We sure love lists, don't we?
I want to take one more Dylan poll.
Last week saw a splendid return on your Bob Dylan faves. Of course, the obvious follow-up would be "Worst Dylan Songs," right? Not gonna do it. I'm not opening the flood gates for the unanimous denouncement of "Wiggle Wiggle." Too easy, and I really don't mind that song.
I think this is more interesting.
Pick one Bob Dylan song...just one...that you detest.
Now you may hate "Wiggle Wiggle" so much, that it has to be your answer. That's fine, if that's what it is. But I'm thinking more along the lines of a song that isn't normally cited as Zimmy's nadir, but a song that just does not work for you.
For years, I could not listen to "Get Back" by The Beatles. I hated everything about it, from Paul's nasally vocals to Ringo's galloping snare drum. I've since come around. I don't love it now, but I won't turn it off.
On the other hand, I WILL turn off "Honest With Me" from "Love & Theft." The slide guitar riff is relentlessly annoying and enough to send me running the second I hear it.
Let's see what you've got.
Remember....JUST ONE.
"Forever Young" I listen to "Planet Waves" and needle jump it every time.Same with the "Last Waltz" I haven't heard the whole song in years.
ReplyDeletewho killed davey moore. it doesn't work at all for me. it may be young bob trying to write a socially relevant song that is not what seeger or baez or other folkies would write but it still manages, for me, to be both sanctimonious and unconvincing. the multiple perspectives don't add anything cause the narrator keeps sounding smug. but i think the (relative) failure of it may have helped push dylan out of the folkies and into the lively, living, and contestable language of the great 60s albums.
ReplyDelete"Ain't Talkin'". Does nothing for me. At all.
ReplyDeleteEasy! "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" made me puke... on the record & in the movie. Makes me puke every time I hear someone else sing it, and even hearing a boot Television version gets the gag reflex going (it's pretty bad when a smokin' Tom Verlaine solo can't save a song).
ReplyDeleteI never liked Rainy Day Women #12&35. Yet Blonde on Blonde is among my favorite Dylan albums. Heresy?
ReplyDelete"All Along the Watchtower." I don't care who sings it, the song does nothing for me. Well, it does irritate me for reasons that I can't explain, but other than that, nothing.
ReplyDeleteThis is so much easier than last week: Rainy Day Women #12&35. I'll admit he has worse songs but its placement as track one on his arguably best record is just tragic. I just start Blonde on Blonde with Pledging My Time and just pretend thats the full album.
ReplyDelete-BlakeS
Hello all…no, please…remain seated.
ReplyDeleteWas going to pick Rainy Day Women but, since a few others have (rightfully) already fingered it, let me take the liberty of naming my close second pick:
Highlands from Time Out of Mind.
When I first listened to this song back in ’97 or so, I just could not BELIEVE that his Bob-itude would write the following verses (sorry for copying so many verses, but it’s the only way to convey the full horror):
I’m in Boston town, in some restaurant
I got no idea what I want
Well, maybe I do but I’m just really not sure
Waitress comes over
Nobody in the place but me and her
It must be a holiday, there’s nobody around
She studies me closely as I sit down
She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs
She says, “What’ll it be?”
I say, “I don’t know, you got any soft boiled eggs?”
She looks at me, says, “I’d bring you some
But we’re out of ’m, you picked the wrong time to come”
Then she says, “I know you’re an artist, draw a picture of me!”
I say, “I would if I could, but
I don’t do sketches from memory”
“Well,” she says, “I’m right here in front of you, or haven’t you looked?”
I say, “All right, I know, but I don’t have my drawing book!”
She gives me a napkin, she says, “You can do it on that”
I say, “Yes I could, but
I don’t know where my pencil is at!”
She pulls one out from behind her ear
She says, “All right now, go ahead, draw me, I’m standing right here”
I make a few lines and I show it for her to see
Well she takes the napkin and throws it back
And says, “That don’t look a thing like me!”
I said, “Oh, kind Miss, it most certainly does”
She says, “You must be jokin’.” I say, “I wish I was!”
Then she says, “You don’t read women authors, do you?”
Least that’s what I think I hear her say
“Well,” I say, “how would you know and what would it matter anyway?”
“Well,” she says, “you just don’t seem like you do!”
I said, “You’re way wrong”
She says, “Which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”
She goes away for a minute
And I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street but nobody’s going anywhere
Stunning, isn’t it. Jaw-droppingly bad. I know that when you swing for the fences, you sometimes strike out, but….really.
Regards,
RichD
"Catfish"
ReplyDeleteIt's easy. "Ugliest Girl In The World" from "Down In The Groove".
ReplyDeleteFor a long time "Rainy Day Woman" was the only song I really liked.
I thought everything about it was hysterical fun. It reminded me of Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" in a good way.
For me, "Masters of War." I find the music as hectoring as the lyrics (agree with the sentiments, but still).
ReplyDeleteAmused that Blake S. skips "Rainy Day Women" when he plays Blonde on Blonde. I do the same thing. I don't hate the song, I've just heard it enough for one lifetime. Sort of like odd flavors of ice cream: you only need so many go-rounds.
Bruce H.
"Joey." Boring song in praise of a gangster.
ReplyDeleteJ. Loslo
I'm trying to figure out what's so bad about "Highlands". I think it's pretty funny. Is it because it's not a scathing critique of a significant issue? Is it because it sounds bad? I can't find it on Youtube. What songs there are from "Time Out Of Mind" are pretty cool, especially if you've spent the last week listening to "Empire Burlesque", "Knocked Out Loaded", "Down In The Groove", "Street Legal", and "Self Portrait".
ReplyDeleteDoes everybody hate "Rainy Day Woman" because they don't get stoned anymore? Or even worse, never did?
Dylan's nadir for me has to be "Man Gave Names To All The Animals," from an otherwise excellent Slow Train Coming album.
ReplyDeleteLay Lady Lay.
ReplyDeleteNot a big Nashville Skyline fan to begin with. The way his voice changed due to his having quit smoking. Not a huge issue on most of the songs, but it just sounds creepy on this one. Across my big brass bed?
For me, this song conjures up: grainy black-and-white Rheingold beer commercials from the late 60s, astrological sign necklaces, toupees, houndstooth sports jackets, Binaca breath blasts, handlebar mustaches on jowly cheeks, size-too-small polyester leisure suits open to near the navel, plaid bellbottoms, faded Erica Jong paperbacks with that library smell, an OTB on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Queens circa 1968 and Jim Nabors.
Close second: last song on the new album about John Lennon. Where he uses Beatles/Lennon song titles as lyrics. I used to write essays and short stories like this ... IN THE SEVENTH GRADE! And I'd usually bold and ALL CAP the lyrics to make sure you GOT the SIGNIFICANCE of THE WORDS. I just about died when I heard that song.
I asked for one song, so I did my best and posted my own one song. But man...
ReplyDeleteI hate:
KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR
LAY LADY LAY
&
MAN GAVE NAME TO ALL THE ANIMALS
(I think I'll call it a pig.)
And this:
"For me, this song conjures up: grainy black-and-white Rheingold beer commercials from the late 60s, astrological sign necklaces, toupees, houndstooth sports jackets, Binaca breath blasts, handlebar mustaches on jowly cheeks, size-too-small polyester leisure suits open to near the navel, plaid bellbottoms, faded Erica Jong paperbacks with that library smell, an OTB on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Queens circa 1968 and Jim Nabors."
...made my night.
Hello all...no please, remain seated.
ReplyDeleteThe fun continues...To buzzbaby: Actually I don’t mind at all if Bob doesn’t write agonizing lyrics in all his songs. My problem with Highlands is its schizophrenia: it has some very, very nice verses (of the 20 total in the song). To wit, verse 1:
Well, my heart's in the highlands, gentle and fair
Honey suckle bloomin' in the wildwood air
Bluebells blazin' where the Aberdeen waters flow
Well, my heart's in the highlands, I'm gonna go there when
I feel good enough to go.
IMO...we're off to a pretty good start here, right? Setting the scene for continued reflections on, oh I don't know, aging, home, a bucolic paradise lost, etc.
By verses 3 through 6, I’m very, very encouraged:
Well, my heart's in the highlands, wherever I roam
That's where I'll be when I get called home
The wind it whispers to the buck-eyed trees of rhyme
Well, my heart's in the highlands, I can only get there one step at a time.
But then…well, I don’t know. It’s like Bob went out and just got totally faced and wrote verses 8 through 14 (the ones I quoted), then wrote verses 15 through 20 when he sobered up. And it’s like no one had the balls to call him on it in the studio. All I know is that I adore the album as a whole, but, for me, 14 minutes is too long an investment of time for this tune.
Switching gears…love the comments above about Lay, Lady, Lay. Finally, can’t remember who said it, but I heard a great line back in the 90’s about Bob….”yeah, back in the sixties he was cheerfully singing Everybody Must Get Stoned, now he’s bitching that everything’s broken. Hellooooo???”
Regards,
RichD
Rainy Day Women 12 & 35
ReplyDeleteEasy. The duet with Johnny Cash on Nashville Skyline, Girl from the North Country. I love both artists, and understand their mutual admiration, but their voices do not mesh. Apparently no one at the studio had the nerve to tell them.
ReplyDeleteI only heard that duet with Johnny Cash once, and that was enough.
ReplyDeleteI tried to erase it from my memory.
I'm a recovered Rainy Day Women hater. When it hit the the radio in the 60's, i was in elementary school and its booziness just sounded embarrassing. I had the same reaction to the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon. Now both songs seem like big larks.
ReplyDeleteNashville Skyline's Girl from the North Country is one of my Dylan favorites. For some reason their delivery, mistakes and all, makes me real nostalgic.
Don't really have a least favorite - after finally seeing Dylan transform a ton of songs in concert, i realized that he probably gives no fucks about what the album versions sound like.
I'll get abuse for this, but: "Just Like A Woman." Man I hate that song!!! It's one of his very few I don't dig.
ReplyDeleteLay Lady Lay.
ReplyDeleteI was eleven when I first heard this in the car of a family friend. He said, "this is Bob Dylan" with a reverence that made me sit up and listen. I had heard the name but not the music. I was...underwhelmed. Besides the voice, which was not to my preteen tastes, the song sounded smarmy and certainly not like the voice of a generation. Took me years to try again. I am glad I did though. Still don't like this one.
By the way, I also agree about your comment regarding "Get Back." What a dull song. I don't get the joy some people find in it.....
ReplyDelete- A Walk In The Woods
Sal, is there something wrong over at Burning Wood? I've been clicking on my link for the last half hour and none of your posts are visible, apart from the title of the most recent one. Marie
ReplyDeleteNo problems here Marie. All is well.
ReplyDeleteI kid you not, Sal - Burning Wood is the only one of my favourite blogs that I can't access normally. The template itself is visible along with the title (only) of the most recent post, but no side-bar items and no older posts.
ReplyDeleteStill, I'm glad that you're not noticeably affected by this. If you have any good pals in Canada can you ask them to check - maybe the problem is restricted to us Canucks? Thanks. Marie