Asshattery, Celebutards, LeftWingNuts, Musica
It’s accompanied on that blog with a worshipful recapitulation of the song and it’s execrable history (I’ve heard it 1000 times and yet it still bores me).
Kooper couldn’t play organ but dylan’s sessions were so lame, unorganized and amateurish they let a young, unknown guitar player play organ on a major label single, at a session where dylan’s affectation for one-takes of endless songs led to a lot of crap ending up on tape. Dylan’s duet with Johnny Cash on GFTNC is probably one of the worst harmony duets by a major artist ever.
Never liked dylan for the simple reason I enjoy great melodies, and outside of Blood on the Tracks dylan sucks at melody. George Harrison and the Byrds and others had to invent melodies for his songs in order to make them hits.
LARS is one of the most irritating and tuneless melodies in the bunch, and it always sounded to me like the guitar was out of tune (due to the dylan’s affectation for chaotic sessions, instead of just planning out, rehearsing and arranging the goddam song it’s no wonder).
I think there’s a cult that worships dylan for his obscure lyrics, but it’s long past time to say “the emperor has no clothes. The Beatles were great songwriters, great lyricists (when they weren’t aping dylan) and vastly more enjoyable and listenable.
Aging boomers don’t like to admit it, but dylan doesn’t age well, and very few young people could name a dylan song for you, while they can probably name several, if not a dozen, Beatles songs, or if played them recognize them.
Dylan has zero, unless they’ve heard blowin’ in the wind in church. Speaking of which, is there a more banal or really idiotic song than BITW other than Imagine? Both are songs which totally disdain the history and culture that allowed their writers to exist, let alone prosper and get rich.
It’s easy to be an iconoclast when you’ve made your 100 million though.
As further evidence that dylan was a product and an artifact of the ’60s, he never did another notable thing when they were through, other than become notable for continued failures of a once “great” talent. He hasn’t had a hit since then unless someone took him in hand (Jeff Lynne) and wrote it for him.
Enough about dylan already. He enjoyed a brief period where people worshipped him like some sort of prophet: today he’s less influential and his music is less played than old disco records. No one bothers to cover his tunes, at least not expecting to have a hit with them (G&R managed it, mostly because when they did it they were so hot they could have covered anyone and had a hit).
Just like hendrix’ unwarranted reputation as some sort of rock god (don’t get me started on his unlistenable, over-inflated reputation at the top of everyone’s best guitarist evah! list), dylan doesn’t warrant any special note other than he was great when he was doing it, but he has no lasting power or influence. deal with it, folkies.