things twice

Jokerman is, without any doubt whatsoever, one of the great classics on a rollercoaster album such as Infidels. The single-guitar version on dylanchords, however, never really did it for me: great song, great harmonies, but so thin when you’re alone with your guitar, without the exquisite drums’n'bass work by Sly and Robbie.

Then, one day, on my way home from work, I was somehow humming Jokerman while thinking Moonlight (this was back when “Love and Theft” was recent news), and something clicked.

I’ve had it in the back of my head for some years now, so I figured it was time to record it.

Enjoy:

Jokerman meets Moonlight

I suppose one could say that where Dylan’s Jokerman tends towards the enigmatic, mine is more …

Finally – it took more than a year, but here’s the next lesson: on open tunings.

I have had three life-changing epiphanies in my life as a guitar player. The first was the first time I tried a twelve-string guitar. I realized that the fullness of that sound was what I had been dreaming of all my life, I just hadn’t known it. Fifteen years later, I bought an old Ibanez twelve-string, and although it would be a lie to say that it’s the best guitar in the world, there is nothing wrong with that sound of twelve shiny strings.

The second was when I first tried a Martin guitar. I immediately realized that that was …

At last: I’ve found it!

Not the holy grail, not the place where pencils and single socks live, but the melody to Steel Guitars, James Damiano’s composition that Dylan stole and used for his song Dignity.

[see  this if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about (and this and this if you're still hungry for more)]

It’s obvious to anyone who has heard Dignity and Steel Guitars, that Judge Simantle’s words:
To the ear of this court, there is no substantial similarity in the structure, instrumentation or melody of the two songs.
is a fairly precise judgement. The …

The story so far
I’ve been involved with the Damiano-Dignity “case” now for more than a decade. Here’s a summary, and my last words (I hope) on this matter.
Act One: Musicological Inquiries
When I first heard that Dylan had stolen “Dignity” from a poor songwriter, James Damiano, I was more sympathetic towards the victim than surprised about the theft.

Then, the victim started flooding the net with his case. Somewhere in the vast material, which mostly set out to prove — in tedious detail — the degree and kind of contact between Damiano and various persons somehow associated with Dylan’s organization, there was also one piece of musical evidence: a graph comparing Dignity” and “Steel Guitars”, the song Dylan allegedly had appropriated:

[caption id=”attachment_760″ …

Some times things move quickly. In a couple of minutes, one gets a handful of friends for life.
Here’s How
After more years than I care to think about as a somewhat (some people might say) autistic Dylan listener, I woke up one day with the urge to find out what had happened in the music world outside since 1990 or thereabouts.

So a year ago, I went to Pitchfork’s list of the best singles in the 2000s. And I listened to horrendous amounts of LCD Soundsystem, Beyonce, Jay-Z and other modern stuff for a while.

And lo and behold if one’s musical horizon wasn’t extended a bit, although I still don’t get Daft Punk’s greatness.
New Year — New …

Here’s a little something for those who need to chill out to some good music between lessons:

He’s doing exactly the right thing: no matter if you have to pick your nose, scratch your butt or do some facial gymnastics: keep the flow!

I love this album. It’s a perfect follow-up, not to Dylan’s trilogy of albums vacuum-cleaning the American song tradition for inspiration, but to his Theme Time Radio Hour. (And for the record, my negative evaluation of his latest studio albums does not stem from indignation over ‘theft’, should anyone have gotten that impression, but from a number of lacklustre performances of material of declining quality.)

It’s hilarious. Finally, the ‘wolfman’ voice has found a home where it belongs: as a counterweight to the saccharine, a way to scare the living soul out of the unsuspecting innocent, and perhaps – just perhaps – blow some meaning into these songs again.

Because surely it’s hilarious. But that’s not the main reason why …

… or at least his little helper. You know, the little guy who sneaks in when Mr Frost has gone for lunch, and turns knobs that are best left alone. His intentions may be the noblest, but as we all know, Satan sometimes comes as a Man of Peace.

Frost, who also goes by the name of Bob Dylan, has produced a number of said artist’s records, and one would suspect that he, of all people, would agree with Dylan’s harsh verdict in a recent Rolling Stone interview on the sound quality of records today:
You listen to these modern records, they’re atrocious, they have sound all over them. There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like — …

The Danish artist Steffen Brandt has reinterpreted a number of Dylan songs and presented them in a theatre concert. The show runs at Betty Nansen Teatret in Copenhagen until the end of January.

Here’s my review of the show (in Danish).