As someone who has never understood the appeal of Bob Dylan (I don’t get it at all), I naturally loved Andrew Ferguson’s long, brutal, and funny takedown of the crooner (croaker?) in The Weekly Standard:
Deep thinking reviewers from Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone began toying with what has since become famous, to me at least, as the Dylan roots theory. It has proved remarkably durable and elastic. Whenever Dylan did something artistically egregious, in poor taste, inept, schlocky, or otherwise incompatible with his reputation for genius, the reviewers would explain that he was a kind of musicologist, plumbing the roots of Americana, absorbing within himself the variegated traditions of our native music and transmuting them into art uniquely his own. Hence “All the Tired Horses.” Stupid? The work of a tapped-out songwriter who doesn’t know when to quit? Think again. Dylan was simply wandering in realms of the spirit the rest of us hadn’t yet reached. As his audience has been saying ever since, he’s always one step ahead of his audience. The fact of his genius became unfalsifiable. Nothing he did could contradict it.
So Dylan turned and hit ‘em again. He became a born-again Christian. He performed in Kabuki make-up. He performed drunk. He wore funny hats. He veered from headbanger rock to Opryland cheese. He made boring, pretentious movies about himself. He played with the Grateful Dead. Nothing seemed to work; his admirers just dug in deeper, gaining confidence as their ranks grew even to include England’s poet laureate. At last, in what for any other performer would have been a self-administered death blow, he adopted the stage style he’s famous for today: the adenoidal voice mumbling unintelligible lyrics, the chain-saw arrangements mangling the most beloved Dylan standard till the body can’t be identified. He tours continuously, doing this night after night.
A Dylan concert is unlike any other event in the history of American show business. It is notable most for the uneasy sense among the audience that no one has the slightest idea what song they’re listening to. To an outsider, it looks like a cruel hoax, an inside joke that the joker alone is in on. Yet I’ve seen fans weep in gratitude as he garbles his most famous lines. The ovations are deafening. Forget Baby Huey: Dylan fans are the battered wives of the music industry
Be sure to read the rest, especially the last two spot-on paragraphs.
November 3rd, 2009 | 3:03 pm
From Peter, Paul and Mary’s versions of “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” in the early 60’s, to Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along The Watchtower” in the late ’60’s, to Garth Brooks’ version of “Make You Feel My Love” in the late 90’s, Dylan has written almost five decades worth of songs in genres from folk to country to rock. The jazz singer Cassandra Wilson has covered Dylan to great effect on more than one of her albums. One could go on and on with such examples of the songwriter’s craft.
The top three album-selling musical acts of all time, according to the RIAA, are Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Garth Brooks. Elvis covered a Dylan song, Garth took the aforementioned “Make You Feel My Love to #1 on the country charts in ‘98, and the Beatles actually put the Bard’s face on the cover of their own Sergeant Pepper’s album (upper right corner).
That’s cutting quite a swath.
But you, however, self-admittedly “don’t get it at all.”
Let’s just color you clueless and move on, shall we?
November 3rd, 2009 | 3:18 pm
PPM, Jimi Hendrix, and Garth Brooks all covered his songs? Seriously, that’s your defense of Dylan?
PPM was horrible, even by the low bar of ’60s folks standards. Hendrix was a decent guitar player, but he was way overrated (and U2 did a better version than Hendrix). As for Brooks, he peaked with his first single—”Much too Young”. He may have sold a lot of records but he never again matched the magic of his first album. His covering Dylan was in keeping with his attempt to be all things to all people.
But let’s grant the fact that in his forty years of music that Dylan may have written some songs worth covering. How does that change the fact that he is one of the worst singers of all time? And how would you answer Ferguson’s charges?
November 3rd, 2009 | 3:46 pm
Joe Carter, your music tastes are incorrigible. First Creed, now this?
November 3rd, 2009 | 3:56 pm
Et tu, Will? Are you a Dylan defender?
Because the stakes are so low and passions run so high, music is one of my favorite things to argue about. ; )
November 3rd, 2009 | 4:07 pm
Arguing over music really is one of life’s great pleasures.
That said, great article. I really haven’t enjoyed anything Dylan’s released since “Blood on the Tracks,” and “Love and Theft” is one of the most overrated comeback albums ever.
November 3rd, 2009 | 4:20 pm
Quite a few good songs, but the voice has always been too hard to handle. Gordon Lightfoot’s my man.
November 3rd, 2009 | 4:45 pm
One for the defense:
in about ‘72, when I was about 14, borrowed Dylan LPs from older siblings and spun them repeatedly. Observations:
- After a couple listens, started skipping most of the songs – only a couple per album stood up to repeated listenings;
- ended up listening to Bringing It All Back Home a lot. Eventually, settled on It’s Alright Ma as the best track. then –
- noticed the lyrics were total DOGGEREL! To wit:
darkness at the break of noon
shadows even the silver spoon
you understand you know too soon
there ain’t no sense in trying…
um, what? I pretty much stopped my Dylan phase after a couple weeks, went back to spinning the likes of the Beatles, CS&N, and Beethoven.
Conclusions: Dylan put out, what, 30-40 albums? With maybe a dozen good-to-great songs, and a dozen more OK songs? and lots and lots of largely unlistenable crap. That’s a really good output, for your average world pop star, but Giant Astride the Musical World level? seems a little light. And, perhaps more to the point, the % of utter crap seems way high.
and his singing? makes Neil Young sound like Pavarotti.
YMMV.
November 3rd, 2009 | 4:49 pm
Oh, I left out the best lines:
darkness at the break of noon
shadows even the silver spoon
the hand-made blade, the child’s balloon
eclipses both the sun and moon
you understand you know too soon
there ain’t no sense in trying…
Whoa, deeeeep! Maybe I needed to do drugs for that to make sense…
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:02 pm
I’ll grant that Dylan’s voice is an acquired taste and always has been. I would sooner use algebra to prove my love for my wife than to try to convince nonbelievers that Dylan is greatly talented at phrasing when his heart is in it. You hear that for yourself or you don’t.
But to dismiss Dylan’s conversion to Christ in 1979 as one of many ways that Dylan gave his fans the finger?
That’s the sort of thing I expect from someone who follows Dylan’s work only closely enough to make fun of it. I’m sad that this post takes the argument seriously enough even to cite it.
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:04 pm
George Harrison once said, “In 500 years people will have forgotten The Beatles…but they’ll still be listening to Bob Dylan.”
Hmmm…
So, whose opinion should I listen to? The late-Beatle’s, or some dork on the internet? Or a writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD? Seriously? That’s like reading Creem for the political commentary.
Just because you “don’t get” Bob Dylan means nothing. I don’t get Jackson Pollack, either, but then…I’ve got a degree in English (Writing Emphasis), so…I tend to be attuned to other things. Like Bob Dylan, whose music is TAUGHT IN MANY MAJOR UNIVERSITIES.
The is an embarrassing essay. This Joe Carter dude should study things before spouting off nonsense.
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:09 pm
It’s interesting that “Joesph” should quote from one of Dylan’s most amazing songs. Also funny he ONLY quotes one of the more abstract lyrics. I urge others who are unfamilar with “It’s All Right, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” to Google the full lyrics. They’re stunning. What about this verse is hard to understand:
“While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat-race choir
Bent out of shape from societies pliers
Cares not to come up any higher, but rather
Get you down in the hole that he’s in…
…and it’s all right ma, if I can’t please him.”
Well said, Bob. Well said…
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:18 pm
There are no so deaf as those who cannot hear.
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:19 pm
Douglas But to dismiss Dylan’s conversion to Christ in 1979 as one of many ways that Dylan gave his fans the finger?
I don’t think that’s what Ferguson is saying. I think his point is that actions that would have killed the credibility of other rock stars—and unfortunately becoming a Christian would do that for some—is overlooked when it comes to Dylan.
Matthew So, whose opinion should I listen to?
I would say that Harrison’s prediction is already a failure. The Beatles are still popular with kids while Dylan is—as he always has been—an acquired taste for nostalgic Boomers.
Like Bob Dylan, whose music is TAUGHT IN MANY MAJOR UNIVERSITIES.
So is Madonna. Is that really an important standard?
The is an embarrassing essay. This Joe Carter dude should study things before spouting off nonsense.
There is nothing more amusing than a Baby Boomer who has had his taste impugned.
Listen, I realize that Dylan’s music was part of the soundtrack for the Greatest Generation That Ever Existed. But that doesn’t make it good. Boomers should just admit that it stinks but they are going to enjoy it anyway. Each generation’s questionable taste should not be considered beyond criticism. You won’t catch me defending DuranDuran or The Smiths—despite the fact that Simon Lebon and Morrissey can sing better than Dylan.
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:34 pm
“The Beatles are still popular with kids while Dylan is—as he always has been—an acquired taste for nostalgic Boomers. ”
Are you insane? Go to a Dylan concert! There are people there of MANY ages. I’ve 47, but I’ve met kids in their teens and 20’s the last few years into Dylan. His music sells better NOW than it did in the 60’s. (He had zero #1 albums in his so-called prime…and five in the last decade! Just “boomers” does not account for that. I know at least 5-6 people all under 30 who bought Together Through Life on the first day of sale.)
Seriously…do you know anything about music?
Because you come off sounding like someone who just makes stuff up as they go along. I mean, really, did you just compare a writer whose music has been studied for decades and recorded by literally hundreds of artists…to Duran Duran?
THAT’S making your point?
What you should do is listen to what musicians say about Dylan. If his stuff is JUST “a soundtrack for a generation” they do artists like Bono, Pete Townshend, Lennon and McCartney, and hundreds of others including many NOW revere his work? These aren’t people known for bandwagon jumping! (And by the way, I was eight in 1969…I didn’t start listening to Dylan until the mid-70s in my teens, but like many teens in the mid-80s, the mid-90s and the mid-NOW are doing so).
That you don’t “get” Dylan reflects on you, my friend, not Dylan.
And PS: how many Grammies do Simon Lebon or Morrissey have for BEST VOCALIST?
Dylan has two.
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:36 pm
Hey, Matthew – that’s my second favorite Dylan song, and I know it by heart 40 years later – and, you know what? it’s STILL doggerel! Weirdly hypnotic doggerel, full of fleeting images that seem to make sense as long as you don’t listen too hard – but c’mon – get any real piece of poetry, put ‘em side by side, and kind of think about it. It’s like what Joe Carter’s saying: only because this is the soundtrack of your (our) youth would anyone take it seriously. Even those of us less foolish than your typical college professor.
See, I LIKE this song on many levels. That not the point – the point is: it’s just a song. Dylan is just a songwriter. Several teenagers I know have discovered the Beatles and other music from the 60s and 70s, and are totally into it. But I know not one Dylan fan under about 50.
If this is a timeless masterpiece, where are the kids refusing to let it die?
November 3rd, 2009 | 5:47 pm
Believe it or not Joe, you aren’t the first internet guy, newspaper guy, music critic guy or any other guy who doesn’t get Dylan. You have had plenty of company over the years, although your numbers are diminishing. Nothing new hear, move along.
November 3rd, 2009 | 6:00 pm
Douglas said, “I’ll grant that Dylan’s voice is an acquired taste and always has been. I would sooner use algebra to prove my love for my wife than to try to convince nonbelievers that Dylan is greatly talented at phrasing when his heart is in it. You hear that for yourself or you don’t.”
That is very well stated. Personally, I don’t have a problem with someone who says, “I don’t like Dylan’s voice.” That’s a personal opinion regarding personal taste. But just because YOU don’t like something doesn’t remove its inherent value. A good friend of mine “hates” Jazz. Does Kind of Blue lose all value because he doesn’t get it?
Of course not.
Personally, I think listening to Thom Yorke’s voice is the aural equivalent of drinking cat urine…but does that mean that everyone who listens to Radiohead is wrong because I don’t “get it.”
Of course not.
But then…I’m not so myopically self-absorbed as to blog at how Radiohead is overrated. They clearly have a great deal of power in moving people on a very deep, perhaps even spiritual level. I, personally, just don’t “get it.” But I also don’t pretend that my difference in taste negates their ability…or importance.
And I sure as Hell wouldn’t compare them to Duran Duran to try to make that point. LOL
November 3rd, 2009 | 6:05 pm
Joseph said, “If this is a timeless masterpiece, where are the kids refusing to let it die?”
You need to get out more. The very reason Dylan has reemerged this last decade is because kids have (again) rediscovered his music. Like I did in the 70s when he was ALREADY considered a “has-been” by many people. I know and have met dozens of Dylan fans over the years, and as often as not they are people in their late-teens and 20s. A friend of mine at work is about 25…and he recently traveled several hundred miles to see Dylan for the first time.
In fact, one of the most amazing things about Dylan is that he is NOT a generational artist. Most of the boomers who were fans originally have died or largely stopped buying albums. The reason he has had a #1 album THIS YEAR is because people in five generations LOVE HIS MUSIC.
November 3rd, 2009 | 6:30 pm
I’ve never been into Bob Dylan either. And that voice!
I don’t know if its historically accurate, but I loved Val Kilmer’s portrayal of Jim Morrison in “The Doors” movie where he makes fun of Bob Dylan’ singing.
November 3rd, 2009 | 7:21 pm
I can see why you commend Mr. Ferguson. He really did a very thorough job tossing out the bath water.
But the time it takes to read the essay might be better spent watching this curiously compelling performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFde2EqeyHY
November 3rd, 2009 | 8:41 pm
Of course it is easy to ridicule Dylan’s voice and, indeed, his concerts are painful. But many, many of his lyrics are beautiful and full of meaning. One cannot listen to “Oh Mercy” (1989) and not be moved and called to better behavior. For example:
There’s a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Whole lot of hearts shaking tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Steps into your room,
Eats your soul,
Over your senses
You have no control.
Ain’t nothing too discreet
About the disease of conceit.
November 3rd, 2009 | 8:42 pm
This is a new Joseph commenting. Sorry for any confusion.
November 3rd, 2009 | 8:57 pm
Let’s recap here: a quick Google search reveals:
a total of 3 Dylan songs have hit the charts in last 30 years, with a ‘peak’ of 55;
Dylan did hit # 1 in album sales twice in the last decade, and a #5 as well – but look at the demographics of who buys albums. It’s not kids.
Putting these two together: His songs don’t get played on the radio. Us fogeys buy his albums. This is not a combination that screams ‘Dylan Renaissance’.
But I’ll do a little field research: I have ready access to about 20 teenagers. I’ll spring for a copy of, oh, Blood on the Tracks (I like Tangled up in Blue) and pull some other 60’s music from the shelf, and circulate it among the aforementioned teenagers – without any biasing comment – and see if, say, Dylan is a popular as Zeppelin or the Beatles or even Buffalo Springfield.
Give me a month, and I’ll report back. These are pretty open-minded Bay Area kids, so I’d expect the outcome to, if anything, favor Dylan (we’ll have to somehow factor in that their hippy-dippy parents have already primed the pump, as it were.) I’ll try to keep it honest in interest of Science.
BTW, a friend of mine, from a couple bands ago, recently caught Dylan live. He said that, while it was worth attending to catch a living legend, the show itself sucked beyond belief, for all the reasons stated above.
November 3rd, 2009 | 11:06 pm
Dylan has a new Christmas album out. Listening to him “sing” the familiar carols and hymns is almost more than a body can bear.
November 3rd, 2009 | 11:06 pm
If you don’t get Bob Dylan, It’s probably not Bob that sucks.
And saying you don’t like him for his voice is a bad excuse. Listen to “Moonshiner” from the very start of his career. He holds the notes in perfect key, strains on cue for dramatic effect, and uses his voice beautifully as an instrument in the song.
Now lets jump some ten years down the road to 1970, completely skipping the phenomenal vocal performances that are songs like “Sooner or Later” and “As I went out One Morning” and dozens of other amazing songs from the 60s. “New Morning” (The song) is another excellent vocal performance that might get him to Hollywood in American Idol auditions.
A few years further down the road, we have a heartbreakingly beautiful performance in “Idiot Wind,” (Dylan lyric doubters should listen to this one).
Now lets jump to 2009. Buy yourself a copy of “Together Through Life.” It’s no nostalgia album. It is truly outstanding, and if on first listen, you think “this sucks” listen again. His singing on “Life is Hard” and “Forgetful Heart” are among the best performances of his career.
The man is not over rated. Never Will be.
November 4th, 2009 | 1:49 am
Early Dylan was a genius for being what he was in the context of the culture in which he appeared. Listen to John Jacob Niles and Richard Dyer-Bennet on one side and Frankie Avalon and the Four Seasons on the other, and then at the motley assortment of pop and folkish music styles of the late 50s and early 60s. What would you imagine would come next? Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to anticipate the British invasion (in its early form). Motown was already at hand. You might believe the Nashville sound would evolve out of its regional shell. But nobody could have expected Bob Dylan. He was like nothing you’d ever heard before or ever was likely to. Whatever his limitations, he provoked and affronted the musical expectations of the world. He was the irritant who engendered a thousand beautiful responses. You might think sometimes you’re hearing “the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes”, but Dylan for all that is the Minstrel Boy in the Ranks of Death, and what has come out of his mouth is “the soul of love and bravery”.
November 4th, 2009 | 3:09 am
I could be convinced that Bob Dylan’s overrated, but Ferguson’s article can’t be taken seriously; He insults Tom Waits, and Tom Waits IS a genius!
November 4th, 2009 | 3:59 am
Bob Dylan is in a class all by himself. No popular musical artist has left the depth and breadth to even approach his body of work. He is broadly recognized as the greatest song writer of the past 50 years (if not of all time) and his lyrics are for the ages. People who reduce him to just a singer obviously miss the point although it’s worth noting here that Rolling Stone magazine recently listed him as the best living white male singer in their all time top 100 ranking of singers. They also in recent years rated him as the second best artist of all time, with only the Beatles coming in ahead of him.
Take a singer with a great voice like Van Morisson who this year performed Astral Weeks in concert in it’s entirety. Close your eyes and you could barely notice any change in his voice over the 40 years that have passed. Compare that to Dylan, an artist who’s fans can almost name the year of a performance based on the sound of Dylan’s voice at the time. How utterly unique is that? How utterly unique is it for an artist to so radically rearrange his songs at will? How utterly unique is it for an artist to reinvent himself as Dylan has done throughout his carreer?
In an industry where being original is one of the most illusive challenges of all, Bob is without peer. The man may not be for everyone as many don’t get him but for those of us that do get him, he is not only good but the best there is.
November 4th, 2009 | 5:11 am
It does’nt hurt when some guy says “Dylan’s no good”, as loonies like him might someday claim that Sir Isaac Newton was’nt correct.
November 4th, 2009 | 7:06 am
I am intrigued by the passionate tone of these posts. It reminds me of a comment of Eudora Welty about her mother, i.e., that her mother read Dickens with a spirit in which she would have eloped with him. It seems apparent that at an impressionable stage in our lives, we encounter someone/something that evokes a response so personal and meaningful to our innermost selves that it is not effaced by some more mature understandings. It is one’s own, so to speak, and must be defended, although it cannot be explained or transmitted.
November 4th, 2009 | 9:50 am
Andrew Ferguson is of course right that the quality of Bob Dylan’s music has varied widely and that Dylan worship gets truly ridiculous. And as always Ferguson is a hoot to read. But to be interesting, Ferguson would need to give a better accounting of Dylan’s strengths and his popularity and influence among musicians. Instead we get a typical smirking Ferguson take down that succeeds only insofar as it ignores.
He rightly abhors the absurd hyped-up legend-making of popular culture and longs for the solid achievement of earlier eras. Okay, so do many of us. But that’s a bigger issue and has much to do with how recorded performance has supplanted written music. Recordings allow for the endless reproduction of ephemeral emotional moments in performance that cannot be captured on a page. Bob Dylan played a part in this shift. Is it a bad shift, a coarsening, a slide down? Andrew Ferguson thinks so, but takes on a big subject in a little way.
November 4th, 2009 | 12:07 pm
In interviews (on radio and in print), Dylan comes across as maybe the coolest man in America — respectful enough of whomever he’s talking to but never unduly impressed, never feeling the need to try very hard to make his point. “If you think I’m wrong,” he says, though never is so many words, “so what?” The truth doesn’t fret about public opinion or approval ratings and isn’t touched by them.
Dylan the man has a lot to do with why people are affected by his songs. Someone with a purer appreciation for music as music may have a different reaction to the music that’s his, but his personal presence is such that, in his case, a lot of us don’t really care to distinguish between the singer and the song.
November 4th, 2009 | 12:56 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Cathrine Feehely, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan said: News: Bob Dylan Fans: The Battered Wives of the Music Industry – First Things: Bob Dylan Fans: The Battere.. http://bit.ly/40oBHs [...]
November 4th, 2009 | 2:07 pm
I almost detest Dylan, for all the reasons that Andrew Ferguson explains. Then again, I really don’t like much music written after Brahms. But the article is a failure: it simply ridicules Dylan and the everyone who listens to him. What is maddening about Dylan is how clever he could be at his best, and how rarely that occurred. The first stanza of “Highway 61 Revisited” might be the funniest piece of light verse written by an American; the other stanzas are gibberish. For the most part his work is self-indulgent self-parody, and that’s a shame; one suspects that he was ruined by an audience that took him too seriously. To study him as serious literature is idiotic.
November 4th, 2009 | 6:17 pm
You want modern music that has meaning? That is not just pure entertainment or, worse, sexual in nature? I give you Rush. Especially from their “2112″ album in 1976 to “Moving Pictures” in 1981. Talk about music that has as its themes life, freedom, openness, and the power of the human intellect and human accomplishment.
Nothing compares to Rush as far as I’m concerned.
November 4th, 2009 | 11:33 pm
Mine, of course, is the correct view of Dylan. I do think it’s silly to compare him to real poets; he’s essentially a folk artist and he doesn’t work on the same technical level. Nor can one sensibly take either his words or his music in isolation. Think of him as a bluesman, with a limited vocabulary and a lot of soul, and you’re closer.
November 5th, 2009 | 4:07 pm
May I cite someone who knows what he is talking about when it comes to Bob Dylan:
“But I’m not sure either that it’s possible to look at Dylan and ask questions about belief. I mean I don’t know what Dylan’s religion is. But I know what the songs are about. And what Dylan reaches down into is the deep stuff of America. Down linguistically into that soil. And he pulls up these threads, these roots, and weaves them together into a song. And down in the deep soil of America there’s God and there’s wayfaring strangers and there’s man alone, and there’s, y’know, there’s class resentment — Dylan knows that too. There’s a lot of stuff there in this rhetorical soil and these tropes that float around. And I don’t believe we have ever had a singer in America, a composer, a songwriter in America, who’s reached more deeply into that soil. Whatever it is that Pa Carter did — he had a kind of talent for just mixing those roots together. Gold Watch and Chain, and so on. But Dylan’s there and deeper. And, Irving Berlin, oddly, had a talent for it. Just reaching down into that soil of American poetic and musical tropes, and pulling up a handful and weaving them into, well, musically very sophisticated stuff in the case of Irving Berlin. The Carter Family were musically never sophisticated. I mean, as musicians they were sophisticated — as song composers they were not, if I can make that distinction. I mean the actual melody lines and chord changes in a Carter Family song are not profound, but they grasped some path down into the soil of American rhetoric. And Dylan knew that path and went in deeper. Woody Guthrie followed another slightly different path down, and Dylan followed that path and went deeper. And Irving Berlin followed another path, and Dylan knows that one too, and African-American gospel follows another path, and Dylan knows that one too. In all of them, I think, Dylan has reached deeper into the soil, into the root stock of American rhetoric, these tropes and this language.”
Dead spot on, I say. Who would that be? Check it out….
http://www.rightwingbob.com/weblog/archives/1262
November 6th, 2009 | 10:40 am
Yeah, I’d say so, too (that it’s dead spot on). Especially since it’s pretty much the same thing I’ve tried to say.
November 7th, 2009 | 12:05 pm
I don’t have a strong opinion either way here, but, considering that this is First Thing’s website, I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned “Every Grain of Sand.”
November 12th, 2009 | 11:35 am
Well, let me mention ‘Every Grain of Sand.’ Several years ago, for a variety of personal reasons, I was facing the darkest night of my soul, and that song truly helped me pull through, by helping me understand that God works in all of our lives in ways we may not understand.
I love Dylan’s music, and I think he is a good and underrated singer, but if the only thing he ever released was that song, I would still be eternally grateful. I challenge anyone to listen to that song and say it is doggerel. If you do, you are just not listening.
December 11th, 2009 | 2:35 pm
[...] month I linked to Andrew Ferguson’s takedown of Bob Dylan and confessed that I never understood the singer’s appeal. Not surprisingly, the Dylan defenders in the comments thrashed Ferguson and me for failing to [...]
December 11th, 2009 | 7:01 pm
The way Dylan sings; how he pronounces words and stresses certain syllables, combined with his lyrics, tunes and the conscientious notion that ‘less is more’ makes for truly magical experience.
December 14th, 2009 | 3:18 am
Some of the comments here have been helpful to me, as someone who has not listened to Dylan much and has always been skeptical of the more effusive praise for him (e.g., people’s identifying him as their favorite poet, etc.). So tell me, Dylan fans – is this fair as a synopsis of your position?
The man has written some truly amazing (and deep and spiritual) songs across a long and varied career, he has admirable independence and doesn’t allow others’ expectations to shape him or his work. So even when he writes less great stuff or sings in an incomprehensible fashion, it’s still worth listening to him just because of who he is and what he’s done. When he’s at his best the music speaks for itself, and when he’s not it doesn’t much matter, because he’s still Bob Dylan.
I don’t think that’s a crazy way to regard a musician, but it would be nice if Dylan fans would admit that much of the time it’s not so much anything in particular about the music that’s so great, it’s the fact that it’s still Bob Dylan singing and writing it.
December 14th, 2009 | 3:29 am
Oh, and another thing: you (namely, A Bobfan, who nicely stands in by his name for all of you) do not help your cause by saying that Bob Dylan is possibly the greatest songwriter of all time. You do realize what “of all time” means, don’t you? This is the kind of statement that provokes reactions like Ferguson’s. If one is supposed to take seriously the idea that Dylan might be a greater writer of songs than, say … oh, I don’t know … Schubert(!), then all bets are off. Following some of the discussion above with Mr. Carter, allow me put this as an inequality of ratios for you:
Bob Dylan:Duran Duran < Schubert: Bob Dylan
The same would hold true if Duran Duran were replaced by Britney Spears. Let's have no more of this "of all time" nonsense.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact