reason to do this, of course; with the knowledge that everybody owes some small debt to someone, in the end you're answering only to yourself and not to anybody else. But that's the way many of us work: we take, so we must giveth back. It only seems right, doesn't it?

The question, then, is why Dylan would choose to give back to one man and one man alone, especially when it's already been established that other people helped Young Bob shape his musical style. Is it just because of the name recognition? Would Young Bob really have been shrewd enough to understand that "Song for Van Ronk" wouldn't have the same charge amongst the folk community, or command the same respect and awe? Maybe Bob just felt Woody deeper in his bones, knew that he'd taken more from him, not just musically but in attitude, in the way that Woody knew what music meant, how it could affect people, how it could change the world, even just a little bit. Either way, that's the song we've got, and we have it forever - Dylan's ode to his hero of heroes, the man whose shadow fell over everything he did.

(2)

In Eric Weisbard's fantastic 33 1/3 series book on Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I & II, he discusses how Soundscan changed the face of the music industry by pinpointing the exact number of albums sold through bar codes. At one point, he slips in a very interesting remark - the old way of compiling album sales numbers was to poll record store clerks and managers and have them try to remember how many albums were sold. I mean, think about that! Imagine figuring box office grosses by having ushers guess how many people went to go see Iron Man, or polling ticket takers to see the total attendance for an Orioles/Red Sox game. That would be insane. Yet, for many years, album and single sales were compiled that very way.

I bring this up to underscore just how different things used to be. I'm not old, by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm not prone to any "in my day" fogeyism; honestly, I find it really educational to think about what it must have been like for a musician way back in the day. Imagine not having Myspace or Facebook to draw fans, or being able to kit out a van and tour your ass off to build a following, or having the might of Capitol Records backing up your debut, or being able to pass around mp3s of your demo in the hopes that somebody with influence might think you sound like the next U2. Then go back even farther, and imagine what it was like before The Beatles changed everything, before Chuck Berry changed everything, before rock and roll was a commercial commodity, before musicians could actually book venues to perform shows, before there was such a thing as Billboard, before AM and FM radio existed in the ways they do now, or even then.

That, right there, is the world where Woody Guthrie became a star. It's insane to think about how big, popular, and influential he became, in an era where a staggeringly small number of musicians could become big, popular, and influential. He couldn't burn "Grand Coulee Dam" onto CD to be passed around - he recorded with Moe Asch and tapes were painstakingly duplicated, pressed to vinyl, and slowly passed from person to person like the Holy Grail. "This Land Is Your Land" never got him on "Top of the Pops" or spins on Hot 99.5 - the song ended up getting exposure many years later through sheet music form. Woody never sold out Madison Square Garden or made an appearance on VH1 - he canvassed the country, played on the radio when he could, and wrote for a Communist newspaper to spread his name. And he didn't have an e-mail address or a publicist where he could be reached - when a young goofus from Minnesota wanted to find him, he had to hitchhike his way to the Brooklyn hospital where his hero lay, slowly wasting away.

Woody Guthrie never went platinum, never brought intensity in ten cities, and never had to deal with paparrazzi. He did the best he could, with what the world had to offer him, and in the end he became as beloved an icon as any genre of music has ever produced. He had it harder than any of us ever will, and in the end he almost made it look easy.

(3)

Sidebar - I'm guessing most of you have seen No Direction Home (Martin Scorcese's comprehensive and brilliant documentary on Dylan up to the motorcycle crash), and a number of you have heard the accompanying soundtrack/Bootleg Series entry. It's pretty remarkable - a collection of outtakes, live performances, stuff even Dylanologists have never heard, all in fantastic audio quality, and much of it essential. However, the compilers managed to throw in two previously released tracks - the infamous "Judas!" performance of "Like A Rolling Stone", and "Song to Woody".

In a symbolic way (at least, as half-assedly thought up by me), this makes perfect sense. "Song to Woody", in so many ways, is an embracing of the folk lifestyle, in its out-and-out hero worship and pining for the singing hobo lifestyle Guthrie so embodied. The Manchester performance of "Like A Rolling Stone", on the other hand, is the ultimate repudiation of the folk lifestyle - Dylan clearly stoned, blasting a song that was played on Top 40 radio, his gang of hoodlums letting loose behind him, amplifiers assaulting the crowd. And he's not even singing about the issues of the day!

The released soundtrack could've done without both songs - surely there were other outtakes that could've made it there, like "Long Distance Operator" from Berkeley, or one of the songs from the legendary Bob Dylan in Concert, that were left out from those two spots. But leaving those songs in gives the soundtrack continuity, even beyond its chronological order, and helps it tell a story as well as the documentary does. Nice how that worked out.

(4)

Don't worry, I was getting to the song at some point. Some people might complain about how Dylan ripped off one of Guthrie's tunes for his tribute, but I think that makes sense - not only is it a strong melody, but Dylan probably wanted every possible bit of mojo he could squeeze out of his idol. In a way, it sets up the unabashed hero worship of the lyrics, while sort of subtly setting up the listener to remember the person singing the song, not just the person it's being sung about. After all, this is the other original on the album, by far the superior one, and probably what Tom Hammond figured was the real showcase for this debut. It damn well BETTER be good, right?

It is, of course. Dylan's performance reverberates with respect and deference, walking a fine line between nervousness at setting his tribute onto tape and confidence that this song is worth it. The lyrics are evocative in the way "Talking New York" isn't - he invokes Guthrie's musical tropes, legendary bluesmen, and even mentions that his fears for a world that "looks like it's dying and it's hardly been born" match the master's. But he also takes pains to note that he's traveling down well-worn roads, standing on the shoulders of giants, and that he still has a lot left to learn. There's something kind of sweet about the sentiment, actually. even if it's not entirely certain how much of it is genuine.

I'm still surprised this wasn't the album closer. It should have been, honestly - this whole album, full of traditionals and blues songs and spirituals and such, would never have existed without Guthrie, and it's hard to argue that everything shouldn't have built to the final word, the last thoughts on Woody Guthrie and the legacy Dylan was attempting to harness for himself. At the very least, it would've felt better from a karmic standpoint. Ah, well.

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #11: Freight Train Blues

"Trad arr. Dylan" again, eh? Well, whatever; the song's been around since 1935 and been covered by everyone from Hank Williams to (gasp!) Ramblin' Jack Elliott, so I suppose nobody would really mind. Of course, with four chords to work from, the arranging must've taken all of five seconds. "You want that in the key of E, Bob? Okay, good. Roll it!"

The concept of using trains as a metaphor for damn near anything has a long and fruitful history - I'm probably not the only one that thinks of Johnny Cash singing about watching rich folks eating in their fancy dining car. Before leaving on a jet plane or driving away or, I dunno, teleporting away from your sweetheart 100 years from now, there was no better way to say "baby, I gotta move on" than tossing some malarkey about trains out there. I myself happen to love trains and riding on them, so my memories of them are more tied up on a relaxing ride to New York than, say, jumping in an open car and riding the rails. But hey, I've seen Sullivan's Travels, so there you go.

The best I can say about this song is that Dylan seems to be having a whale of a time - he uses the words "blues" and "shoes" to draw out a high note a la Hank Williams on "Lovesick Blues", and at one point he holds the note for exactly 14 seconds, letting out a little chuckle at the end like "can you believe they're PAYING me to do this?" I'm guessing he chose this one so he could have a little fun and goof around, and it's nice to have that here. All the same, it feels like a throwaway, more of a setup to the song that comes next, and I'm afraid to say that this blog post will serve the same purpose. Fear not, though - next week, there's gonna be some real meat to sink our collective teeth into. Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #10: House of the Rising Sun

(1)

What is it that makes a good cover? Most of us can probably figure out quite easily what makes a good cover from an awful one, but it's not always a cut-and-dry process; more often, there's something more ephemeral going on, something you can't really put your finger on. Take, for instance, Hendrix's beloved version of "All Along The Watchtower", and, say, Orgy's affront to nature that is their cover of "Blue Monday" (and, thankfully, the last we've seen of Orgy). Both of them were big hit singles, and yet one of them is a stone-cold classic and the other one is a dated relic from the late 90's that hardly anybody thinks of today. Admittedly, it might seem unfair to compare an amazing showcase for possibly the best guitar player to ever live with a one-off from an alternative also-ran; nevertheless, the comparison is educational. Hendrix's version manages to be distinctive right off the bat, propelled by the sheer energy of all the players, those famous chords serving as bedrock for solo after solo. It sounds like an original, and you could be forgiven for thinking Hendrix wrote the song himself. Orgy's version, on the other hand, is limp, way too dependent on the original, and sounds a lot like the derivative alt-rock nonsense that helped kill alternative music radio. Not only does it have way too much to do with the original, but it does very little to kill the memory of New Order's version.

So does it really just come down to talent? I wouldn't think so - plenty of crappy bands with nothing else on their resume have recorded great covers. In fact, another New Order song has made for a fantastic cover version - Australian pop also-ran Frente's version of "Bizarre Love Triangle". And in this version is a hint to what makes a truly great cover. Performed acoustically, the guitars actually suggest the synthesizer lines of the original, while the vocals make the song sound sweeter and, oddly, more joyful than the original. It brings to mind New Order's version, but doesn't lean on it for that famous-song rub.

Leaving aside the obvious notion of how subjective musical tastes are, it seems obvious that the best, most enduring covers manage to walk a fine line between paying homage to the original and keeping it at arm's length. In that sense, the original should serve as a blueprint for an old house that's being spruced up for resale; the foundation's there, but the walls need repainting and the carpet has to be cleaned. Hendrix's version is fully informed by the John Wesley Harding original, but Hendrix's remarkable arrangement turns it into something far more incredible than could ever be expected.

(2)

I covered a lot of what I wanted to talk about with "House of the Rising Sun" in the "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" post, but let's get this out of the way: the Dylan Chords page for this song notes that the arrangement - along with some records - was "borrowed" by Dylan from Dave Van Ronk, one of Dylan's folk heroes in the early Greenwich Village days. Van Ronk has also stated that Dylan beat him to the punch with the Bob Dylan version before he could record his own, which probably caused a hurt feeling or two. And, remarkably, this version was NOT the basis for The Animals' chart-topping version in 1964 (although people would later say that Dylan ripped off the Animals' version, forgetting the two-year gap; such is perception when one version is far more successful than any other). Obviously, Dylan was in the wrong here - far from the more abstract borrowing from Ramblin' Jack, to steal an arrangement from a man you consider a mentor and stick it on your own album is simply not cool.

Then again, Dylan must have known something, because his version is decidedly dramatic and, after some consideration, my choice for the best song on the album. Beginning with those familiar chords (strummed here, unlike the circling guitar notes of the Animals' intro), Dylan keeps everything as low-key as he can. He drops most of the vocal affectations he uses throughout the album, making this sound closer to something on The Times They Are A-Changin', and this suits the song very well; he infuses the already-dramatic lyrics with an additional tension that builds as the female narrator's tale reaches its climax and she heads back to New Orleans to die of whatever venereal disease that she contracted as a woman of ill repute. Even when he does push his voice, it works, because that just rachets up the tension even more. Somehow, Dylan manages to be convincing as a woman prostitute, which is something he should be very, very proud of.

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #9: Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

(1)

A few months ago, one of my favorite radio personalities, Don Geronimo, retired after nearly three decades of being on the air, both as a DJ and as a more talk-oriented personality. On top of the many, many hours of entertainment he gave me in my afternoons, he mentioned something that I've thought a lot of since, even though it seems entirely obvious. He once said that any great radio personality, rather than choosing a persona for his broadcasts from a stock list of traits, instead crafted his own persona as a mishmash of his influences and heroes, eventually forming something that could be viewed as at least somewhat original and (hopefully) worth listening to. As long as you didn't outright steal your idol's entire act, but cherry-picked the parts of his act that worked for you, you were paying homage more than committing an act of theft.

This makes sense, of course - very few people arrive with a fully formed personality in any particular walk of life - and yet it does raise a few thorny issues, the least of which is how to properly pay tribute to said heroes once your career has taken off and you've reaped the rewards of your own fame. A mere mention of thanks might satisfy some people, but that sort of seems like a cheap reward for having crafted your own career, carved out your own niche, and then had some unknown person leap into the fray, having absorbed some of what it was that gave you your career, and become famous themselves as a result. It's hard to say what can be done for you, but it does seem like you're owed something, right? And if your career has taken a bad turn and you're all but relegated to the dustbin of history, then you damn well better get something, right?

I haven't seen The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and I'm only going on what I've heard and read about the movie, but I would think that Elliott probably has a thing or two to say about this very issue. After all, the documentary states, it was Elliott that taught Dylan all about Woody Guthrie (having been his longtime traveling companion) and helped him mold his folk style into something closer to the master's. Then, once Dylan had become a superstar, he cast Elliott aside and left him to a life of relative obscurity and poverty, not making his debt to Elliott known for many years. All that fame, all those albums sold and shows attended, and it never would've happened if Elliott hadn't shown Dylan a thing or two about finger picking.

This does seem to be overstating things, and I'm sure even Elliott wouldn't go as far as to say that Bob Dylan never would have existed without him. Even so, it does make you wonder why Dylan wouldn't have even so much as thrown Jack a bone while his star was on the rise and Elliott's was on the, well, whatever it was. Maybe there was something between them that only they could ever know about. Maybe Dylan's just a huge asshole (there are probably a few people that would back up that statement). Either way, it does seem rather shabby for Dylan to treat Elliott that way, and it kind of puts a damper on things. Not a total damper, but a damper nonetheless.

Of course, Dylan fan I am, there has to be an "on the other hand", and here's the best I can come up with. Elliott, by his own ambition, never had the ambition and drive that Dylan did to make it to the top and become a star. He obviously saw something in Dylan (as Woody Guthrie had), at least enough to satiate Dylan's constant hunger for all things Woody in the early days. And, as has been noted many times, that secondhand schooling in Guthrie's style paid dividends, as Dylan managed to get his foot in the door of folk music and slowly morphed into the phenomenon of the 60s. So, in that sense, Dylan HAS paid proper tribute to Elliott. Without him, the Bob Dylan that we know today would exist in a very, very different form, and quite possibly not the legendary form he exists in right now. Again, that's not to say that Dylan wouldn't have made it big without Jack, or made it at all, but Jack had his role in Dylan's rise, the same way Tom Hammond did, the same way Suze Rotolo did, and the same way Joan Baez did. Elliott had a fantastic career, helped shape a giant in the world of American music, and deserves all the praise in the world for both.

(2)

Speaking of influences, we have the one moment on Dylan's debut album when he takes a second to give a shout out, and it happens on "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", the one song on Bob Dylan that Bob thought enough of to anthologize on Biograph, his exceptional 1985 retrospective. Over a fingerpicked intro (see? Elliott's fingerprints already at hand!), Dylan mentions that folk singer Eric Von Schmidt taught him this song while the two were hanging out, either in New York or Cambridge, MA. He doesn't mention that yet another influential folkie, Dave Van Ronk, also had a hand in arranging the song; Van Ronk's influence on Dylan, while not as properly documented as Elliott's, was also considerable, and you'd think that Dylan would've had something to say about that at some point. I'm sure he has, actually; just wanted to get you all more fired up about what a dick Bob is.

The version on Dylan's debut is sparse and lovely, entirely finger picked, to match the stripped-down romantic sentiments of the verses. He only sings three verses, two of which are the same (the song's about 2:30 long), and the language is so basic, it's amazing to think that somebody actually wrote them in the first place. That doesn't take away from how good the song is; it's just honestly surprising that there are so few lines. The melody carries a lot of the song, actually - it's a really sweet melody, too, sort of bouncing from note to note with the sprightly energy of any good finger picked tune. It feels like a throwaway, but it's definitely one of Bob Dylan's main selling points, mainly because Dylan isn't trying so hard to impress his invisible audience, something even other highlights on the album occasionally do. Here, Bob knows the song needs a light touch, and he supplies it expertly.

(3)

I suppose the regard Dylan holds the song in is best illustrated by the fact that he included it in the electric portion of his infamous 1966 world tour (and, actually, in the 1965 electric shows as well), a strange inclusion given any number of original electric tunes he could've pulled out. The 1966 version, probably because the song isn't as striking as the others included in the setlist, kind of gets lost in the shuffle; a quick respite before Bob lets loose with "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues". However, that's not to say that Dylan doesn't pay the song some heed - starting with a blaring harmonica intro, the band blasts its way through the song, carried by Mickey Jones' thumping, rapid-fire drumming and Robbie Robertson's economical guitar fills. Dylan adds his own lyrics, sharper and more Dylan-like than the original, possibly to flesh the tune out, but just as possibly to make the song more his own (you know, outside the fact that he turned it into a powerful rocker). As galling as the whole electric business must've been to the outraged folkies in the audience, it must've been even more horrible to hear Dylan take a well-known traditional, one he performed on his debut album, for Pete's sake, and turn it into a wild melange of swirling organ, biting guitars, and Dylan's drugged-out sneer. And the worst part, of course, is that it sounds great.

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #8: Gospel Plow

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

- Luke 9:62

Don't look back - something might be gaining on you.

- Satchel Paige

(1)

Sometimes I wonder about music criticism. Not always, but sometimes. One thing I tend to wonder about is one of the most common criticisms levied upon a band - the idea of stagnation. After all, it is said, creativity is best used in moving ever forward, in blazing new trails, stretching out the powers of one's muse, and not in simply playing the same songs and repeating the same power chords and lyrical themes until Kingdom come. A band I like quite a bit, Oasis, has been repeatedly castigated for this, especially since their stock began to dip after 1997's monolithic disaster Be Here Now, Rumours with half the charm, twice the guitars, and none of the in-band fucking and songs about said in-band fucking. Oasis' albums since then, despite the occasional production tricks and the increasing percentage of songs not by Noel Gallagher, have borne the stamp of a group that is perfectly willing to stay with what they like doing, thank you very much, and have no particular desire to do any of that "branching out" stuff your, well, Beatles of the world did.

But is that entirely such a bad thing? After all, let's imagine, say, AC/DC attempting to do something new after 30-odd years of balls-out rocking. Say, an album of country standards, or some Interpol-like post-punk wrangling, or something like that Fiery Furnaces album with the grandmother doing vocals. Would that float your boat? How do you think something like that might turn out? I think you have a pretty good idea, and you're already hurrying to push that brutal image out of your brain before it infects your mind like a Trojan virus. I mean, it might be amusing in a train-wreck kind of way (not like an actual train-wreck; you get what I mean, I hope), but that's really about the limits of enjoyment you'd get.

The point I'm trying to make is that, for some musicians, carving out a niche for yourself and riding that niche for all its worth is not necessarily a bad thing. Look, there are literally hundreds of bands out there, and many of them are willing and able to push creative boundaries, find new ways to wrangle notes out of a guitar or a piano, come up with brand new chords and crazy tunings, and keep music progressing at the same steady rate it has progressed since some jackass wearing a jester's hat played a lute for a king somewhere. Some bands won't make that kind of change, or know that they can't, and that's okay. If the music is good, or good enough, I think they can get a free pass.

And then there's Bob Dylan, who's never been shy of remaking himself and the music he creates practically with every album. I think that guys like Dylan, and Bowie, and Elvis Costello are why critics always gnash their teeth and rend their garments when a Ryan Adams records something that represents, at very best, a lateral move. After all, they argue, the great musicians can change, so if you can't, you're just not on that level. And they do have a point, of course, but they also want to make it like that kind of forward-thinking ability is something that can be harnessed or plucked from the air, or even something that just comes from practice, maaaaaan. It's not. Only a select few have been able to leap from genre to genre with hardly a look back, and even then there are the occasional missteps (Young Americans springs to mind). The hardest thing in the world for a person to do is to do something different with your life. Many people don't have to, and even more people don't want to. And if you think I'm talking from personal experience, well, you probably know me. Bob Dylan's versatility and willingness to do things differently make him great, and also make him very, very different from everybody else.

(2)

So we get another traditional, and another song about Heaven and Jesus, this time more upbeat than some of the album's more dirge-like material. After a short musical intro that features Dylan practicing his breath control on the harmonica, Dylan launches into a Gospel-inspired tune that asks us to "keep (our) hand on that plow, hold on". The verse that inspired that chorus, quoted above, is Jesus' way of saying "keep your eye on the prize, kid - you look back, you're dead meat" - funny enough, "Gospel Plow" has been rewritten as "Keep Your Eyes On The Prize", a song Bruce Springsteen has covered. It's a pretty simple sentiment, and Dylan delivers it with the same confidence he's displayed for much of this album (vocal affectations included).

As you might imagine, the lyrics brought to mind the little mini-screed above, and it's really not that hard to think of Jesus telling us to just plow ahead (forgive the turn of phrase) and never think about the past. The verse before it, for context, has a potential follower of Jesus saying "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home", prompting Jesus' response about the plow. And, as anybody that's ever received that kind of advice before can attest, it does seem rather harsh; after all, who among us doesn't have attachments and loved ones and accumulated habits that are hard to say goodbye to? Still, saying goodbye and moving on, much like those emotional attachments we have, is a universal trait that we all go through, and sometimes (to quote Angela from The Office) you just gotta grow a pair. Jesus' way of saying that, I will say, is somewhat more eloquent.

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #7: Highway 51 Blues

(1)

The real-life Highway 51 is a massive stretch of road that cuts across six states and (in a way) serves as a pretty good demarcation line between what you'd consider the East and the Midwest. The states it cuts hardest through are Wisconsin, Illinois, and - this seems important - Mississippi, as well as running through Memphis (where part of the highway is Elvis Presley Boulevard). It doesn't exactly have the heft of a Route 66 or I-95, but what the hell - I-95, as far as I know, doesn't have a song written about it.

Highway 51 doesn't cut through the Mississippi Delta, but that doesn't matter - it doesn't seem hard to imagine any number of bluesmen, packed into cramped cars and shaky buses and whatever means of transportation they could get their hands on, traveling up that highway to Memphis or Louisville or, hell, even Chicago, looking for a place to stay and a place to play. Everyone's friend Wikipedia has a partial listing of musicians labeled as "Delta blues" players, and anybody with even a passing knowledge of the blues would recognize a name or two there. There are two names, in particular, that fit in well with this blog: Charley Patton, who (God willing) I will deal more in-depth with down the line, and Bukka White, who wrote Bob Dylan highlight "Fixin' To Die". And then there's a fellow named Curtis Jones, who isn't the most well-known blues musician there is, but has lasting fame for coining the phrase "Tin Pan Alley", as well as writing the very song this blog post is about.

Jones didn't come from Mississippi (he was born in Naples, Texas), but the significance of Highway 51 could not have been lost on him. Hell, he mentions in the song that the highway runs up to Wisconsin, which is where it comes to an end; I wouldn't doubt that he'd taken that ride up once or twice in his lifetime. It must've seemed mythical to him - rising out of Mississippi and the abject poverty most of us associate with that state and heading towards the bright lights of Chicago and the not quite as bright lights of Milwaukee, where money could actually be made for playing a guitar and singing about death and heartache and being dead broke. He couches his admiration for the road in a song about meeting his baby on a house that sits along the road, but it's Highway 51 that's the star of the song - he knows it like the back of his hand, and he wants to be buried there when he dies. That road probably held far more promise, romance, and mystery to him than any woman ever could.

(2)

A state over from Wisconsin and the end of the northern part of Highway 51, Bob Dylan might have taken a journey or two from Hibbing down that road, maybe to Madison, maybe to Chicago, maybe even to Memphis. Whether or not he did is immaterial - either he or Tom Hammond or whoever else was helping mold Dylan's debut must've known about this song and its mythical tale, and gave it to Bob to sing. I wouldn't doubt that Bob knew about it as well, given the student of the blues he's been for his whole life. I wonder if he felt honored to sing the song, to wrap his voice around the lyrics, maybe to close his eyes and think about a beat-up Ford winging south "way down to no man's land", to the Delta and to hardship and to where the blues really came from. And maybe he felt an extra kinship just in singing those words, in evoking that highway, and in bringing up the memories of countless men with guitars, releasing their pain with every strum and croaked-out word.

If nothing else, that would account for Dylan's vocal performance - even on an album where he artificially adds grit to his voice, he seems to really be pushing himself here, slicing his way through the lyrics, the words fraught with emotion, either spat out like bullets or stretched unnaturally. The guitar playing matches his intensity, every string getting a workout (and, interestingly, the opening chords of the song seem to echo Dylan's later "It's Alright, Ma" - actually, I should probably have that the other way around). It feels like Dylan really wants to make sure he gets this one right, even more than some of the other songs, that he wanted the listener to shake his head and go "wowee, that kid sure did nail that song!" Maybe he did - maybe he wouldn't have felt right otherwise.

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #6: Pretty Peggy-O

(1)

Songs like these, as much as any of the true classic originals or the world-famous albums, tell us a lot about Bob Dylan and the world he's constructed for himself. "Pretty Peggy-O" has a pretty rich history, starting as a Scottish folk song about love unrequited and heartbreak and all that good stuff and slowly mutating into a Civil War Dixie song about, well, love unrequited and heartbreak and all that good stuff. As you might imagine, a song with that kind of pedigree (not to mention a sweet, charming melody) would be popular amongst folk musicians, and it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Dylan would appropriate it (excuse me, "trad. arrange" it) for his debut album. If nothing else, it's a nice respite from the heavier blues stuff, even if the lieutenant pining for Peggy-O does kick it in the end.

But it isn't just the fact that Dylan played the song on his debut that gives "Pretty Peggy-O" some heft in Dylan's career. It's the fact that, a good many years later, Dylan would pull the song out of mothballs and play it on stage that lends the song an additional dimension. Dylan, for those of you that might not know (and I doubt there will be many that read this damn thing), liked to pull out obscure folk songs to play during his concerts in the late-90s and early 2000s, often as the opening tune; I wonder why he more or less has stopped doing that. There are plenty of reasons why he'd use up a slot he could play one of HIS own obscurities in for these kinds of songs, of course - partially in tribute to the songs that influenced him in his formative years, partially in tribute (maybe) to the Grateful Dead, who peppered their setlists with traditionals as well (including, surprise, "Pretty Peggy-O"), partially because the songs are fun and easy to play and serve as showcases for his always-talented bands, and partially because he's Bob Dylan and can do whatever the hell he pleases. They serve both as strong tunes and as history lessons, a way for Bob to say "this is what I listened to when I was your age, you whippersnappers". Plus, you know, sometimes he just wants a six-minute breather before he plays "Like A Rolling Stone" for the millionth time.

(2)

Having only been familiar with the live version of "Pretty Peggy-O" (a stately version with bubbling guitars and Dylan's strangely comforting sandpaper growl of a voice), I was surprised to hear just how exciting the Bob Dylan version is. Starting with a cheeky spoken word intro ("I've been around this whole country/But I never yet found Fennario" - sure you have), Dylan basically chugs his way through the song, adding "woo-hoo"s for emphasis and quite possibly nearly snickering at one point. His harmonica playing, in particular, is rather energetic, full of trilling notes and as simplistic as you'd expect from a man his age (it doesn't help that it sounds out of tune). Dylan, for whatever reason, seems to LIKE playing this song, and it shows in the performance.

The lyrics don't particularly make sense to me - so, okay, this army troop's marching to a town called Fennario, then the captain falls in love with a woman, but I guess she runs away or something, and then the lieutenant's in a rodeo, and then the captain dies pining for Peggy-O and is buried in Louisiana...hmm. Not exactly "A Farewell To Arms", is it? I suppose the lyrics aren't the point, when you can hear just how much fun Bob's having blowing away on his harp, snapping off the "o"s at the end of every verse (the way he says "back-io", almost like he's trying to cram it into one syllable, is a hoot), and wailing away on his guitar. Another highlight of the album, then. I guess it's not hard to see why Bob would revisit the song.

AUDIO BONUS: From fabled bootleg Bathed In A Stream of Pure Heat, here's "Pretty Peggy-O" from Albany, NY on April 18th, 1997. Gotta love Bob on solo guitar!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bz21mx Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #5: Fixin' To Die

Now we're talking. Whoever handed this song to Bob for his first album must've known something, because this is one of the real highlights of the debut. It's an honest to God blues song, full of death and gloom and Jesus and all that good stuff. Dylan practically sneers his way through this song, stretching out syllables through clenched teeth and pushing his throat nodes to their very limits. I will admit that there's something of a disconnect in hearing a young man talk about dying and who will feed his kids, but somehow he pulls it off.

Two points I wanted to discuss on this song:

1. The disconnect in hearing a young man (a VERY young man, actually) talk about dying and raising his kids is, truly, staggering, and makes me wonder about an issue that runs through this entire album - that is, the idea of legitimacy in music. We're all aware, I think, about how strong the idea of being legit and real plays into hip-hop (for instance, Vanilla Ice's misbegotten career, or Jay-Z's "I showed you your first Tec on tour with Large Professor/Then I heard your album 'bout your Tec on the dresser"), but history has sort of cast aside how strong the idea of legitimacy was in the folk movement of the 1960s. The career of Dylan himself, or at least the one he had up until 1966, showed how strong feelings were on those issues - why else would he be so vociferously booed at Newport 1965, if his performance wasn't viewed as a loud middle finger to everything he supposedly stood for? And his first album, made up of two originals and a list of carefully chosen traditionals, blues, and gospel songs, smacks of being aimed directly at an audience that wouldn't give you a second listen unless you were only playing traditionals, blues, and gospel songs. That Bob Dylan ended up flopping seems besides the point, especially given what a success his very next album would become.

This, then, makes you wonder WHY the idea of legitimacy would be tied so inextricably to playing those traditionals, and why Tom Hammond felt nobody would take Bob Dylan seriously unless he was singing old songs primarily written by African-American men who often came from the most dire of circumstances. There's something kind of odd about the whole thing, especially since the element of race plays so strongly. I wrote a review for the new album by Duffy for Treble (cheap plug - http://treblezine.com/reviews/2659-Duffy_Rockferry.html) in which I very briefly touched on the issue of legitimacy in the white female soul singer genre, and quite frankly, the 800 words I'm allotted for a review wouldn't begin to scrape the surface of the issue. Maybe I'm overstating things, and Hammond simply thought Dylan needed to have product on the market while his songwriting skills were still developing. But I doubt it.

2. I'll touch on this more when I get to "House of the Rising Sun", but Dave Van Ronk's influence has been noted in re: Dylan's early music, and (as Wikipedia notes) an influence on Dylan's version of "Fixin' To Die". For now, I'll simply reiterate a point I previously made about how different Dylan sounds here than basically the entire rest of his catalog, and leave it at that. Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #4: Man of Constant Sorrow

(1)

Most of you, I'm sure, have only heard one version of this song, and it's probably not going to be this one. I've always wondered what traditional folk fans must've thought when the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack blew up in 2001, a year after the movie was released. After all, this was a genre that, for all intents and purposes, no longer retained any commercial value, and all of a sudden this soundtrack to a Coen Brothers movie entirely comprised of old standards and blues songs rockets up the charts and spawns a surprising hit single that actually received airplay on non-country stations. Did those people think "wow, what a crazy fluke; at least now some people will appreciate the musicians that actually record this kind of music"? Or did any of them truly believe a new folk renaissance was coming? For their sake, I truly hope it was the former.

At any rate, it's always funny how certain things manage to take hold of our national consciousness without any warning and causing a massive wave of adoration, an often equally massive backlash, and (inevitably) a host of imitators trying to steal them blind. And, in most cases, the imitators and copycats tend to destroy the original's power and ability to stun and amaze - the easiest benchmark to see when a trend has run its course is when the mainstream has bent it to its will. I remember it happening with Pulp Fiction, it happened with Saturday Night Live, and has been happening since time immemorial.

For whatever reason, that didn't really happen with folk music in 2002. There were a few more copies of Allison Krause & Union Station sold, I'm sure, but when "I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow" stopped getting airplay and the soundtrack stopped selling, that was really that. O Brother, Where Art Thou? has more or less receded from memory (and with good reason - it's funny and charming, but hardly a major Coen Brothers effort), and lovers of traditional music have returned to their yellowed copies of Broadside and Chambers Brothers vinyls. Maybe that's for the best. It would be maybe a little too meta and weird for the American consciousness to absorb a form of art that is already so inured with American consciousness - granted, the "old weird America" Greil Marcus wrote about, as opposed to the modern, weird America we live in. Or maybe it's too much to expect wood-chopping songs to make a real comeback.

(2)

So, for whatever reason, this was a song that Dylan really seemed to hold in high esteem around the time of the recording and release of his first album. It shows up on the legendary Minnesota party tape, recorded in the apartment of (girl)friend Bonnie Beecher in 1961. Of course, it's one of the songs on his debut. And he chose it to perform on his first-ever TV performance, a show called "Folk Songs And More Folk Songs" that aired in March of 1963. That's a lot of venues for this song to show up, and a lot of important ones from a historical standpoint.

Then the song disappeared from his repertoire, only to reappear in (you're not going to believe this) - 2002, right around the time the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack was at its commercial peak. I wanted to find an mp3 of one of the performances to link to here, but my memory tells me not to bother, as the arrangement is very close to the O Brother version and loses its novelty very quickly. It's kind of amusing that Dylan, a trendsetter for many years, would dust off one of his oldest recorded songs and give it a runthrough in a manner markedly different from his debut. He does have a puckish sense of humor.

The Bob Dylan version is far more laid-back, as you'd imagine, really as much a showcase for his harmonica skills as anything else. Actually, comparing it with the more famous O Brother version, Bob's version is a real disappointment, and not just because the O Brother version is so fantastic. Dylan makes an odd artistic choice in stretching out certain words in the first and third lines of the verses, which kills a lot of the narrative tension in the song. And, for whatever reason, the lyrics are quite different, maybe closer to the original (except he changes the place he left from Kentucky to Colorado), but not as poetic or interesting as the more famous version. The last verse, in particular, is head-scratchingly mundane: "I'm going back to Colorado/The place that I started from/If I had known how bad you'd treat me honey/I never would have come". He manages to turn something heart-tugging and emotionally resonant (even for a blues song) into a crappy kiss-off. Thanks, Young Bob!

As a bonus/apology for not finding the 2002 live version, here's the video of "Man of Constant Sorrow" as performed on TV in 1963 (and used in Scorcese's No Direction Home). It sounds exactly like the album version, so if you've never heard Bob Dylan, well, now you kind of have. Enjoy!

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #3: In My Time Of Dyin'

Well, I knew this moment would come - I've reached my first song where I am struggling to find something to write about. I'm embarrassed to find that it would come on the THIRD SONG of my journey, but then my opinions about this album have already been expressed, and this is a prime example of my qualms re: Bob Dylan. When I'd decided to tackle this project chronologically (starting with the debut and working my way to the most recent album), I always assumed that this album would be amongst the hardest to write about, followed by the early-90s folk albums and, well, all the bad ones. So I'm basically reaping what I sowed. This is an album that doesn't lend to much interpretation, and this is a song that might lend to even less.

I mean, what can I really say? "In My Time of Dyin'" is a traditional gospel song originally translated to blues by Blind Willie Johnson, "arranged" by Dylan, and sung with a gritty bravado that belies his twenty years. The song's been covered many times (deferring to Dylan's version, mainly because he got there first), most notably by Led Zeppelin, whose version on "Physical Graffiti" lasts about a billion years. The lyrics are about dying and Jesus, themes all too familiar in blues music. The guitar playing features some bottle-neck slides, but nothing any Robert Johnson fan can't work out with a little practice. I'm sure I'm not saying anything new in this paragraph.

It IS interesting to consider why this song, rather than any other number of blues and gospel songs out there, got the nod for Dylan's debut. In an earlier post I made mention of the need for legitimacy in the folk community, and I think this song would've been considered a natural choice - originally performed by a blues legend, lyrically gripping, and relatively easy to finger-pick. It's meant to be a showcase, and it succeeds on that level. Somewhat tellingly, Dylan would drop the song from his live repertoire as he gained more experience and wrote more songs, showing that when he didn't need the song anymore, it was gone.

Still, there's a power and energy here not always found on the debut, and it's eye-opening to hear Dylan tear into the song. "In My Time Of Dyin'" is a definite highlight of Bob Dylan, and deserves the attention that it's received through the Dylan-copping cover versions. Thank the Lord this version isn't eleven goddamn minutes long. Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #2: Talkin' New York

(1)

I've always found talking blues kind of cool. For one thing, much like Motown-style pop, Hank Williams-style country, and (ironically) protest music, talking blues is a style of music that more or less does not exist anymore.* For another (and this is far nerdier), talking blues represent a weird link to that most ancient form of entertainment - oral poetry. Say whatever you want about the Homeric epic poems**, but one thing that most high school and college kids who have to read the damn things tend to forget is that they were not meant to be written down, but memorized and recited to crowds of people. Even with the occasional narrative trick employed to make memorizing easier, like the repeated phrases and the episodic format, it seems almost impossible to believe a single person could keep that much story straight in their heads, let alone recite it in an entertaining fashion. Imagine having to memorize and recite the script of every episode of "Band of Brothers", and that should give you a general idea.

* although the style still does - I believe the kids call it "rapping", har har

**I think they're pretty awesome, myself. If anybody ever filmed The Iliad the way the poem was actually composed, it'd run about 12 hours and earn an easy R rating, if not NC-17. There are Hong Kong action movies with less gore and bloodshed.

Anyway, as most people that read this probably know, oral poetry would take on many different forms as the concept spread across the world, most notably in the English/Welsh/Irish "Bard" style. And, wouldn't you know it, many of the bards would be accompanied by some sort of musician, playing a lute or whatever the hell they played back then. This, in turn, would morph into English music-hall, which would be taken to America and turned into vaudeville, and then into the blues, which would lead to rock and roll. The talking blues, in a weird way, is as close as American music would get to the ancient styles of oral poetic tradition.*

*which would make "A Boy Named Sue" the Odyssey of talking blues, and I am all for that

Of course, that relative adherence to classical tradition is what would end up marginalizing the style of talking blues, even through any number of revivals (including Dylan's). After all, the modern music listener has been trained to expect singing in their music*, and there is something aurally jarring about hearing somebody sorta half-sing, half-talk their way through an entire story.** There's something novel about the concept, sure (and there are plenty of novelty talking blues out there), but not something particularly entertaining, at least not to us. We want our songs to sound like songs, not like an audiobook set to music. Most talking blues songs are fun for a listen or two, but that's really as far as their entertainment value goes.

*to which I must make the requisite Dylan/"singing" joke - again, har har

**never mind that most epic poets would consider talking blues performers pussies

(2)

It should come as no surprise that Bob Dylan, a man who's spent nearly every waking moment of his life in the public eye carefully crafting and maintaining his legend, would include a song on his debut album that basically gives us his version of an origin story. Backed by three of the most basic guitar chords imaginable (and, of course, the same three chords he'd use in the much better "Talking World War III Blues"), Dylan immediately starts off his story with a cinematic bang: "Rambling out of the wild west/Leaving the towns I love the best/Thought I'd seen some ups and downs/'Till I come to New York town". Right there is the image of Dylan, the restless troubador, guitar slung on his back, moseying out of the badlands and into the big city with the bright lights. We know that's crap, but it shore does paint a purty picture, don't it?

This is one of two actual Dylan-penned songs on the album, and there's actually a few turns of phrase that suggest Dylan's talent in between all the folky cliches and tall tales and the way he pronounces "Greenwich Village" as "Green-witch", much the way a five year old might.. I like the straightforwardness of "somebody could freeze right to the bone.../I froze right to the bone", and the wit of "A lot of people don't have much food on their table/But they got a lot of forks and knives/And they gotta cut something". The end "So long, New York/Howdy, East Orange" amuses, as well. That's really it, though - between the part about paying Union dues, the little tribute to his idol Woody's "Pretty Boy Floyd", and the decidedly uninspiring tale of playing coffeehouses in New York (which, I'm sure, separated him from the billion other young folk singers trying to make it there), there isn't much to this song. Kind of a shame, too - I always expected his origin story to be a little more exciting.

Read more!

Bob Dylan Song #1: She's/You're No Good

(1)

I've never heard Bob Dylan before. I mean, there's "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", which pops up on Biograph, but that's the only song I've ever heard from Bob Dylan's debut album. To be honest, this isn't something that particularly bothers me.

Bob Dylan has always occupied a weird place in Dylan's legend for me. Leaving aside the fact that it's his debut album, I've never really seen any selling points in its favor. It's one of a handful of Dylan albums that sounds more beholden to established musical styles (although I do understand this was a deliberate move) without establishing any distinctive voice. I mean, there IS a distinctive voice - Bob's - but I hope you get what I mean. This is an album of traditionals, played and sung traditionally. The joke John Hammond (producer of the album) made is that this album cost $402 to record, and it's a wonder that it actually cost more.

I will also admit that Dylan's folk period is the one I find least interesting musically. I mean, I love the acoustic albums, and I could listen to "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" or "I Don't Believe You" any time, but for the most part I have trouble playing Freewheelin' or Another Side all the way through without losing patience.* This could be my own ADD-driven failing; I don't dispute that Freewheelin' is a stone cold classic or that Another Side doesn't have some great songs. I think what it comes down to re: me and Bob Dylan is that Dylan's catalog is stuffed to the brim with incredibly original and aurally interesting music, and the idea of hunkering down with a collection of traditionals and a few decent originals doesn't hold much interest for me.

* and that's even BEFORE I get to "Ballad in Plain D"

(2)

This is not to say, of course, that there isn't some interest to be had in listening to this album. I'm of the opinion that EVERY Dylan album has at least some interest; even the much-maligned Self-Portrait has the beautiful "Copper Kettle" on it, as well as some songs that defy belief*. And Dylan's first album, in that respect, has interest simply in the place in time that it occupied, and how it's very much a product of those times. You get flashes of Dylan's later genius in spots, and the songs themselves are performed well, but my main interest in the album is purely from a historical standpoint (as opposed to Freewheelin', a mere year and album later - think of that! - which is interesting from both a historical and musical standpoint).

*"All The Tired Horses" in a good way, "In Search of Little Sadie" in a very, VERY bad way

It is impossible, in my opinion, to make too much of or overstate the fact that Dylan made this album when he was 20 years old*. I don't simply mean this from the standpoint of "what were YOU doing when you were 20?" (although it would probably embarrass many of us to answer that question), but also from the fact that the odds against any sort of success for Dylan, in any capacity, were stacked against him from the beginning. Think about it - a kid from Minnesota bullshits his way into the inner circle of the burgeoning folk music movement, gets a number of gigs at clubs around the Village in New York (the epicenter of a lot of things, let alone the folk scene), meets a Columbia bigwig at a private party, and somehow lands a contract with one of America's biggest record labels, all within the span of about a year...and still, that was absolutely no guarantee of success in the public market.

*and he looks all 20 years of it on the cover, even though he's dressed up like a Greenwich Village sherpa - talk about your baby faces

Of course, he had talent from the start, and that talent is evident in his performing style and the way (even then) he instantly synthesized all sorts of stuff he was listening to into a style that could maybe, possibly, kinda-sorta be called his own. One of Dylan's great strengths throughout his career was the way he could pull together all sorts of disparate threads of musicality (blues, Eastern influences, folk, etc.) and create music that not only reflected those threads, but bore his own stamp of originality. There are precious few musicians/bands that can do that. On top of that, Dylan just absorbed records in his youth, and you can pick up all sorts of tricks along the way through simple osmosis. I think it's fair to say that Dylan, although he might not have become Dylan, probably would've had a nice little niche career as a folk singer and an exemplary arranger of traditional songs if he'd chosen to stay on that course. That he didn't do that, of course, is why I have the chance to write this blog, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

(3)

I suppose I've been ignoring the actual reason behind this post, but I wanted to get all the extracurriculars out of the way before actually delving into this baby. "You're No Good", as it's listed on Dylan's website (I think other places list it as "She's No Good"), clocks in at a super short 1:40, and pretty much serves as introduction to what we're gonna get here. A cover of a song by one-man band Jesse Fuller (who wrote the really great "San Francisco Bay Blues"), the lyrics are standard blues "mean woman" territory, and Dylan doesn't try to do too much with the song.

One thing that really threw me off is how different Bob sounds here. I mean, honestly, for a man whose voice changed more times than seemingly possible in his career, it's startling to hear him, this young, actually trying to sound old. He's forcing his voice to do things it probably shouldn't, adopting a husky growl that actually made me think of Springsteen at times (although Dylan's timbre isn't nearly as deep as Bruce's, and that's probably for the best). Everybody talks about Woody Guthrie's influence on early Dylan, but Woody never sounded as growly and raspy as Dylan does on this song.

Maybe part of it has to do with the tempo - Bob more or less spits this song out and hammers away on the guitar, accounting for the brevity of the song's running time. His harmonica solo is blasted out in sharp notes, a far cry from the workouts we'll get later in his career. I don't know for sure if that's how Fuller performed it, but it seems likely that Bob saw that the song (which is kind of lightweight, to be honest) would work better performed machine-gun style, and so he did. That makes the song a pleasant listen, at least, and gets things settled for what comes next.

One other note - why was this song recorded in stereo? Was there something really exceptional to be had in separating one guitar and one voice? Or is this just another example of the "fake stereo" that can make listening to Beatles records occasionally jarring? Either way, it just seems odd, that's all.

Read more!