this monday at the hideout
I cover/interpret "Slow Train Coming" by Bob Dylan with a 5-piece band. Don't know how long this will go (the record is 47 minutes long) but there should be time for some songs of mine afterward too.
By the way, I was surprised (I should know enough about how music works by now not to be surprised by things like this, but that's another story) how far the forethought and care in dressing and arranging these songs for the 1979 recording, together with the fine playing, go toward making them live. (As in rhymes with "give.") Remove these well-wrought structural underpinnings (the contribution, I presume, of Jerry Wexler, primus inter pares), begin anew with the lyrics and chords, and glaring problems immediately come to light. Problems, I mean, for the would-be singer, who must put his or her full weight and sincerity behind passages that are...well, tough words, words like "insane," "childish," "dazed and confused," and "absurdly slapdash," come to mind.
I'm not talking primarily about the Christian fundamentalist content or the ranting wake-up-Americans Ed Anger persona, because to me those supply much of the record's excitement and unique fascination. But by some dark alchemy, the man who crafted "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" became the man who drafted the lyrics "He saw an animal that liked to growl/Big furry paws and he liked to howl/Great big furry back and furry hair..." and then nodded approvingly at the page: Good enough -- next! Lines like these commingle with word-perfect stanzas, such as the second verse of the title song ("I had a woman down in Alabama..."). Delivered with conviction by a man from whom you're used to a large measure of recklessness in exposing his quirks and enthusiasms, balanced by strong and sympathetic accompanists, the big furry flaws (or great big furry flaws?) attain perspective. But my players and I have to find a different place to start from.
The cliche is true -- to sing something you have to feel it personally in some way. To truly feel some of these passages I would have to divorce, eat toxins, wander in the desert for many months, and meet Pat Boone in a dream with Milton Babbitt providing soundtrack. I can't do all that by Monday, but I will work hard to prepare for a task that is a little more challenging than I realized when I first decided to pay homage to a record that I love for its intensity and performance quality.
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7 comments
I've long avoided listening to 'Slow Train'--one of the few Dylan records I don't own. It has always carried the 'born again' stigma (if not stigmata) and I've got my own quirks and enthusiasms, thanks, plus a real-earned hatred of the religion beast. Even though I've been looking for a little Christian-bashing lately (as I suffer through another season of innocent 8 year olds in their white Communion suits and dresses) I may just need to give this disc a try. After all, if Robbie loves it...
This should be fun!
Not unlike the Pope reading from Atlas Shrugged, with a band.
This should be fun!
Not unlike the Pope reading from Atlas Shrugged, with a band.
I hope someone will be taping this....
I've noticed 2 dats and hd24 at previous shows. You know this series is truly a treasure. Each one has been unique, adventurous,and most pleasurable to listen to. Anyone in the Greater Chicagoland area on a Monday evening would be an idiot to spend it elsewhere. Starts around 7, done by 9 just like prime time tv. Usually just over 90 minutes of high quality explorations of the musical terrain.
Me, too -- I hope you can tape this somehow, Robbie. I'd love to hear it. I'm sure it will be great.
I am really looking forward to the show tonight. I had also intentionally avoided this album. Even though my collection includes most of his music, I never bought this one or even listened to the whole thing. It was because the evangelic theme was just anathema to me. With hindsight, that is quite strange. I was certainly thrilled by a lot of traditional music that was both spiritual and christian. But they were a product of another age, and I did not want to hear it from Bob Dylan. Anyway, it is very different thirty years later. I am less judgmental/certain, and I am certainly envious of the comfort some of those of real faith seem to have found. Perhaps it helps to know that Dylan himself no longer buys into the dogma. Anyway, it was only because of this show that I finally spent eight bucks and invested some time into it, and it is wonderful. I had never heard his closing hymn “When He Returns”. The power of his conviction in that song is literally awesome, reminiscent of Ralph Stanley, and as affecting as anything Dylan has done. Good luck on that!