…I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than me, I see all that I am and all I hope to be… The secret language of the blues has always enthralled Bob Dylan. From his earliest days as a performer he has been irresistibly attracted to its sly, lascivious poetic sensibility, its subtle use...
Category: Music
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BOB DYLAN: Nettie Moore
The world has gone black before my eyes… Across the courtroom the judge reaches for his black cap. Now he is poised to settle it on his head. In that moment, for Lost John, time freezes. It is as if he has stepped out of himself, like he’s an actor in some projection of his...
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BOB DYLAN: Beyond The Horizon
There’s always a reason Why someone’s life has been spared… Beyond The Horizon underlines the irony of Bob Dylan calling his latest album Modern Times. Once Dylan was one of the leaders of a musical movement which seemed to be aiming to sweep away the detritus of the past: now he celebrates the musical values...
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THE BEATLES: Who Could Ask For More Extract Four : Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane (Part Two)
Strawberry Fields Forever begins with what sounds like a distorted, distant flute (actually a mellotron) playing an evocative, yearning intro which sets up the melancholic tone of the song. There is a single bass note, and then we hear John’s voice, doctored to sound rather high, emotionally detached, ethereal. The backing is sparse, with...
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THE BEATLES: Who Could Ask For More Extract Three: Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane (Part One)
If only Mummy and Daddy would stop SHOUTING… John stifles the tears that are beginning to well up and counts how many sweeties he has left in his trouser pocket. One humbug, two sherbet lemons, the last bit of rock daddy had bought him yesterday. Everything had been so nice till mummy got here a...
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BOB DYLAN: Workingman’s Blues # 2
.Sleep is like a temporary death… . “You will perceive that in the breast The germs of many virtues rest, Which, ere they feel a lover’s breath, Lie in a temporary death” Henry Timrod, Two Portraits Workingman’s Blues No. 2 is already the most celebrated, though perhaps the most misunderstood, track on Modern Times....
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THE BEATLES: Extract from ‘Who Could Ask For More’ Two: Hey Jude
This is the second extract from my forthcoming book Who Could Ask For More: Reclaiming The Beatles. This extract features what may well be their finest hour, and explores how it focuses on the relationship between Paul and John In 1968 The Beatles, along with the youth culture that they spoke for and symbolised, stood...
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THE BEATLES: Who Could Ask For More Extract One: Dylan Meets The Beatles
The following is an extract from my book Who Could Ask For More: Reclaiming The Beatles. The title is derived from my desire to ‘rescue’ The Beatles from the cultural institutionalism that at times seems to overwhelm the way we see them in a haze of nostalgia for a so-called ‘innocent age’. The book...
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BOB DYLAN: When The Deal Goes Down
…We all wear the same thorny crown… Perhaps the most striking aspect of Modern Times is its lyrical and emotional clarity. The lyrics of 2001’s Love And Theft, like so many Dylan albums before it, featured often wildly allusive patterns of reference. But here the songs are carefully constructed to convey specific emotions and themes...