things twice

The question is not so much: “Is this a good Dylan album?” – which it is – as “Is this a Dylan album?” – which it isn’t.

First the lyrics: as Scott Warmuth has discovered, through an ingenious google investigation, several lines of lyrics are lifted from the works of the “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy” Henry Timrod in much the same way as Yunichi Saga’s Confessions of a Yakuza unwittingly contributed to “Love and Theft”. This has caused considerable reactions, in far wider circles than usual.

So, is Dylan a thieving scoundrel and a plagiarist, or a genius who transforms what he reads into new gems?

For various reasons, I’ve put my Dylan-oriented writings together to a book. It is available for download at http://www.dylanchords.com/tt.pdf (2 Mb).
The main reason I have done this has nothing to do with Dylan, but more with Seal: it’s an experiment in LaTeX, inspired by the wonders of this typesetting environment, gradually revealed to me through Seal, which gave me the urge to try it out myself.
Another reason is the long period of inactivity here. I guess I felt that something needed to happen.
The third reason, and the most direct one, is the Lonnie series, which I thought I had brought to a conclusion. As it happened, I still had more to say. I have extended it with a practical …

I just heard some of the Theme Time radio shows. Damn, this is almost better than Chronicles! I’m delighted to see that he’s actually doing what I suggested a few posts back – play the stuff that he likes…
Theme Time is exactly that: a selection of favorite songs, interspersed with hilarious, deadpan comments, interesting insights, floating in and out of quotation and commentary, the way he does it on the sleeve notes to World Gone Wrong and, in a different way, all through `Love and Theft’. Way to go, Bobby!
I explicitly suggested Charles Aznavour, and, well… here’s what Dylan says about Charles: “He’s written over a thousand songs. I only know half of them.”

[This post concludes the series about Dylan's idea of "mathematical music" in Chronicles]

When Dylan talks freely, he can be very eloquent, and one feels one is snapping at the heels of pure genius. But once he starts giving examples, it all sounds quote mundane, and very banal, and one is left thinking “Was that it?!”
And of course it wasn’t — one realizes that some people are better poets than teachers.

Let this be the introduction to this last installment in the Lonnie-series, where the shroud of doubt is lifted and everything is explained:

* * *

Today’s lesson is from I Chronicles, Ch. 4

In a diatonic scale there are eight …

Wired News: Lyrics Dustup Ends in Apology

Kinda interesting, this one… Especially the last couple of paragraphs.

Beginning in January, the Music Publishers Association, of which Warner Chappell is a member, will begin pursuing a campaign against 5 to 6 such companies, according to MPA CEO Lauren Keiser.

“Lost revenue for rights holders is in the millions,” said Keiser, “We’re not going after fan clubs, but websites that make money.”
True, I do have that “small donations welcome” link hidden away at the bottom of some frame, but I guess that doesn’t really count — I’m a small potatoe here (sob! my ego is hurting!).
Anyway, for various reasons, I will not make any drastic changes quite yet, but stay tuned.

Thanks to …

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Young ‘prefer illegal song swaps’
So, the question of file sharing and illegal music sites is coming up again. One consequence is that dylanchords is temporarily down. “Sam Spade” first posted a note in a different thread, about the record industry being intent on stopping sites like this one. Fair enough, perhaps. I took a consequence of that. An overreaction, perhaps, but that was my decision.
The post also contained a link to a report about a study that Jupiter Research has undertaken, about the music habits of young people. One conclusion is that illegal file sharing networks are used three times as much as the legal ones.
I don’t know what to say …

The Airwaves, They Are A-Changin’
Amazing how we think the same about things, Dylan and me :-) It’s only a month or so since I wrote:
Why doesn’t he give us something he’s interested in? He obviously loves old music, the kind of songs he rips off and records with new lyric collages, the kind of stuff he sings when he’s all by himself. That’s what he does amazingly well, so why not do it more? How about ditching the war-horses — they’re as tired as him — and playing a show once in a while, with Doc Boggs, Gene Austin, Johnny and Jack, Charles Aznavour, stuff we know he loves?
And now he’s going to do exactly that, on …

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Song sites face legal crackdown

Before you act: there’s no point in writing comments like: Where’s the zip file? I want the zip file. Can you please send me the zip file?

well well… What can I say? Several people have sent me links to this and other similar news reports, concerned about what is going to happen to dylanchords.
I understand the concern — I share it, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.
On the one hand: I don’t want to go to jail, and I can’t afford a 500,000$ lawsuit. Those are two good reasons to shut down the site right now.
On the other, I keep telling myself that I don’t have …

Chimes of Freedom was, I think, the first Dylan song that I really made an effort to transcribe. This was before the days of the Internet and in my case also before the days of Lyrics, so if I wanted the words on paper, I had to write them out myself.
Which I wanted, and which I did.
I was spellbound by those words. The layer upon layer of different meanings connected to different sensual experiences: the thunder storm, the lightning, the sounds, the “we”, which is not explained in the song, but I imagined a loving couple, on their way home from a date, to . . ., well, you know – all these and more, working together, flowing in and out …