"He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal."
Pitchfork relays info from a press release about the new book from Bob Dylan that's coming out this fall.
Until then, we might amuse ourselves by thinking of single syllables that have diminished songs, maybe Bob Dylan songs. We can wonder if there's a corollary that the best songs could not benefit from the addition of a single syllable? And can you take a Bob Dylan song and make it better by subtracting or adding a single syllable?
I read between the lines that Bob is saying he's seen to every last syllable of his songs... and until heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle shall pass from these songs, until all is fulfilled.
As for getting out of the trap of easy rhymes: form, storm, warm, storm, corn, storm, thorns, storm, morn, storm, horn, storm, forlorn, storm, scorn, storm, born, storm.
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51 comments:
He is not wrong. Listen to Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson, one of the greats, as written. Then listen to Janis Joplin's version of it. Very minor changes made it a better song. And realize that they were not deliberate changes (she learned it from someone else as a surprise for Kris), but they still made for a better song.
Journey's Loving, Touching, and Squeezing lyrics:
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
Source: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/139282/
As far as your example in Shelter from the Storm, look at the difficult as well as easy rhymes, blood mud, assured word, there hair, lost crossed, clothes dose.
Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
Dylan can be very precise in the words of many songs but there are also songs that Dylan recorded with some different words substituted or added. I think he likes to break his own rules ar times as well. I’ll be interested to see what has to say in the new book.
I don't give a damn about Dylan's opinion on world peace or global warming, but will concede that he knows a thing or two about song writing.
As for June Moon Spoon Swoon...it is so fucking lazy and so fucking lucrative.
A lot of writers made a lot of money writing schlock.
Set it to 3 chords and get rich.
The opposite of June Moon is guys like Sondheim, who just wrote dialog and told actors to draw out the words and modulate the tone of their voice.
As long as I can rhyme "Glock" with "c-ck" I'll continue to find work as a rap writer.
There once was a poet named Bob
Word choice and scansion his job
There'll be no cheap rhyme!
Each stanza sublime!
The effort, It made his head throb.
I'm really looking forward to reading this.
Tight rules, ironically, force creativity.
Do not scorn forlorn corn in the morn.
Happily we've moved on from moon, croon, June, and tune so common and trite in 40's and 50's pop music.
Dylan and Tom Petty together with guitarist Mike Campbell wrote the Heartbreakers song "Jammin' Me" in 1987, which largely consists of random phrases taken from the TVs in the room and newspapers that were lying around as they traded lines on the verses:
You got me in a corner
You got me against the wall
I got nowhere to go
I got nowhere to fall
Take back your insurance
Baby nothings guaranteed
Take back your acid rain
Let your T.V. bleed
You're jammin' me, you're jammin' me
Quit jammin' me
Baby you can keep me painted in a corner
You can walk away, but it's not over
Take back your angry slander
Take back your pension plan
Take back your ups and downs of your life
In raisin-land
Take back Vanessa Redgrave
Take back Joe Piscopo
Take back Eddie Murphy
Give 'em all some place to go
You're jammin' me, you're jammin' me
Quit jammin' me
Baby you can keep me painted in a corner
You can walk away, but it's not over
Take back your Iranian torture
And the apple in young Steve's eye
Yeah take back your losing streak
Check your front wheel drive
Take back Pasadena
Take back El Salvador
Take back that country club
They're tryin' to build outside my door
However, that last line sounds like they rewrote it on the fly to name drop like they did in the bridge with Piscopo, Murphy and Redgrave, as this is what I hear them sing for the last two lines of verse (chorus repeats after that):
"Take back that country club
That Trump built outside my door"
That takes the line from 9 syllables to seven. Discuss.
Dylan's album The Times They Are A-Changin' was released on January 13, 1964. Please notice that the title's key word is A-Changin' -- not just Changing. That's a good example of how one added syllable can make an important difference.
=======
In that same week, the song Nitty Gritty -- performed by Shirley Ellis -- rose to #8 on the Billboard. That song's featured this clever rhyme:
Sooner or later, baby (here's a ditty:),
You're gonna have to get right down to the real nitty-gritty
That rhyme is better than any rhyme in any Dylan song!
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A few weeks later, the song Nitty Gritty was featured on The Judy Garland Show, with an amusing modern dance.
YouTube's video of that performance has more than 15 million views and more than 10,000 comments. Does any Dylan video on YouTube have so many views and comments?
See my blog article, The French-Twist Hairstyle in the Early 1960s.
Live and Let Die: "But if this ever changin' world in which we live in" perhaps should have been "But if this ever changin' world that [or which?] we live in."
Don't think twice, these are Nobel prize winning rhymes alright.
dawn, gone, on
knowed, road
road, told, soul
Unkind, mind, time
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/dontthinktwiceitsallright.html
A great song. He could have done better on the rhyme but I don't mind, don't think twice, it's all right. But is it "all right" or "alright"? "Alright" was introduced by Mark Twain in 1865 so maybe that spelling is based on flyover speech rhythms (eek) but maybe that's how Dylan talked, being from Duluth and all. Maybe he was on the dark side of the road, back then anyhow, for the light he never knowed yet. Still a great song so don't think twice, it's alright. All right. what Ever. Whatever.
Palate cleanser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iHhWh9FtsQ
Ob‐La‐Di, Ob‐La‐Da
You forgot "porn" and "dorm."
Wordle, the Musical.
You left off one “na” at the end, enigma
'Listen to Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson, one of the greats, as written. Then listen to Janis Joplin's version of it. Very minor changes made it a better song.'
One of the worst written and performed songs of all time.
That's a hill I will die on.
Dylan doesn't need to add any extra syllables in his songs as he's can stretch them out as long as needed.
I'm sure it will be a good read. Some of the best parts of Chronicles were about the singers he liked.
Love dove glove shove of
Following up my own comment at 12:23 PM
Sooner or later, baby (here's a ditty:),
You're gonna have to get right down to the real nitty-gritty
I should have written those lyrics like this:
Sooner or later, baby,
(Here's a ditty:)
You're gonna have to get right down
To the real nitty-gritty
CJ nails it. Rap is the graffiti of music. BTW, Bob, RACIST!
Words, yes.
Music? No.
Lol.
From 'Me and Julio down by the Schoolyard'...
"The mama looked down and spit on the ground
Every time my name gets mentioned
The papa said, "Oy, if I get that boy
I'm gonna stick him in the house of detention"
"Whoa, in a couple of days they come and take me away
But the press let the story leak
And when the radical priest
Come to get me released
We was all on the cover of Newsweek"
Or, this from 'Graceland'...
"She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said, "losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow"
I always refer back to Paul Simon when talking great American songwriters. Not sure what my block is with Dylan, but I think Simon's breadth and range of styles, plus great lyrics set him apart. Can't listen to Dylan sing. Might not be able to read his book, either. As Pete Townsend would say, "I can't explain".
The answer my friend is blowin' in the window
The answer is blowin' in the window
Nope. Doesn't work.
Of course, my first thought wasn't a Dylan song.
Ba Ba Ba Ba Barbra Ann ...
From "Daydream Believer"
Oh, I could hide 'neath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings
The six o'clock alarm would never ring
But it rings and I rise
Wipe the sleep out of my eyes
My shavin' razor's cold and it stings
Almost anything would be better.
"wake my mind to what the new day brings" would be better, "duck the lamp my angry girlfriend flings" would be better.
Sometimes it's not the rhyme but what comes before it. Train used the June-moon rhyme to good effect in "Drops of Jupiter."
"Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey"
"Take back Joe Piscopo"
***************
Joe Piscopo is now shilling for Relief Factor, where their "three-week trial" gets you an unsolicited re-order after 16 days. (My experience).
Anyway, Joe Piscopo now looks like the old Joe Piscopo, left out in the sun for too long.
Shelter from the Storm. A song by Bob Dylan.
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Mozart Requiem with an unbelievably cool introduction.
Temujin is right. Dylan may be the bigger cultural figure, but Paul Simon is probably the better songwriter. Rhythm of the the Saints (cd) never gets old to me. Kristofferson was very erratic.
Anyone want to discuss "McArthur Park"? That's always fun.
Someone gave me a big volume of Paul Simon song lyrics once as a gift. They overinterpreted a remark, I suppose. It's around here somewhere, good as new.
If The Philosophy of Modern Song could only have been written by Dylan, who should write The Song of Modern Philosophy?
Paul Simon, the final song in Trailways Bus (the CD album version, much better than the live one)
But he can’t leave his fears behind
He recalls each fatal thrust
The screams are carried by the wind
Phantom figures in the dust
Phantom figures in the dust
Phantom figures in the dust
is an oblique citation of Wordsworth's Lucy quatrain, which also substitutes fears for tears, so that tears are felt as missing. Wolcott is probably responsible for it though, the lyricist.
I'm a panhadlein manhandaln high rolin post holin dust bowlin daddy.
I don't wear no stetson, but I'm willin to bet son, that I'm big a Texan as you.
That girl in her bare feet, sleepin in the back seat, and the trunk's full of pearl and lone star.
I ain't got no blood veins, I just got these four lanes, of hard Amarillo highway.
Terry Allen knows more about rhyming than the hippies do.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
Not sure of Dylan but Neil Young needed a better producer for Cinnamon Girl, the final chords are, at best, jarring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREf47BPe5w
Not a single syllable, but two, ruined this classic awesome song:
"And EYE-EE-EYE..."
Dolly has said she liked how Whitney Houston made her song big, but I think she was just being Southern polite.
At what point does a clever lyric transcend itself and become poetry? Lorenz Hart and Cole Porter had a good ear for the clever, apt and totally unexpected rhyme. Their lyrics, to my mind anyway, don't have the impact of poetry. Still, people have been singing their songs for nearly one hundred years now. Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern even longer....I'm absolutely certain that in one hundred years people will still be singing Gershwin's ""Summertime. Those lyrics definitely qualify as poetry.. Dylan will probably be around in a hundred years, but who knows....I'm older than posterity. I remember when some of the Doors' songs sounded so overwhelming and era defining. They seem kind of overdone now....."Speak Low" was written by Ogden Nash. I can't think of a more moving carpe diem poem. Eat your heart out John Donne and Andrew Marvell.
Dylan did music for the "Jerry Maguire" movie (I think it only played during the credits).
William, great observations!!
One clarification: Ira Gershwin was the composer of Summertime, but Dubose Heyward wrote the lyrics. I believe Stephen Sondheim wrote that Gershwin and Heyward collaborated closely on the creation of Porgy and Bess, but Gershwin’s established reputation as a lyricist later caused many to mistakenly attribute the most important lyrics, including Summertime, to him and not Heyward. Heyward wrote the novel Porgy on which the opera is based.
I used to really enjoy Paul Simon, but recently listened to songs like Diamonds in the Soles of My Shoes and it seemed like pop candy. Rhyming with what meaning?
The power of Dylan’s meter and rhyming is not the rhymes but the meanings. Dylan is the master of phrases that could be validly interpreted more than one way, but only work in the context of the whole song. Dylan’s songs say something about the eternal issues in life - love, betrayal, relationship to the divine, and social fairness. He performed at Martin Luther King’s historic I have a vision speech on the national mall in Washington and for Pope John Paul II in front of 300,000 faithful at a World Eucharistic Council meeting. He inspired many throughout the years including Sam Cooke who wrote A Change Is Going To Come because he thought it strange that a skinny Jewish kid would write the best civil rights song to that point. Yet Dylan hated being pigeon-holed as an activist and ripped a new one in a liberal group that wanted to enshrine him as the leading civil rights performer of his era. There are edges and angles in Dylan’s lyrics that most people don’t see. How many know that Dylan was inspired to write Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35 (the stoned me song)by the first Christian martyr, Saint Timothy who was stoned to death for trying to persuade Greeks not to hold a procession in honor of the pagan god Diana? Look at the lyrics and you can see Dylan (who had a bit of a martyr complex early on) was identifying with Saint Timothy, not rocking on about getting high. But Dylan used the double entendre so he could express himself and people would enjoy the song. This was also about the time he wrote I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine, where he was among those that took him out to his death by arrow firing squad betraying a saintly person and beliefs. My point is Dylan used rhyming as a tool to build the architecture of a song, but the real genius is how the song conveys artistic (I.e,, higher) thoughts. Where did Paul Simon do this? I must have missed it.
I used to really enjoy Paul Simon, but recently listened to songs like Diamonds in the Soles of My Shoes and it seemed like pop candy. Rhyming with what meaning?
The power of Dylan’s meter and rhyming is not the rhymes but the meanings. Dylan is the master of phrases that could be validly interpreted more than one way, but only work in the context of the whole song. Dylan’s songs say something about the eternal issues in life - love, betrayal, relationship to the divine, and social fairness. He performed at Martin Luther King’s historic I have a vision speech on the national mall in Washington and for Pope John Paul II in front of 300,000 faithful at a World Eucharistic Council meeting. He inspired many throughout the years including Sam Cooke who wrote A Change Is Going To Come because he thought it strange that a skinny Jewish kid would write the best civil rights song to that point. Yet Dylan hated being pigeon-holed as an activist and ripped a new one in a liberal group that wanted to enshrine him as the leading civil rights performer of his era. There are edges and angles in Dylan’s lyrics that most people don’t see. How many know that Dylan was inspired to write Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35 (the stoned me song)by the first Christian martyr, Saint Timothy who was stoned to death for trying to persuade Greeks not to hold a procession in honor of the pagan god Diana? Look at the lyrics and you can see Dylan (who had a bit of a martyr complex early on) was identifying with Saint Timothy, not rocking on about getting high. But Dylan used the double entendre so he could express himself and people would enjoy the song. This was also about the time he wrote I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine, where he was among those that took him out to his death by arrow firing squad betraying a saintly person and beliefs. My point is Dylan used rhyming as a tool to build the architecture of a song, but the real genius is how the song conveys artistic (I.e,, higher) thoughts. Where did Paul Simon do this? I must have missed it.
Blood on the Track Suit
Forever Neil Young
Yet Another Side of Bob Dylan
Blond on Blond Roots
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kidder
Planet Waves Bye
The Basement Duct Tapes
The Essential Oils Bob Dylan
That's cool, Critter. I've always thought artists should be judged by their best work, and appreciate the analysis you offer.
I'll let you pursue the question you pose.
"Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles"
He's the guy who wrote that.
Re Critter's comment: the first Christian martyr is Stephen. See New Testament, Book of Acts chapters 6-8.
Ernest, thank you. It's important to be accurate. I wrote my comment first thing in the morning and apparently had a brain lock. Of course I know it was Saint Stephan, except when I wrote my comment. But this only goes to underscore how well Dylan knows the Good Book, both old and new testaments.
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