don freeman wrote:
Before Lester Bangs gets to his critique of Desire, he describes his
build up of anticipation because of his disappointment with Blood in the Tracks:
"When Blood on the Tracks was released, 1 felt as ambivalent about it as
it was about its subject matter and I remained that way After initially dismissing it on one hearing as a sprawling, absurdly pretentious mess
whose key was the ridiculously spiteful "Idiot Wind," I found myself
drawn back to it repeatedly by a current that I was not at all convinced
was entirely wholesome.
I would get drunk and throw it on, finding profound aphorisms
alternating with oblique poetry, belching outbursts of muddled
enthusiasm: "Goddamn, he's still got it!" Then I would sober up and it
would sound, once again, dull, overlong, energyless, the aphorisms trite
and obvious, the poetry a garbled parody of the old Dylan. But I
persisted; there was something^ that mattered to me, and I ultimately
found I out what it was. I discovered that I only really wanted to
play this I
record whenever I had a fight with someone l was falling in love with
we would reach some painful impasse of words or wills, she would go home
and I would sit up all night with my misery and this album playing it
over and over, wallowing in Dylan's wretched reflection of my own
confusion: "Women-who can figger 'em I imagine it was also a big hit
with the recently (or soon to be) divorced
At length I concluded that any record whose principal utility lay
in such an emotional twilight zone was at worst an instrument of self-abuse, at best, innocuous as a crying towel, and certainly was not
going to make me a better person or teach me anything about women,
myself or anything else but how painfully confused Bob Dylan seemed to
be. Which was simply not enough."
Tim Herrick wrote:
In a message dated 10/30/03 12:04:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, LISTSERV@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU writes:
<< : Lester Bangs BOTT
"Mississippi" ~ "Sugar Baby" ~ "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" ~ "High
Water"...just for starters..seem pretty substantial to my ears.
And they don't wallow in self-pity nor glorify loss. They just are.
For starters they seem pretty substantial, but will we still be listening to >> them 30 years later the way we're listening to Blood on the Tracks?
There's a lot of music we listen to 30 years, 50 years later, even. music of one's generation, and of previous generation. But there is NO MUSIC that we listen to THE WAY we listen to Blood on the Tracks.
If you dont understand this, you don't know what you're talking about, because you've never been in love, or fallen out of love, or been hurt by the object of your love, or hurt the object of your love, or had had circumstances of
social history conflict and even end love. Fallen of out love and it's nobody's
fault, and fallen of out love and it's everybody's fault.
Blood on the tracks is just a transendant, rosetta stone piece of literarature set to a few perfect guitar chords. Lester Bangs was a very good, near great
writer, but his dylan reviews are not the reason why. He was off base
Tim Herrick wrote:
In a message dated 10/30/03 12:04:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, LISTSERV@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU writes:
<< : Lester Bangs BOTT
"Mississippi" ~ "Sugar Baby" ~ "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" ~ "High
Water"...just for starters..seem pretty substantial to my ears.
And they don't wallow in self-pity nor glorify loss. They just are.
For starters they seem pretty substantial, but will we still be listening to >> them 30 years later the way we're listening to Blood on the Tracks?
There's a lot of music we listen to 30 years, 50 years later, even. music of one's generation, and of previous generation. But there is NO MUSIC that we listen to THE WAY we listen to Blood on the Tracks.
If you dont understand this, you don't know what you're talking about, because you've never been in love, or fallen out of love, or been hurt by the object of your love, or hurt the object of your love, or had had circumstances of
social history conflict and even end love. Fallen of out love and it's nobody's
fault, and fallen of out love and it's everybody's fault.
Blood on the tracks is just a transendant, rosetta stone piece of literarature set to a few perfect guitar chords. Lester Bangs was a very good, near great
writer, but his dylan reviews are not the reason why. He was off base
don freeman wrote:
Before Lester Bangs gets to his critique of Desire, he describes his
build up of anticipation because of his disappointment with Blood in the Tracks:
"When Blood on the Tracks was released, 1 felt as ambivalent about it as
it was about its subject matter and I remained that way After initially dismissing it on one hearing as a sprawling, absurdly pretentious mess
whose key was the ridiculously spiteful "Idiot Wind," I found myself
drawn back to it repeatedly by a current that I was not at all convinced
was entirely wholesome.
I would get drunk and throw it on, finding profound aphorisms
alternating with oblique poetry, belching outbursts of muddled
enthusiasm: "Goddamn, he's still got it!" Then I would sober up and it
would sound, once again, dull, overlong, energyless, the aphorisms trite
and obvious, the poetry a garbled parody of the old Dylan. But I
persisted; there was something^ that mattered to me, and I ultimately
found I out what it was. I discovered that I only really wanted to
play this I
record whenever I had a fight with someone l was falling in love with
we would reach some painful impasse of words or wills, she would go home
and I would sit up all night with my misery and this album playing it
over and over, wallowing in Dylan's wretched reflection of my own
confusion: "Women-who can figger 'em I imagine it was also a big hit
with the recently (or soon to be) divorced
At length I concluded that any record whose principal utility lay
in such an emotional twilight zone was at worst an instrument of self-abuse, at best, innocuous as a crying towel, and certainly was not
going to make me a better person or teach me anything about women,
myself or anything else but how painfully confused Bob Dylan seemed to
be. Which was simply not enough."
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