The Smiley Smile Message Board

I figure this is a thread that will vary wildy in what people listen to, yet they will all have something in common: Dylan.

What am I listening to?  "I Wanna Be Your Lover", which has a neat take-off on a certain Beatles song.  He should have released this one back in his heyday, it's a great song (MP3 here: http://h1.ripway.com/idigworms/IWannaBeYourLover.mp3):
   
Well, the rainman comes with his magic wand
And the judge says, "Mona can't have no bond."
And the walls collide, Mona cries,
And the rainman leaves in the wolfman's disguise.

I wanna be your lover, baby, I wanna be your man.
I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don't wanna be hers, I wanna be yours.

Well, the undertaker in his midnight suit
Says to the masked man, "Ain't you cute!"
Well, the mask man he gets up on the shelf
And he says, "You ain't so bad yourself."

I wanna be your lover, baby, I wanna be your man.
I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don't wanna be hers, I wanna be yours.

Well, jumpin' Judy can't go no higher.
She had bullets in her eyes, and they fire.
Rasputin he's so dignified,
He touched the back of her head an' he died.

I wanna be your lover, baby, I wanna be your man.
I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don't wanna be hers, I wanna be yours.

Well, Phaedra with her looking glass,
Stretchin' out upon the grass.
She gets all messed up and she faintsÑ
That's 'cause she's so obvious and you ain't.

I wanna be your lover, baby, I wanna be your man.
I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don't wanna be hers, I wanna be yours.

"Positively 4th Street" is the song of the moment. I just LOVE the lyrics.

"Maggie's Farm", live at 1965 Newport Folk Festival.  Here is a standout lyric that absolutely skewers the festival's unwillingness to change with the times, though probably it's just my perception: "Well, he hands you a nickel/He hands you a dime/He asks you with a grin/If you're havin' a good time/Then he fines you every time you slam the door." 

"Man In The Long Black Coat" from Oh Mercy.

I like Daniel Lanois' production, I love the sound of this song. Dylan got a little "spooky" on some of his (relatively) later recordings, but in a cool way...

Great choice!

Now I'm hearing "Simple Twist Of Fate".

'Cross The Green Mountains' from Gods And Generals.
It's perhaps the best song he's written in the last twenty years.

Idiot Wind!  By far my all time favorite Dylan tune.

"If You Gotta Go, Go Now".  Now why didn't he release this one?!?!  This is such a good recording of a really cool song.  "It ain't that I'm questionin' you/To take part in any quiz/It's just that I ain't got no watch/An' you keep askin' me what time it is."

It was released as a single! In Belgium and The Netherlands.

(http://www.popsike.com/pics/thegrizzlerman/20040920/4038825445.jpg)

What's that sound? I know, it's Lester Bangs rolling in his grave.

Moderator says your license has been revoked, nucca.

series of dreams

Am I not entitled to wallow a bit in my own hyperbole?  Save your moderating for yourself.

The song now is "Things Have Changed": 'All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.'

"Cold Irons Bound" from Time Out Of Mind...

I'm still into the "eerie" Bob Dylan sound. I love the organ, it's kind of Doors-ish. I know Daniel Lanois altered Dylan's sound, but I like it.

idigworms, what is your opinion of Lanois' work with Dylan?

 

 

I liked the production of Oh Mercy, not so much the production on Time Out Of Mind.  Funny, though, that the latter has a lot more great songs than the former.  I am torn here!

Listening to "Make You Feel My Love" by...Garth Brooks!

just like a woman

A performance in Berlin in 2003 of "Don't Think Twice". Different but interesting.

"When You Gonna Wake Up".

I just got some Aaron Neville, and I am digging on "Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight" - great stuff:

I wish I'd have been a doctor,
Maybe I'd have saved some life that had been lost,
Maybe I'd have done some good in the world
Instead of burning every bridge I crossed.

My favourite Dylan track of the moment is Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Thru Dark Heat), the final track on Street Legal and a really storming end to a much under-rated album.  The last track on a Dylan album before the religious conversion, is that train in the first line the same one that's in the next album's title?  Fantastic lyrics:

There's a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write.
There's a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much but she's drifting like a
satellite. There's a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze, laughter down on
Elizabeth Street
And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone where she bathed in a stream of pure
heat. Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise but he practiced
what he preached from the heart.
A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me the time and the place that the trouble would start.

There's a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage
And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage
And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page
Of a book that no one can write.
Oh, where are you tonight?

The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode.
In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed, sacrifice was the code of the road.
I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John, strong men belittled by doubt.
I couldn't tell her what my private thoughts were but she had some way of finding
them out. He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same, she was waiting,
putting flowers on the shelf.
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair and discovered her invisible self.

There's a lion in the road, there's a demon escaped,
There's a million dreams gone, there's a landscape being raped,
As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape,
I won't, but then again, maybe I might.
Oh, if I could just find you tonight.

I fought with my twin, that enemy within, 'til both of us fell by the way.
Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees while the law looks the other way.
Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes, the guy you were lovin'
couldn't stay clean.
It felt outa place, my foot in his face, but he should-a stayed where his money was
green.
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit with the juice running down my leg.
Then I dealt with your boss, who'd never known about loss and who always was
too proud to beg.
There's a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room and a pathway that leads
up to the stars.
If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, remind me to show you the
scars.

There's a new day at dawn and I've finally arrived.
If I'm there in the morning, baby, you'll know I've survived.
I can't believe it, I can't believe I'm alive,
But without you it just doesn't seem right.
Oh, where are you tonight?

"Motorpsycho Nightmare", where he namechecks Fidel Castro, Anthony Perkins and "Psycho", "La Dolce Vita", and Reader's Digest.