Music Michael Krahn on 24 Feb 2007 09:40 pm
Bob Dylan sounds like: "A cat in heat… on speed!"
“A cat in heat… on speed!”
Those words, the words of my blessed wife, describe what she hears when we listen to Bob Dylan. Today it was when she heard “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance” (”The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. Well, that’s HER opinion. What’s yours?
My opinion is, of course, different from my wife’s. This album is one of the best his early career although it does not outshine
my favourite, the seldom mentioned self-titled debut.
I’m the first to admit I think old Bob’s lost a step or two through the years to the point where I pick up new albums now and wonder why he still puts them out. And then there’s the concert I went to a few months back. I won’t be doing that again.
I wish I had been alive in 1962 to watch him as a 20-year-old groundbreaker. Yeah, he stumbles and mumbles and always has (well, there was “Nashville Skyline”) but at least there used to be more narrative arc to his songs and albums and that’s what made it interesting to me.
Anne Marie and I agree on a lot of music and she often impress
es me with her ability to name artists when we listen all 3800 songs on the iPod on shuffle. But there are a few artists (Dylan, Yoakam, Sexsmith) I always end up having to skip when they come on.
Of course, I make her identify them first.
Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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on 25 Feb 2007 at 2:20 am #
I used to make Mrs. Geezer guess the artist on some songs.
I could always fool her with “Firefall”. They were a good band but underrated.
She actually bought the new Dylan because of the song “When the Deal goes Down”.
on 25 Feb 2007 at 2:21 am #
A friend had extra tickets to see Bob Dyland & Willie Nelson a couple of summers ago when they played all the baseball parks. What should have been a 45 minute drive to the ballpark turned into 3 hours due to traffic, causing me to miss most of Willie’s set. After Dylan came on, I wished their lineup had been reversed and of course, that I had been able to see him 40 years previously! Thanks for the mp3.
on 25 Feb 2007 at 2:21 am #
As Bob himself said:
Some people FEEL the rain, others just get wet.
your wife is hearing the sound, not listening to it, just hearing it.
on 25 Feb 2007 at 3:40 am #
hahaha, oh anne marie. i love her so!
and agreed in a BIG way on yoakam… *shudders*
;-)
on 25 Feb 2007 at 5:10 pm #
I also saw the Nelson & Dylan ballpark show a couple of summers ago, but I have to confess I had the opposite reaction as the other commenters.
The show was one of the best I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen quite a few). Nelson and Dylan both had a terrific night. Dylan even played a lot of his early 60’s hits. In a form the audience could actually recognize.
To be fair to our other commenters, howerever, there was a pair of gentlemen standing near me who had seen the tour several nights running in different cities who said the Little Rock performance was easily the best of the series they had taken in.
on 28 Jun 2007 at 10:21 am # Peter Shearn
Is Dylan’s voice shot? Of course it is…if you drank as much, smoked as much, and lived on the road as long as he has, yours would sound pretty much the same, too. Still, he uses it like an instrument and “Modern Times” is brilliant. The amalgemation of lyrics and vocals is spot on and while I don’t totally agree with my thirty year old son when he said, “he’s finally learned how to sing,” I do agree with the sentiment. And, of course, there is the classic John Lennon quote- “It’s not what he’s saying, it’s how he says it.”
I think you either love him or hate as a singer.
on 26 Aug 2007 at 11:27 pm # Gina
Your wife is funny. I think Dylan is sometimes an aquired taste. You gotta be in a certain mood. I don’t know….I coudn’t make out a word of what he was saying when I first saw him in 2004. My friend took me back several more times that same year, as Bob Dylan was in the neighborhood and each time seemed to me better than the last, though I still couldn’t make out the words and much less the songs, which he had changed the melodies!! I don’t know what it is….some kind of Dylanisma..or maybe it’s that cat in heat and I am just respondiong. Oh that’s the grossest thing …Strike that! I am sure my attraction to Dylan has to do with his sex appeal….I always went for the geezers. That and….I love the one who takes me to see him. Transferance? Cat got his vocal chords….
Check out this young new Dylotype: I think being Jewish helps? No?Does that sound racist? Religious?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eho51A_bLug&mode=related&search=
Check out
on 26 Aug 2007 at 11:38 pm # Gina
Cat got his vocal chords….hey he’s a geezer now but he’s still got it….whatever it is. I don’t know, but I love ” Modern Times”. As for Ezra, I saw him on one You Tube clip and at once noted something in his style of communication similiar to something from an old interview with Bob Dylan also seen on You Tube. It was that playful youthfulness, and difficulty perhaps articulating his abstract thoughts, trying to describe the difference between playing acoustic solo and having a band Anyway, I have to find his music….Check out this kid. i think he was 14 when he did this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eho51A_bLug&mode=related&search=
Your wife sounds brilliant. I can’t remember names of songs or bands or names and usually come up with some near association.