A hard day in the family today, as
Sheila’s Mom had to put down her cat, Harlequin. Seventeen years is a good run,
but that doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye. For my part, I’ll miss
Harlequin too, and wish Helen all the best. Cats are part of our families too.
Disc 653 is…. Bob Dylan (Self-Titled)
Artist: Bob Dylan
Year of Release: 1962
What’s up with the Cover? A very young Bob Dylan – twenty-one to be
precise – poses with his guitar. It is still an acoustic as this is before Bob
learned to grow a beard and piss people off full-time.
How I Came To Know It: This was just me being a Bob Dylan fan and drilling
through his collection. It took me a while to buy this one because it didn’t
have any songs I recognized. Eventually I figured every other early Dylan album
was great, so it was likely this would be a good one as well.
How It Stacks Up: I have 19 Bob Dylan albums. I came in expecting his
self-titled debut to disappoint but it surprised me. I wouldn’t say it is top
half, but it is respectable. I’ll go 13 out of 19.
Rating: 3 stars but almost 4
With the
exception of two songs, Bob Dylan’s first album is a bunch of traditional songs
and blues covers. Even so, his appreciation for musical construction shins
through, and it is no surprise he would go on to become one of the biggest
influences on modern music.
Whenever
I put this record on I check the track listing and I expect some by the numbers
covers record. Instead, while the songs may be blues and folk standards, Dylan
combines the two styles in a way that is fresh and original. His singing and
playing style is solidly Americana folk music, but the grit and hurt he infuses
into the songs speaks of dirty dustbowl blues.
Traditional
songs like “In My Time of Dying” and “Fixin’ to Die” are as gritty and dirty
as any version you’ll hear, and Dylan makes them his own. The guitar work on
the surface is raw but it hides a complexity of light and heavy tones that give
the songs dig down inside you. As for Dylan’s famously raspy voice, what he
lacks in range he more than makes up for with enthusiasm and commitment. Even “Freight Train Blues” where he really
pushes his voice past any semblance of reasonable, is still fun. Later in his
career he’d learn to let the harmonica fill in the long windy notes. Good
career move, Bob.
There is
a revolutionary spirit to this music as well, which leaves you thinking equally
of a dusty rural road cutting through a corn field, and a paved walkway through
the shady groves of an Ivy League campus. Dylan even notes that he got one of
his songs – “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down”
from blues guitarist Rick Von Schmidt on the “green pastures of Harvard University.”
It is a
testament to Dylan’s brilliance that on an album with eleven timeless folk and
blues classics, his two original songs – “Talkin’
New York” and “Song to Woody” are
two of the record’s best.
“Talkin’ New York” is the beginning of
Dylan’s rambling rap style. Dylan delivers his social commentary with a
sardonic smile as he makes you laugh and wince at the same time with lyrics
like:
“Now, a very great man once said
That some people rob you with a
fountain pen
It don't take too long to find
out
Just what he was talking about
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.”
“Song to Woody” is the other side of
Dylan’s brilliance, where he foregoes the sly wink and just lets you have a double-barreled
dose of somber contemplation. The song’s construction has a gentle roll, much
like the character singing, lost on the road-life of the folk singing
troubadour.
“Song to Woody” signals Dylan’s arrival
as the next folk icon, but even more it shows that he has a keen sense that he
is just walking a few more steps down a road built by generations of
troubadours before him:
“Hey Woody Guthrie but I know
that you know
All the things that I'm saying
and a many times more
I'm singing you the song but I
can't you sing enough
'Cause there's not many men
that've done the things that you've done.
“Here's to Cisco and Sonny and
Leadbelly too
And to all the good people that
travelled with you
Here's to the hearts and the
hands of the men
That come with the dust and are
gone with the wind.”
It’ll be
some time before Bob himself is ever gone with the wind.
Finally,
a note on Dylan’s cover of “House of the
Rising Sun.” I’ve never liked the Animals version of this song (which came
two years later) but couldn’t put my finger on why until recently when I read a
Cracked.com article about it. The article explains that the Animals had
switched the gender of the narrator from a woman to a man, somehow changing the
song to a cautionary tale about gambling.
Dylan’s
version is the original, singing as a woman who falls down on her luck and ends
up in prostitution and despair. His frail, quavering thin voice is the perfect
match to the despair of the lyrics; it is like listening to the Angel of Death
himself recounting the poor woman’s tale of misery.
The only
bad thing I can say about this album is that all the covers takes away from
hearing even more of Dylan’s own compositions. Plenty of time for that over the
last fifty years though, I suppose.
Best tracks: Talkin’ New York, Pretty Peggy-O, Baby Let Me Follow
You Down, House of the Rising Sun, Song to Woody
1 comment:
It's ironic that you refer to Bob's talkin' blues as a "ramblin' rap" since a lot of people say that he picked up this style from Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Reamblin' Jack especially makes this claim :)
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