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":
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33 comments:
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.
Throwing oranges defeats "sounds like."
"Throwing oranges defeats "sounds like.""
Yeah, I was just coming in here to say (something like) that.
like tommy the esquire said, Elton John seems to be The Problem, not part of the Solution
Syllables!? Bob Dylan doesn't need no stinkin' syllables!
I love this blog for a lot of reasons - the Dylan quotes and clips like this one could be number one.
They were playing charades while Dylan was playing 3-D Pictionary.
It would be a challenge to charade Dylan lyrics, even for Dylan himself.
I am skeptical as to whether this actually happened.
Deaf people make the best charades players.
"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.
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?
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?
"Fruit?" "Throwing Fruit?"
"Orange you glad I stopped throwing fruit?"
The entire Putney Swope is on YouTube. It's wild.
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?
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.
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!"
Thesaurus: dictionary, encyclopedia, repository, storehouse, treasury, wordbook
- New Collins Thesaurus
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?”
Hard to imagine Dylan wanting to play Charades. He probably just went along with the nonsense in a halfhearted way.
Okay, you do "Tom Swift Jr and his Triphibiam Atomicar" without breaking it into syllables and sound-alikes.
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.
But how was he at Scrabble? Who was a party where he played Scrabble?
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.
Sounds like Dylan was wryly sabotaging a game he didn't want to play.
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?
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.
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!
@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.
Another line like that — funny because repeated — is "I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?"
Or should I say "I am not arguing that with you"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgcJr3o-eus
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