(1710) Evening all.

 

19. On last evening’s girlball

18. Just laffing, quite laffable

17. Ratcheting

16. Not Groundhog Day but Eternal Boomer Day

Publications such as Quora or Wired, MSN, are pure Wokerati but in Quora’s case, there’s the permanent, Groundhog Day type recurring nostalgia they never kick. Mind you, look at me with Sunday jazz, Baroque and 40s/50s movies … and with good reason.

There was this on Quora:

Joni Mitchell was quoted as saying that everything about Bob Dylan is a deception. “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake,” she said. Do you agree with her and if so, why?

Joni is correct. Dylan, like Joni, was driven to be a star and to do so he forged a persona that was an amalgam of the other famous people he admired including folk singers and poets. He also set out to create an unconventional life for himself by choice, such as working in a carnival as opposed to an insurance office. He has been credibly accused of plagiarizing both lyrics and melodies. Much of what he does was ‘borrowed’ including his style of singing like a hillbilly (not many of them in Minnesota) but he would attribute it to “influences.” Blowing in the Wind is one song in particular that has come under scrutiny. I was in a Mexican Catholic church once where the congregants sang a hymn in Spanish that had the exact same melody as Blowing, a song that others allege was taken from one called No More Auction Block.

I am a great admirer of Joni Mitchell, a genuine original and musical genius, but Joni is also someone who cultivated a mystique and altered her persona with each new record. Joni and Dylan are not alone in this – Bowie, Donovan, Debbie Harry and many others could be expected to change both their wardrobes and appearance as well as their musical style with each new record. One of Dylan’s strangest personas came in the Seventies when he got involved in the Jesus movement and produced the record “Saved” and apparently allowed himself to be baptized in Pat Boone’s swimming pool. Oy. Our music stars are often not just musicians but they are our heroes: people who lead bigger, more interesting and exciting lives than our own. It’s part of what Dylan, Joni and many others have supplied to those of us living more conventional lives.

I’ve enjoyed some of Dylan’s work — the Desire album is one of his most musical, a collaboration with many genuinely talented musicians and it’s listenable. But at the risk of infuriating the people who idolize Dylan let’s be frank about his musicality. His guitar playing is fundamental, he’s a poor singer with an annoying voice and his harmonica playing is atrocious — in some ways this does make him a folkie, not a sophisticated musician. Many of his lyrics succeed because they are left so purposely vague that the listener can read into them what they want. He is not without his contributions but he is one of the most overrated singer/songwriters of all time.

……

Hmmmm, yes as far as it goes, plus he was “constructed” by the same agents who ran Zappa, flower power, The Who etc. … rebellious yoof. To my mind, the sad thing is those who could not move on from it all and I don’t mean into Floyd, ELP, prog … but nor do I mean into Kenny Rogers and the like … actually, I’m not sure what I mean.

I look at purple haired Boomers today welcoming Hamas and ask, “Why?”

And yet … and yet … derivative, essentially meaningless lyrics which are just phrase grabs and desolate emotion? Yes … but it still has something, je ne sais quoi … even that voice is necessary, the voice of the troubadour. Bad harmonica? Maybe. Definitive harmonica it was. Do I like him? Not that much. But he was certainly of that time and place, as the psy-ops forces people knew full well … the cabal.