October 20, 2019

Is it right to say that Bob Dylan was bad at charades because he couldn't — or wouldn't — do "how many syllables?" and "sounds like"?

From Elton John's autobiography, "Me":
Simon and Garfunkel had dinner one night, then played charades. At least, they tried to play charades. They were terrible at it. The best thing I can say about them is that they were better than Bob Dylan. He couldn’t get the hang of the ‘how many syllables?’ thing at all. He couldn’t do ‘sounds like’ either, come to think of it. One of the best lyricists in the world, the greatest man of letters in the history of rock music, and he can’t seem to tell you whether a word’s got one syllable or two syllables or what it rhymes with! He was so hopeless, I started throwing oranges at him. Or so I was informed the next morning, by a cackling Tony King. That’s not really a phone call you want to receive when you’re struggling with a hangover. ‘Morning, darling – do you remember throwing oranges at Bob Dylan last night?’ Oh God.
I don't know what really happened, but I'm stepping up to defend Bob Dylan. "How many syllables?" and "sounds like" are the dregs of charades. I'm going to say that Bob wanted to play the game at a higher level, where you had to get the real words across, not break them up into syllables and resort to other words that merely rhyme. They were mocking him, throwing oranges at him, because he wouldn't do it the easy way. But the easiest way is not to play charades at all. And I challenge you all to play charades the Bob Dylan way, with no "how many syllables?" and no "sounds like."

From Bob Dylan's "Tight Connection to My Heart":
I’ll go along with the charade
Until I can think my way out
I know it was all a big joke
Whatever it was about


Who knew Bob Dylan played charades?! That's what the rock stars do when they get together? Charades!

ADDED: Into the mix, let me throw the glorious "How many syllables, Mario?" sequence from "Putney Swope":

33 comments:

tommyesq said...

Elton John seems like a douche, by his own words. I always found his music dull and treacle-y as well. It was like the ultimate distillation of the worst of McCartney sans Lennon.

rhhardin said...

Throwing oranges defeats "sounds like."

Ann Althouse said...

"Throwing oranges defeats "sounds like.""

Yeah, I was just coming in here to say (something like) that.

gilbar said...

like tommy the esquire said, Elton John seems to be The Problem, not part of the Solution

Heartless Aztec said...

Syllables!? Bob Dylan doesn't need no stinkin' syllables!

Lyle Sanford, RMT said...

I love this blog for a lot of reasons - the Dylan quotes and clips like this one could be number one.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

They were playing charades while Dylan was playing 3-D Pictionary.

tcrosse said...

It would be a challenge to charade Dylan lyrics, even for Dylan himself.

Automatic_Wing said...

I am skeptical as to whether this actually happened.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Deaf people make the best charades players.

stevew said...

"What's another word for thesaurus?" - Steven Wright

I bet this story comes from that time when playing Charades was a thing at parties and small gatherings. I always hated the game, I'm horrible at figuring out syllables (not so good at making haikus as a result) and don't enjoy the acting it out thing. Much better at Pictionary.

Elton's such a poof, but to me he sounds like a fun guy to hang out with.

rcocean said...

Is there really a connection between being a great songwriter and charades? I know form reading that some of the greatest scientists ever, were bad chess players. And vice-versa. And that E. Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Faulkner and Steinbeck hated Charades. Seriously.

Having said that, who wouldn't want to be in the room when Elton John, Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel were playing charades?

rcocean said...

Being at games isn't really connected with real life. I was the champion "Password" champion in 7th Grade English. But where did it get me?

robother said...

"Fruit?" "Throwing Fruit?"

"Orange you glad I stopped throwing fruit?"

Scott said...

The entire Putney Swope is on YouTube. It's wild.

tim in vermont said...

A lot of word games require a lot of specific knowledge that is useless outside of the game. Scrabble, for example. How many of those “legal” two letter words are actually useful enough to rate being considered actual words?

rightguy said...

I hate charades. Seems there is always a couple or two that are really good at it and joyously smoke everybody else. I'd much rather have a good drink and a laugh. Charades is just party filler as far as I am concerned.

Wince said...

Ann Althouse said...
"Throwing oranges defeats "sounds like.""

Yeah, I was just coming in here to say (something like) that.


No, I got it! Four syllables:

"Orange man bad!"

rhhardin said...

Thesaurus: dictionary, encyclopedia, repository, storehouse, treasury, wordbook

- New Collins Thesaurus

dustbunny said...

https://isitrollingbobtalkingdylan.podbean.com/.
I love this pod cast of writers and musicians indulging their fascination with The one and only Bob It’s called ‘is it Rolling Bob?”

dustbunny said...

Hard to imagine Dylan wanting to play Charades. He probably just went along with the nonsense in a halfhearted way.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Okay, you do "Tom Swift Jr and his Triphibiam Atomicar" without breaking it into syllables and sound-alikes.

William said...

This is the most innocuous bit of celebrity gossip I have ever read....Milton Berle got it on with Marilyn Monroe. Babe Ruth slept with Lou Gehrig's wife. That's celebrity gossip worthy of your attention.

wildswan said...

But how was he at Scrabble? Who was a party where he played Scrabble?

LakeLevel said...

Charades sometimes cannot be played at a higher level. A favorite story in my extended family lore is when my uncle was doing a charade in this manner, with no sounds-like or syllables. He got his team to understand the idea that someone was taken against their will and hidden and money was paid to get them back, but no-one could come up with the answer "Kidnapped", the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. We had all heard of the book but we could not make the connection. He finally gave up. We laughed a lot about that one.

Amexpat said...

Sounds like Dylan was wryly sabotaging a game he didn't want to play.

JMW Turner said...

Commenting late. Ultimately it's only a party game. If I could magically transport myself to this party, at some point I'd take a sip of my wine, take a deep breath, and marvel; "I'm casually enjoying a silly social game in the presence of Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob freaking Bob Dylan! Somebody needs to enjoy the moment, no?

tcrosse said...

Back in the days of steam television there was a show called Mike Stokey's Pantomime Quiz, in which a bunch of stars would play charades. One regular feature was to act out some Shakespearean quote so that Hans Conried could guess it and show off his encyclopedic knowledge of the Bard.

Jeff Gee said...

Wow. A late friend of mine used to cry "How many syllables, Mario? How many syllables, Mario??" whenever he felt somebody was babbling. I thought it was hilarious but I never got the reference!

Ann Althouse said...

@Jeff Gee

Glad I could get you there.

I think if you'd Googled "How many syllables, Mario?" you would have found it. That's how I got to the clip.

Ann Althouse said...

Another line like that — funny because repeated — is "I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?"

Ann Althouse said...

Or should I say "I am not arguing that with you"?

William Voegeli said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgcJr3o-eus