Tuesday, Apr. 03, 2007 | 11:03
don't follow leaders
a guy i work with trades music with me. he still has a couple of my cds, though i'm hoping to get them back soon. in the meantime, i have a few from him. one, siouxsie & the banshees' 'superstition' is too glossy-poppy and dull for me. one is a monk collection (essential) and another is a 20th century american classical collection (classical is maybe the wrong word, but i don't know how else you refer to cage, feldman, and riley). the fourth is in my headphones now: bob dylan's 'bringing it all back home'.
i haven't heard all of dylan's albums, and i only have a few of my own, but this is a stone classic through and through. i can't find fault with it. it's folk with tinges of country and even hints of rock and blues, and the lyrics are simultaneously densely political, intensely personal, and wholly inscrutable. you can enjoy them now, but it helps very much if you know your history and you have some idea what was happening at the time he wrote these songs, both in his personal life and in the wider world. it's interesting to hear his original version of "maggie's farm". nevermind the instrumentation and feel, the phrasing is entirely different form ratm's take. it's almost a different song.
