(May You Stay) Forever Young

To wish His Bobness a happy 70th birthday seems more or less like holding up a lighter in a crowd of thousands. To get rid of the old shibboleth about his singing voice, if you don’t like it then just think of his records as rough demos sent in by a songwriter – for you to grab and interpret.

His back catalogue of about 450 songs must include something you like, even if you didn’t know he wrote it! Watch Ab Fab, and that ‘Wheels On Fire’ song (The Julie Driscoll version), for instance, or Jimi Hendrix pouncing on ‘All Along The Watchtower’.

At one time or another he plundered, enhanced, transformed and re-created most genres of American music – both the cool and the (at the time) uncool. From Rock to Blues, Country to Folk and Gospel (even Punk) he inspired just about everyone to re-investigate their roots, and then bring them into the NOW.

He encouraged The Beatles to give up pop music and cover versions and write their own stuff; his example must have helped The Stones get away from reproducing ‘old Blues Men’ and write modern blues; he made Johnny Cash cool; even his Christian ‘phase’ gave the gospel crew some great songs.

He broke the three minute song taboo; he created maybe the first video to go with a song.

In most tribute shows people still forage through the ‘folk era’ (with those great, timeless, mythical and archetypal images) and the social conscience songs of the ‘protest’ period. They miss the jokes. It’s hard to do jokes.

A notable exception (for me) was K T Tunstall, closing an otherwise rather mournful 'tribute show' with fresh, life-enhancing versions of the first two songs on Blood on the Tracks. (I'd have happily listened to her recreate the whole album!

Very few people seem to tackle his output of the last twenty years, even if he continues to write prolifically, and occasionally astound us with something unique that doesn’t belong to any of the previous music categories. Perhaps these songs are so personal that they work best through his unique delivery, his actor’s expressiveness, breath control and sense for story-telling – the words on the page often don’t capture his particular use of the voice and images.

Instead of vacuous love songs, cheating songs and breaking up songs, Dylan gave us a whole adult range of love and hurt and regret, bitterness, sadness, reconciliation, acceptance, and forgiveness. He expanded the vocabulary of song-writing.

But hey, if you still don’t like the voice (and he’s actually been through several styles) listen to some of the hundreds of cover versions, and you will find not just amazing words but great tunes. He can do stadium singalong anthems, or simple, cheerful versions, even of the same song – for instance, the two versions of Forever Young on ‘Planet Waves'. He famously doesn’t like sounding like the album, or even like last night’s live version, or doing too many takes in a studio. He remains a spontaneous performer, who likes surrounding himself with great musicians, and playing live.

His recent outing as a DJ on XM Radio, that the BBC bought for the UK (even if he was assisted by researchers) demonstrated the range of music he loves, appreciates and understands – as well as displaying his rueful and deadpan sense of humour (that so many people miss).

Happy birthday, Bob!

Fossil Poetry

By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary.

The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses for, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolizes the world to the first speaker and to the hearer.

The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin. But the poet names the thing because he sees it, or comes one step nearer to it than any other. This expression, or naming, is not art, but a second nature, grown out of the first, as a leaf out of a tree.

What we call nature, is a certain self-regulated motion, or change; and nature does all things by her own hands, and does not leave another to baptise her, but baptises herself; and this through the metamorphosis again.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: Second Series [1844] The Poet