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| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
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Friday, January 18, 2002 np: bob dylan - the times they are a-changin' so i've been listening to a lot of dylan lately. there's a certain age you reach where dylan makes perfect sense to you. and once you reach that point, so it seems, it lasts until your dying day. at least, that's how it seems. he's only been making music for 40+ years so it hasn't existed the full extent of some peoples' lifespans. but everything falls into place that way. for me, the album that made me really feel his magic was a live record that i 'borrowed' from my ex-band's drummer. now, believe me when i say that i fully intended to return the record. but things just didn't turn out that way. the album is hard rain which includes a good handful of dylan's best seventies work in a live setting: "shelter from the storm," "lay lady lay," "oh, sister," "stuck inside of mobile with the memphis blues again," etc. i really loved listening to that record on my first vinyl outlet, that starchy old fisher-price record player that i used for a couple of years until i got a hold on a real turntable. but then, last summer actually, i laid my hands on a cheap cd copy of highway 61 revisited and that was as life affirming/changing as hard rain was. there's nothing quite like the first time i heard "ballad of a thin man," or "queen jane approximately," or, for that matter, that brilliant tome of a song, "desolation row." i've purchased more dylan albums since then (the album playing at the moment, on vinyl) and blood on the tracks, blonde on blonde, bringing it all back home, time out of mind and desire on cd. some were given as gifts, most bought by myself. so where is this all heading? well, it's a sort of weird feeling to like dylan, for me at least. to expound: there's this guy i work with when i'm not in school named bill* (* - name changed on the odd chance he or someone he knows might read this). bill has somewhat of a fascination and reverie for strictly 'classic' works of the french/english/spanish/germany/russian/eastern european cannon. he has a sort of alergy, intellectually, to anything contemporary. in music, i was this way, just entirely opposite. i really didn't like anything older than my time. how could something from behind me speak to me from the front? i just didn't feel it possible. to this day i'm still not a very big fan of the beatles. i like some of their music, but i just don't see much in it for me. things change though. like it did with me falling in love with dylan's music. and buying a rolling stones' album. and finding roots music something i enjoy. and so on. lately i've re-discovered the outright brilliance and revolutionary voice that is contained in public enemy's it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. if you're a fan of hip-hop and you've never heard this album, do yourself a favour and get a listen to it. hip-hop would not be the same without it. it's very widely considered the best hip-hop album ever made. and not for any slight reason. i'm back at school and classes have begun and all that. i'm really excited. but scared. that i may blow this chance to really be something. i feel my old laziness creeping in. the kind that is langourus and brutal. that leaves me with a failed class and no money. that takes my dreams of making a difference and lays waste to them, of my own doing. i'm so scared of myself. and what i could do. that i'll just sink back into myself. i say a lot of things when i'm drunk. and the crazy thing is, i mean all of them. i'd just like everyone to know that.
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