Mr Mongoose reminded me of this other example, from fifty years back, of Justice bending over backwards to fellate Celebrity. Actually more inspired and expressive than the studio cut on Times They Are A-Changing, this version reveals how skillfully the young Dylan applied what are fairly rudimentary instrumental skills in augmentation of an idiosyncratic but faultless vocal delivery. The events of the song are broadly accurate, although some have quibbled over the years about details.
There are a few judge-songs in the Dylan canon, Percy's Song, Drifter's Escape, Seven Curses, Hattie Carroll and many, many references to judges; I guess they are, by definition, characters of utility to the song-storyteller. The Pistorious judge, wotsername, Thokozile Matilda Masipa, is as deserving of a sung memorial as any, her waltzing deftly around the truth, should figure, somewhere.
For those, anyway, curious about the legendary Bob Dylan, this performance conveys his power to mesmerise, transfix and move to tears any room. large or small, in which he plied his trade, once upon a time.
17 comments:
It is, isn't it, the gap between what's law and what we want from justice that makes us cross. It's why we pretend to hate lawyers. It's because they understand this. Every day it hits them in the head and they have to learn to live with it as it is. How else could they get up in the morning?
Gobby twat gets drunk at a do and hits a serving lady on the head with his stick; silly injury to a tired-out blameless lady turns to death. Law says git; justice says conceited racist, sign of the non-changin' times, what about the victim and her slave forebears? I bet Baez sang it well. And so it is with Oscar and his shooters. Law says reckless beyond Shropshire but not necessarily beyond Soweto; justice says my little girl blasted to bits in the loo by some mummy's boy gone tonto against a lifetime of reinforced entitlement. These ends are not going to find a meet but darker bastards stalk the earth than even useless goodforfuckall Oscar.
We have to let these pettyy bastards go, and then fight the bit fights. Good version of poor Hattie though, Mr I. I'd not heard it before. As loud as you like.
You recall how Sheikh George Galloway responded to the depradations of Mr Thieving Speaker Martin, Gorbals Mick? He said that the main thing, the greatest achievement in all this, was that Mick was the first Roman catholic Speaker of all time.And that, he snarled, was the important thing.
It is the same with this wretched, stuttering nincompoop of a judge; it is not her incompetence which matters but the fact that Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, she is a BLACK stuttering nincompoop of a judge, judging a white accused and directing white counsel and any cwiticism of her, therefore, is waycist. Fuck me, Jesus but that Guardian newspaper and its readers are a malignancy. Yours, though, mr mongoose, is a measured, thoughtful and compassionate commentary for which I am grateful.
An extraordinary achievement, that Times album, One Too Many Mornings, Only a Pawn...., Rsstless Farewell, With God On Our Side, When The Ship Comes In, a tight connection to the heart and the head. There are writers who would trade their souls to have written North Country Blues. The Summer is gone, the ground's turnin' cold, the stars, one by one are a-foldin', my children will go as soon as they grow, for there ain't nothin' here, now, to hold 'em.
Slightly OT, but only just - just heard a "Moderate Moslem" on the news refer to The Community of Those Without Belief. She seemed to be delivering this with earnest courtesy, not taking the piss.
I suppose she means us - fair enough, at first glance. On the other hand, what a fucking cheek. I believe in plenty - hope, ruin, love, despair, loathing and delight. Only not on my knees.
Far better the community of those beyond belief, anyway...
verge.//
Not been listening to Obviously Five Believers, eh, mr verge? Fifteen jokers, fifteen jokers, five believers, five believers, all dressed like men; tell yo' Momma not to worry, cos, yes, they're just my friends......
It is an impertinence, which places superstition above reason; part of a yet deeply-embedded, bogus multi-culturalism, which political elites are too corrupt to challenge.Catholics, Jews, Muslims; we should accord them the same respect as we do the Flat Earth Society, now defunct.
With you on that Mr Verge and Mr I. Marx was right about religion and a couple of other things which I am sure we'll discuss somewhere down the road. Meanwhile I have business with you regarding Mr Orwell back up the road Mr I- when I can get my sorry arsed, missing word, piss poor grammar act together (a debating point and not a threat by the way Mr I). Also, I am sorry, Mr I, I just can't get on with Mr Dylan. Maybe its a generational thing... which, according to Mr Salmond (in the near future) is a time span of, say, five to ten years... We'll see!
'Snot a matter of getting-on with BD, just a matter of understanding the massive impact, for good and ill, of one solitary, fucked-up, Russian-American Jewish shapeshifter upon showbusiness and all of its practitioners and consumers.
Nothing generational about it, no moreso than Shakespeare, Rembrandt or Bach, mr sg, trust me, the artistic and cultural world you inhabit is, in large part, his creation, whether you like him or not.
I was not making any observations about his cultural impact. Nor do I dislike him, as I do not know him, it is merely that he is not my 'cup of tea' from a musical perspective though doubtless he has influenced folk who are as, I think, you imply. It is probably quite difficult to assess the impact of any one individual on the cultural milieu as we are not dealing with neat cause and effect relationships. However I am sure that there are many studies devoted to that question. Would our art, culture and music be any different had he not existed? Perhaps so but maybe in subtle ways. With apologies, I seem to have turned into 'Mr Logic' out of Viz, now there is culture (with further apologies for the use of the 'c' word - Hermann Goering's observation applies here...). I would prefer to be 'Professor Fuck'. I think I must have done enough for a metaphorical face glassing by now....
I gave up on Private Eye, a few years ago, subscribing, instead, to Viz but after a couple of years, Viz began to pall. What's a man to do, shelves of back issues of both of them, and still driven to write one's own satire.
It may not be easy to delineate cause and effect but when we consider that Bob Dylan, uniquely, still gets his fan mail between hard covers, from academe, the law, the church and politics, we can demonstrate the unparallellef influence of this little man on popular culture. I actually don't like him any more, himself or his current material buf I will make an incontrovertible argument, mr sg, as to his influence on the global creativd process. Another time, though.
Good song. Not heard it before. Bit cheesy but am peckish! Will pull my finger out sooner or later but bollox to Pistorious.
And they shouted free, and there was rain and land and sea, fish, oil, love and religion and they wanted for nothing.
This plebicite, Sir, has fuck all to do with me. I'll still love you anyway :-)
Indeed Mr I. What happened to Viz? In my case I know - the former Mrs SG consigned them to the dustbin. Much to my chagrin. Still, that's 'life', fucking 'life', Mr I. Not much life without fucking I suppose (surely axiomatic?). I've been trying to figure how I arrived here, in Ishmaelia, I think it was by way of Rupert Bear, Valiant, War Picture Library, Commando... large disjuncture, Private Eye, Viz, Errrr... That's it. Sorry I missed out Hogarth somewhere - no its OK I think you've been keeping his flame alive. Keep going, Mr I, long as you can...
....as we shall still love you, too, mr dick, maybe come and pitch a tent in your Mum's garden.
....as we shall still love you, too, mr dick, maybe come and pitch a tent in your Mum's garden.
I read all those comics too, mr sg, but it was a young polish plumber, steered me here.
The early albums - how many were they? 6 ? 7? - were a pretty much perfect tale of innocent but freakishly not-adroit folkie through to I-used-to-be-knowing-but-have-now-become-archly-so. Blonde on Blonde was the culmination and the end, I think, and years later the body was found and Blood on the Tracks was played at the funeral.
I also have a strange weakness for several of the other seventies albums - I was so much older then - although you had to keep standing up to skip the needle past the dross. It kept happening later too. Release after releas of crap but the odd diamond with the old inner Bob peeking out.
There were seven up-to and including Blonde on Blonde, mr mongoose. It was those seven to which I referred mr sg and I broadly agree with you about the rest; I liked some of the Christian trilogy, I liked Infidels, Empire Burlesque, Blood on the Tracks and Oh, Mercy; latterly I have only dallied with World Gone Wrong and Love and Theft, although that was largely for the band. One of the best rock'n'roll records of all time is the Bootleg Series volume four, live at the Albert Hall, 1966, I have been writing a post about it, mainly, I suspect,but not exclusively, for you; as a kid, I was at the Belfast leg of that tour. But the post, anyway, just grows and grows, one of these days, eh? We have a Band fan, in the Southern Ocean, he might enjoy it, too; maybe mrs narcolept, mrs woar, a few others.Nmaybe to morrow, thoigh tomorrow is a long time.
And it is, of course, the "betrayal". I don't think though that the sandled ones even knew what he was no longer playing. He was never really playing that. It just sounded to them that he was. The gangsta cousin of Peter, Paul and Mary a-crooning away with thier ears cupped. The same words and notes mostly but not the same music, not the same anything at all.
The kids were open and busy new, and all the other folks were almost busy dead, at least in that reflected shade. It's one of God's jokes. The wonder must be to leave them behind when you no longer like it. Sounds like a wider rule. Just act like you never have met.
He did I Don't Believe You in the second, electric half of those '66 concerts, ripped the roof off, the Band sounding like a glorious train wreck, I have enjoyed three, maybe four moments of musical magic in my life, of complete, transcendent Otherness, the night ran swirling and whirling and if anybody asked me, that would be one of them, one of God's jokes, a piece of whimsy grown hard as nails.
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