"It’s not hard to tell why the last verse would appeal to the guy who often closed his concerts with 'My Way': Oh, a false clock tries to tick out my time,/To disgrace, distract, and bother me,/And the dirt of gossip blows into my face,/And the dust of rumors covers me./But if the arrow is straight/And the point is slick,/It can pierce through dust no matter how thick. So I’ll make my stand/And remain as I am/And bid farewell and not give a damn. Those Sinatra standards replenished him.... But perhaps the nearest Dylan came to explaining both his gift and its durability was in 2015, accepting an award from the charity MusiCares. Reading from a sheaf of papers in his hands, Dylan exploded the myth of sui-generis brilliance. 'These songs didn’t come out of thin air,' he said. 'I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth. . . . It all came out of traditional music: traditional folk music, traditional rock and roll, and traditional big-band swing orchestra music. . . . If you sang ‘John Henry’ as many times as me—‘John Henry was a steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand / John Henry said a man ain’t nothin’ but a man / Before I let that steam drill drive me down / I’ll die with that hammer in my hand.’ If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you’d have written ‘How many roads must a man walk down?’ too. 'All these songs are connected... I just opened up a different door in a different kind of way. . . . I thought I was just extending the line.'"
Writes David Remnick in "A Unified Field Theory of Bob Dylan/He’s in his eighties. How does he keep it fresh?" (The New Yorker).
I love that connection of "My Way" to "Restless Farewell." I also love Bob's album of Sinatra songs, especially "The Best Is Yet to Come" — here. And here's Bob singing I’ll make my stand/And remain as I am/And bid farewell and not give a damn to Frank for Frank's 80th birthday:
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Scorsese's documentary about Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, is outstanding.
2:49 - Looks exactly like a Parkinson's tremor, which at first glance is what I thought it was. I was expecting the camera to pan up to Frank's face. It took a second closer look to realize it was the pedal steel player.
Maybe this seems a little too Aryan Brotherhood for a chat between an Italian and a Jew, but here's Dylan's report on what Sinatra said to him one starry night:
“He was funny, we were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, ‘You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there’, and he pointed to the stars. ‘These other bums are from down here’. I remember thinking that he might be right.”
If my memory serves me well, Dylan was the only one at the Sinatra tribute to sing a song that Sinatra didn't record himself and "Restless Farewell" was requested by Mr. Frank himself.
After all these years, how does David Remnick manage to keep it so stale?
Scorsese's documentary about Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, is outstanding.
In some ways his "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese" was more interesting as a film. It's both a compelling documentary and a satire of a documentary, with some of the best comedic faux documentary scenes since "Spinal Tap". And Dylan sings like a shaman when he eviscerates "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". Contrast that version with the original to see Dylan's gift as a songwriter and a performer.
can he keep it fresh? who cares?
Never heard that one. Interesting.
Dylan looked and sounded like the love-child of Columbo and Peewee Herman.
I can see why Frank would like this better than Randy Newman's "Lonely at the Top." It's probably a better fit for Frank, giving him credit for a certain integrity in the way he pursued music in particular, and sometimes even bravery. Fighting for causes: Frank did a lot to integrate the hotels in Las Vegas, and his relationship with Sammy Davis Jr. was a pretty generous treatment of a lesser star by a bigger star. In a way Frank's enthusiasm for Reagan in 1980 was much like his enthusiasm for JFK in 1960: he wanted to help out. Younger JFK, younger Frank; older Reagan, older Frank. Unfortunately, both presidents may have decided the mob ties were too much.
Letting money slip gladly to friends: Quincy Jones is good on this. In interviews he would say briefly yes, Frank had a hell of a temper, but then change the subject. At the birth of Q's third child, Q was out of the country. He came home and checked his mail. One envelope had the return address of a company that Q knew was really Frank. Opened it, a check. Words something like: Q, congratulations on the birth of Quincy III. I hope the enclosed will go some way toward covering his college education. The amount I guess was close enough.
I am not a Dylan superfan but admire the man's genius with words.
I think Sinatra did too...
Althouse, I will never understand your fascination with this man. Whenever he is on stage, it sounds like his mouth is full of marbles. Demosthenes he is not. The only way to understand his music is when you have the printed word in front of you. Thank you, An unsophisticated deplorable
>>I can see why Frank would like this better than Randy Newman's "Lonely at the Top."
Hadn't thought about that song for a long time and had forgotten that Randy wrote it for Frank and wanted him to do it.
I love me some Randy Newman, though I haven't followed him much since "I Love LA." For my money, "Sail Away" was his (first and) greatest album. The lyrics are always the thing for me. I also love the early Jimmy Buffett and the late, lamented Steve Goodman (a good Chicago boy, though regrettably a Cub fan).
--gpm
He’s the absolute number one singer songwriter in American history. Nobody comes close. That’s why.
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