{"id":878,"date":"2016-10-18T04:03:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T04:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/?p=878"},"modified":"2016-10-18T04:03:09","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T04:03:09","slug":"a-dylan-encomium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/2016\/10\/18\/a-dylan-encomium\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dylan Encomium"},"content":{"rendered":"

So they have him. The bard who has spent a lifetime one step away, out of step, keeping us guessing, not playing the game, any of them, finally tripped up. Fated to turn up in Stockholm in white tie with the world\u2019s press? Assimilated in grand style? Maybe the shortest Nobel acceptance speech ever? (\u201cI\u2019d like to say, thankyuh.\u201d) But how does it feel? Tell us, how does it feel? Maybe, on his own, with no direction home?\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2016\/oct\/17\/nobel-prize-bob-dylan-unable-to-reach<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

When I was a teenager and early adult, besides the usual Bach, Beethoven, Britten, Richard Rodney Bennett and Cornelius Cardew, I was into guitar music, sounds. Bob Dylan was an acoustic singer-songwriter \u2013 ugh \u2013 and I didn\u2019t listen. When I did, invited by a pal convinced Dylan was a philosopher-poet, I disliked his singing \u2013 or, rather, non-singing \u2013 style, and that shrill harmonica. For me, Baker, Bruce and Clapton became the Cream of the new world disorder.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my favorite songs was the Byrds\u2019 Mr. Tambourine Man. Byrds? Another was the enigmatic Hendrix anthem, All Along the Watchtower \u2013 Hendrix? (still so accredited in some on-line lyric collections) \u2013 with its incomparable first line, to that teenager at that time, \u201cThere must be some kinda way outa here<\/em>.\u201d A phrase in Mixolydian mode and insistent syncopated rhythm which needs to be sung to solicit its impact. There was a way outa here. It took this young man to California, where a decade later I learnt what that musical style was all about. When I arrived in 1973, it seemed every second uni student could pick up a guitar and sing a song. It took me a few years to appreciate, then I got into Anglo-American-Irish traditional music and have been hanging around and about ever since. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bertrand-Henri Lévy said \u2013 I venture to summarise, as one does with BHL \u2013 why shouldn\u2019t the Nobel Committee recognise a bard? https:\/\/www.project-syndicate.org\/commentary\/dylan-nobel-prize-critics-by-bernard-henri-levy-2016-10<\/a>\u00a0Bards have a long history: Chanson de Roland, Trobadors, Trouvères, Minstrels, Minnesänger. The English-language tradition appears to be mostly without music \u2013 Piers Ploughman, Langland, Chaucer \u2013 but now, we have, have had, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lennon-McCartney, Leonard Cohen, Stephen Sondheim, Kate Tempest. There are literature prizes, music prizes, and now sometimes a bardic prize. Long may they all continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some matters work in song which don\u2019t work in words alone, or in music alone. Take the phrase from Watchtower \u2013 words, rhythm, melody work together. Words alone are just a frustrated father in a supermarket which doesn\u2019t stock his kid\u2019s breakfast cereal. Add rhythm and it sounds weird, but with the Mixolydian intonation it becomes ethereal, existentially pertinent, just as it was to that teenager in Walsall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider another song, Knocking on Heaven\u2019s Door. Written a decade later, for a movie about old gunslingers. The title is the refrain (nothing more). The verses are just two:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nMama, take this badge off of me<\/span><\/em>
\nI can\u2019t use it any more<\/span><\/em>
\nIt\u2019s getting dark, to dark to see<\/span><\/em>
\nI feel I\u2019m knocking on heaven\u2019s door<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\nMama, put my guns in the ground<\/span><\/em>
\nI can\u2019t shoot them any more<\/span><\/em>
\nThat long black cloud is coming down<\/span><\/em>
\nI feel I\u2019m knocking on heaven\u2019s door<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Notice the repetition with mild variation. It\u2019s hard to be briefer, to be more simple. The melody is four notes, forming thirds, more of a wail. You only need two chords, not even reaching Billy Gibbons\u2019s \u201csame three guys, same three chords,\u201d but the sophisticates do use three (see below). <\/span><\/p>\n

What can possibly be interesting about this piece? But it\u2019s in my repertoire \u2013 that is, it will be when I have it down. Because performing this material isn\u2019t easy, whatever one may think from Dylan\u2019s ad-hoc stage manner. Many songs can be sung right away, but almost none of his. Figuring out how to sing this song is taking me months. The melody \u2013 too simple. The articulation takes work. The words \u2013 too simple, with literal and conceptual repetition. To those four notes, there are really just four lines. Yet it can form an entire five-minute song https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cJpB_AEZf6U<\/a>\u00a0; for others too:\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GH-TLcpvgdA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The key is that first call. A man, getting older, losing it, a tough man, his persona disforming and he cries out. In the literature he might call to \u201cMary, Mother of God\u201d, but he doesn\u2019t. He calls for his Ma. That one word, that high, lonesome call of two notes, right at the beginning, encapsulates it. Ma has probably been dead a long time. But Ma is forever helper and rescuer, since he was a small boy and she was still Mama, not yet Ma. He can\u2019t see well; his light is fading. But he can\u2019t give up; another must lead him to it \u2013 he is pleading to be relieved of duty. He is not raging against the dying of the light, he is resigning to it. He is about to be engulfed by the black cloud. Of despair? Oblivion? He pleads for his tools of trade to be buried, as he soon may be. Religious, but familial. The symbols are common; the symbolism is rich. All in four notes arranged in thirds, and a lilting rhythm to match the rocking of early childhood, Mama rocking the cradle, all the way to the grave. In way fewer than half the words I\u2019ve used. The retelling, in this stark brevity, can take five minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not easy. It\u2019s almost too simple. The riches must be brought out through apt delivery, which takes application and work. It\u2019s so with almost every one of this great man\u2019s songs. It\u2019s not great poetry; it\u2019s not great music; it\u2019s great bardic literature. Many others sing his compositions, as Byrds and Hendrix did when I first came across his work. Bob Dylan has been radiating for over half a century. <\/span><\/p>\n

Who are the modern bards? Besides Dylan, I mentioned Guthrie, Seeger, Beatles, Cohen, Sondheim, and, recently, Tempest. Woody misses out, surely only because he died before the Nobel Committee considered bards. Pete is also gone; in any case his greatest work was with other people\u2019s songs. The Beatles only lasted a few years. Leonard Cohen is not really to my taste, but he speaks to many. Sondheim? A definite Maybe, now that bards are considered. I\u2019ll be long dead when the wonderful Kate Tempest has been at it half a century. <\/span><\/p>\n

Today it\u2019s Dylan. Back a half-century, there would have been another choice. Consider Woody\u2019s song \u201cRiding in My Car\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jmcrlvNPTJw<\/a>\u00a0Simplicity, and complexity. All six notes within an interval sixth. The entire chorus a noise \u2013 \u201cbrrmm\u201d. How on earth do you keep it interesting? That\u2019s bardic skill. A delightful, cheery, elixir of freedom through technology. Try to sing it yourself, then go back and listen to Woody. It\u2019s not easy, is it? Emotional simplicity made cogent through complex articulation, and \u2013 let\u2019s say it finally \u2013 genius. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Nobel Committee have it so right. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So they have him. The bard who has spent a lifetime one step away, out of step, keeping us guessing, not playing the game, any of them, finally tripped up. Fated to turn up in Stockholm in white tie with the world\u2019s press? Assimilated in grand style? Maybe the shortest Nobel acceptance speech ever? (\u201cI\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abnormaldistribution.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}