#bob dylan review

[tobobby]

music review #1 - the ballad of hollis brown

rating: 10/10 song: the ballad of hollis brown album: the times they are a-changin' (1964) artist: bob dylan

just pre-dating dylan's electric era, this track is haunting and certainly a predecessor to songs like "it's alright ma (i'm only bleeding)". with its repetitive acoustic guitar chords and harrowing lyrics, this song is certainly one of my favourite dylan tracks, and i love it so much that i renamed my socials after the song.

the lyrics tell the story of a man named hollis brown who lives in a broken-down cabin & farm outside of a south dakota town. he has a wife and five children and is incredibly poor & jobless, with no one to help his family out. his family is going hungry & so they scream & cry, but still, hollis brown feels hopeless as he cannot do anything. and so, he uses the last of his money to buy shotgun shels and murders his children and wife and then himself. the song ends with the ominous lyric, "somewheres in the distance there's seven new people born".

first, i'd like to talk about the interesting lyric & rhyming pattern dylan utilises here. it's certainly unique, as it has the pattern of:

line 1 [A] line 2 [B] line 1 [A] line 2 [B] line 3 [C] line 4 [B]

it is quite repetitive, but also very impactful. another interesting aspect of the lyrics is the point of view. very few writings in general are written in second person point of view, and here, this pov is used to make the song all the more visceral. you are hollis brown; you walk the floor and wonder why with every breath you breathe; your wife screams are stabbin' you like the dirty driving rain; your eyes fix on the shotgun that you're holdin' in your hand. this certainly allows for the listener to, at the very least, make more sense of what brown's thought process it is, no matter how fucked up it is. dylan places the listener in the position of brown, and by doing this forces the listener to wonder what they would do in this situation, if they would have any other option.

this technique is certainly effective and although seemingly small is quite important in what makes this such a good song. another detail is the descriptive lyrics, setting, & similes dylan uses. there's a lot of scene-setting, such as the lines "way out in the wilderness a cold coyote calls" and "seven shots ring out like the ocean's pounding roar". it's extremely important to the listener as it helps visualise the setting of the song and understanding exactly how brown feels / what he is experiencing.

one of my favourite lyrics of the song has to be the line:

you walk the floor and wonder why with every breath you breathe.

there are SO many interpretations to this line. brown could be wondering why his life is so terrible, why he's stuck in this cycle of poverty. this could also take to mean that he's wondering why he's even alive (explained more in this genius lyric annotation), hinting at his suicidal tendencies early on in the song. or, it could be about his baby, as the line before this mentions his baby tugging at his sleeve. maybe he's curious as to what the baby wants from him, after he's tried everything he can. and again, this line (like most of the song) is written in second person, meaning you're placed in the shoes of brown, left to decide for yourself.

another one of my favourite verses is:

your brain is a-bleedin’ and your legs can’t seem to stand your eyes fix on the shotgun that you’re holdin’ in your hand

i love this lyric because it's so explicit. the bleeding - metaphorical at this point, but affecting brown physically; the shotgun in brown's hand, the final moments before he murders his family. dylan slowly hints at this moment the entire song making this climax incredibly effective. i just adore the uneasiness of it all.

finally, the last lines of the song (likely the most important, summing up the moral) is ambiguous and fascinating.

there’s seven people dead on a south dakota farm somewhere in the distance there’s seven new people born

that last line. "there's seven new people born". again, this can be taken to mean multiple things; is he referring to the fleeting nature of human existence, how easy it is to murder seven human beings and them being replaced immediately? is he referring to the cycle of poverty, that these seven new people will also be born into poverty and repeat brown's cycle? that it's easier to replace seven people than it is to keep them from dying?

many questions arise when listening to this song, and rightfully so. this song makes me think a lot, and i love it. it's an incredibly underrated track and i hope you all listen to it and love it as much as i do.

[swimmingleo]

2 days after seeing paul mccartney in europe's biggest arena i saw tété, the artist ive been listening to since i was a baby, in a small village hall. seeing those 2 artists who shaped my musical taste within the same week will have an ever lasting impact on me i think!!

[danyxpop]

🎸A Complete Unknown Review 🎸

Ever since I became obsessed with the "Wonka" movie, I've been SUCH a Timothée Chalamet fan. So I don't know how "biased" or "unbiased" this movie review is going to be. But please hear me out..

For me, (somebody who knows who Bob Dylan is but knows nothing about his life) this movie definitely entertained me. You can certainly see Timothée put the work in during his five year prep.

I think whether you think this movie is good or not, it's going to depend on what type of "Bob Dylan" movie you're expecting to see. I think if you are looking for a straight up Bob Dylan biopic, you might be underwhelmed.

Spoiler:

I think the love triangle depicted in this film between "Sylvie" "Bob" and "Joan" kind of overshadowed BOB's story. I was sitting in the movie theater for a good portion of the movie hoping "Sylvie" would "catch" "Bob" and "Joan". I also don't understand why people are preferring Bob and Joan's relationship. I LOVED Bob and Sylvie they totally give that sweet "first love" "teenage dream" feeling.

Even though I believe this film will appeal to some audiences more than others, But I don't think anyone will walk out. Oh I learned one thing from this movie:" Touching another man's guitar, is like touching his woman" 🤣🤣🤣 The best part of the movie, I swear! 🍭 (I'm sorry) 🤭

🕶️ Tip : If you have time, listen to the "A Complete Unknown" soundtrack before you watch the movie. I did and it definitely added to my movie watching experience. (Not sponsored)

[wrenb1rd]

Complete unknown criticism rant v

Obviously the trailer is out and the movie isn’t even in theatres yet although I’d like to make my point about the movie as someone who enjoys studying things and forming opinions.

First of all, I must state that none of the actors look like the people they are portraying. You could state that the actors won’t ever look like those they are acting as but I’m very sure they at least need to take some consideration for that and make sure they look somewhat similar but it took me a few minutes to realise that the woman playing Joan Baez is supposed to be Joan Baez.

Also the actor for Johnny cash looks nothing like Johnny cash, you can stick a hair do on a guy and call him a name but it won’t work out unless you put a reasonable amount of effort into it.

Now I’m not a film major or anything of the sort, I don’t even take any film related subjects so my opinion simply does not matter however there are certainly some things I believe that should have been approved.

I remember when pictures for the movie was first released and one of them was the woman who’s playing Joan walking out a building. The way it was portrayed was genuinely so odd to me, they made her look like a newcomer as if she wasn’t on the scene before Bob. I feel as though they’ve kept that in the trailer, putting her as a background character or a sort of ‘damsel in distress’ that’s head over heels for the main character. Not to say Joan didn’t have that kind of look to Bob but the way they portrayed it was almost like simplifying a very complex relationship.

Another thing I pointed out was the way they seem to villainise Pete Seeger in the folk fest scene. I mean that’s a very common thing with news papers but if you’re making a biopic that’s not even creatively written at least stay on track. From the things I’ve read Pete Seeger was not upset at Bob playing ‘rock’ music, he wanted people to hear the lyrics but found the instrumental to be too loud so he wanted to cut the cord as none of the instruments were plugged in / set up correctly, not that he disliked bob’s electric guitar.

The way they made it seem in the trailer was that he hated it and yelled ‘turn it down’ now I must admit that I am aware they did something similar in I’m not there although that is a creative movie based around Bob Dylan, not a straightforward classic biopic.

The line ‘who wrote this’ ‘he did’ was genuinely so corny to me, it reminds me of all those awful biopics that are so off topic from the actual life of the person they are portraying. It literally brought me back to that Elvis parody biopic.

Overall the trailer is ok, it’s got its ups and downs, I wasn’t really even expecting woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger but yk it looks cheaply made and an excuse to add some famous names onto a movie.

As much as I may dislike it I will still be watching it simply because I am a big fan of Bob Dylan and have been for a long while but it will be very obvious as to who’s there for timothee and who’s there for bob.

Thank you for reading if you’ve got this far 🫡

+ Bob Dylan picture for the troubles

[greensparty]

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown

Bob Dylan has always been a tough nut to crack, which is why there have rarely been movies about him. Sure, there's been some documentaries about him (most notably Martin Scorsese's excellent doc No Direction Home) and he's acted too (my favorite being Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), but the legendary singer-songwriter has always been so enigmatic that his story doesn't fall into the traditional music biopic, i.e. Ray or Bohemian Rhapsody. The closest we've come is Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, where instead of doing a traditional biopic, he had multiple actors playing Dylan at various times in his life. It was an original take on the subject, but the issue I had was that some of the story / performances were leaps and bounds better than others, i.e. the Cate Blanchett sequence was time capsule worthy...the Richard Gere sequence, not so much. But now stepping up to the plate to take a swing at Bob Dylan from 1961 to 1965 (a pretty significant time in his career) is director James Mangold. I've been a fan since his early work like Heavy and Cop Land. His career since then has been, well, mixed (I was one of the few to give a somewhat positive review of last year's sequel Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which had its moments and was actually better than Indy 4), but among his best is the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. Mangold has always been a great actor's director and in that one the leads actors rose above the tropes of music biopics. If anyone can make the challenge of a BD biopic work it's Mangold with A Complete Unknown opening this week.

movie poster

Timothee Chalamet plays young BD as he arrives in NYC from Minnesota. Upon going to visit his hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy, just recently seen in Nightbitch) in the hospital he plays a song for him and Guthrie's friend Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who takes him under his wing. He plays some folk music clubs in Greenwich Village and crosses paths with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), who BD had a complicated relationship with over the years. BD even has some brief interactions with Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook, but I think it would've been cool if Mangold connected both his music films and had Joaquin Phoenix play him here!). There's also the relationship he has with his girlfriend at the time Sylvie Russo (played by Elle Fanning, playing a version of Suze Rotolo, whose real name was not used in this film at BD's request). That's her with BD on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album. The film shows his rise from NYC folk singer with his guitar and harmonica to being a cultural phenomenon and it builds to his headlining of Seeger's Newport Folk Festival in 1965, the famous Dylan Goes Electric moment.

Chalamet as BD

the real BD circa 1965

Let me begin this by just saying that I am by no means a Dylanologist. I discovered him through my Dad, who was a fan of his 60s works and I became a fan of his late 80s supergroup The Traveling Wilburys. I own 11 of his albums including compilations, but I'm no means an expert. Although I did do a parody / homage of the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video for my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66) I say this because I was not watching this like a fanatic dissecting all of the factual elements of this and what creative liberties Mangold took. But getting back to my original statement, BD is a tough nut to crack. His enigmatic mysteriousness has always been a part of his allure, but it makes it hard to have some music biopic with an actor doing some over-dramatic impression of him. All of the relationships in his life know him from a distance. Sylvie tries to get to him and he pushes back. In a way, what Mangold his trying to show (at times this is presented better than others), but like a lot of artists, they say so much in their work that they have very little to say even to their most intimate partners outside of their art. For Chalamet it's all in the eyes. He's done some impressive work in films like Call Me By My Name, Beautiful Boy and the Dune movies, but here he's not letting it all out, he's holding it all in, except for the music performances. It would be easy to just do some highly exaggerated impression like Dana Carvey did on SNL in 1991 (which was pure Comedy Gold and is still LOL today I might add), but Chalamet is trying to keep the audience guessing what's behind those sunglasses. I also loved the way that the production design and cinematography was clearly referencing the famous photographs and album covers. Beyond the excellent musical performance sequences, the thing I loved the most about this was the overall message that as an artist you need to be true to yourself. BD can't consider what his fans, the label, his girlfriends, or even his mentor Peter Seeger want from him, he has to do what he wants and that's the end of the conversation. I respect that! As a film about a folk singer in 1960s NYC, I think the fictional Inside Llewyn Davis is probably a better film, but when this movie gets going I'm willing to look the other way on a lot of the music biopic tropes and celebrate the overall message itself!

For info on A Complete Unknown

4 out of 5 stars

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

"Dylan, Mitchell Create New Moods"

David Heller for The Vidette, Illinois State University, January 31, 1974.

[alexisgentry]

I normally do video reviews, but I decided to write about A Complete Unknown and how we often celebrate men who are kind of assholes as “complicated geniuses”

https://trashwire.com/2024/12/19/a-complete-unknown-timothee-chalamet-james-mangold-bob-dylan-movie-review/

[theomenmedia]

Early Viewers Of James Mangold's A Complete Unknown Heap Praises On The Film

Dive into the world of Bob Dylan with "A Complete Unknown": Timothée Chalamet shines, but does the film capture Dylan's essence? Read our in-depth review and analysis now!

Read the full article right here: https://www.theomenmedia.com/post/a-complete-unknown-timothée-chalamet-s-bob-dylan-dazzles-but-does-mangold-capture-the-legend

[randomluck-ofthe-universe]

Did not expect this considering the hype? Film updates just posted that ACU is rated 76% off 38 reviews which is good but not Oscar winning great so read more press reviews which are mostly very positive but some mixed too. Lots of Timmy was awesome but a lot were also Timmy was great but how Monica was a revelation and the standout or Elle and her were a sensation and heart of movie or Ed Norton stole the show. So is the hype cherrypicking positive Timmy parts only to increase only his chances?

cr. X @sparklejar

[amxndareviews]

'A Complete Unknown' Review

'A Complete Unknown' Review: "Dylan was bouncing with energy because lyrics would flow through him effortlessly, & watching Chalamet fall into it naturally was a joy. Mangold hits all the right chords for a musical biopic about the enigmatic Bob Dylan."

By: Amanda Guarragi The sixties were a decade of radical change. At the time, communities came together to stand and show their power. Many turned to music to express themselves and reassure the American people that even though the world around them is changing, they can be on the right side of history and change with it positively.  When Bob Dylan stepped onto the scene in 1962, he was…

[oldshowbiz]

1974.

The "almost exclusively white patrons" reacted to Bob Dylan and The Band with "surprisingly muted cheering."

[mystical-one]

awesome combo

[the-book-raven]

I’ve been following Bob Dylan since I was a kid, mesmerized by his raw voice, poetic lyrics, and the way he seemed to capture the zeitgeist of every generation. So, when Chronicles, Volume One hit the shelves, I devoured it like a starving man. And let me tell you, it was a feast.

Dylan's prose is as distinctive as his music. His stories are raw, unfiltered glimpses into the life of a legend. He paints vivid pictures of the Greenwich Village folk scene, the electric guitar revolution, and the endless road that has been his life. His voice, both in the book and in my head as I read, is that same weary, world-wise baritone that has carried us through countless songs.

What struck me most was Dylan’s honesty. There's no sugarcoating, no self-mythologizing. He’s as critical of his own work as any fan could be. This raw vulnerability is refreshing, and it makes you appreciate his genius even more. He’s not just a songwriter; he’s a poet, a philosopher, and a restless soul searching for meaning.

Chronicles is more than just a memoir; it’s a companion piece to his music. It provides context, depth, and a personal connection to songs that have been the soundtrack to my life. It’s like sitting down with the man himself and hearing him tell the stories behind the songs.

If you’re a Dylan fan, this book is essential reading. And if you’re not, it might just change your life.

[coffeejoshy]

M. Ward - A Man in the Moon, or, An Attempt at Translation

Music, theatre, canvas, the ballet or the screen; these are luxuries for so many of us. ‘Privilege’ might even be more apt given the notion that art is largely seen as ‘a thing to be enjoyed but which is not essential; a frivolity’. Ethan Hawke (of all people) recently gave my favourite articulation of why the arts are so necessary: because until you experience a feeling so incredibly deep that gives you cause to wonder, to think “has anybody else ever really felt like this?”, you have no way of knowing just how essential art can be.

“That’s when art is not a luxury, it’s actually sustenance”, he puts it.

Recently I got to see M. Ward perform his 20th anniversary tribute to his indie-folk magnum opus ‘Transfiguration of Vincent’. It’s a dark album peppered with fleeting spots of bright, written in the throes of grieving after the titular Vincent O’Brien, a friend of Ward’s, passed away. We don’t learn much of anything specific about Vincent over the course of the album, and nor should we. What we do experience over the album’s course, however, is the breadth of emotions Ward experiences in relation to his friend, and the downward spiral that accompanies those feelings as he watches Vincent’s gradual slip from the mortal coil.

Describing the album is difficult for me, because I find it difficult to ‘rate’ (a silly thing music lovers occasionally do), or ‘praise’ a work of art so subsumed in the grief of its artist and the tragedy of its subject. Talking about art in this way feels insulting at times, and never more so than for works as intimate as this. These are songs to be felt, not described.

And yet here is the paradox; I feel so strongly about this album and its artist that not evangelising it feels as impossible a task as explaining the effect it has on me.

Anyway, here we are.

On stage, Ward has a curious presence. He’s more idiosyncratic than charismatic, and instead carries himself with quiet confidence, and his guitar with a crooked left elbow. He isn’t particularly talkative, but the little he did say gave the impression of an incredibly humble man, and his husky voice and greying hair gives him this air of folksy charm that’s really quite, well, charming.

In interviews this seems to be much the case as well; in one radio interview from 2009 when asked how he would describe his then new album ‘Hold Time’ he answered (hilariously) “well, it’s my new album and some people will like it, some people won’t”. Other interviews also see him coming across as reserved and painfully shy about his creative process, not because he’s afraid of giving away trade secrets, but because he’s almost dismissive of the validity of his methods and his art. He’s wilfully determined to refrain from explanations of his art’s ‘meanings’ beyond vague outlines, as was the case for 2020’s ‘Migration Stories’, in his words a “sci-fi fast-forward to a more silent night many generations from here to a maybe-era where movement is free again”.

While much of this likely amounts to wild postulation about a man’s internal feelings, if there’s one accusation that’s easy to level at Ward, it’s that he’s an old soul. He’s cited Neil Young, Daniel Johnston, Billie Holiday, Howlin’ Wolf, and John Mahey as influences (“Transfiguration” is a reference to a Mahey album with a similar title), he records everything analogue, and even completes his demos on a Tascam four-track that he’s owned since his teenage years. Sonically his music evokes shades of Nick Drake, early Dylan, Jackson C. Frank and even Bowie at times. In today’s context, even the model of a solo singer-songwriter writing intimate analogue guitar music feels like an archetype on the brink of extinction.

Above all, Ward seems captured by the task of creating music as timeless as that of his predecessors.

The point that I suppose I’ve been dancing around in all this exposition is that M. Ward’s music has affected me very deeply.

I’ve spent so much of recent years trying to consume as much music as I can, chasing new sounds and bizarre voices to fulfil some craving of curiosity that is never truly satiated for more than a short time. In all that noise, it’s a fortunate wonder I didn’t overlook Transfiguration of Vincent and other M. Ward projects for their unassuming modes. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain to someone the inward-puncturing existential grief that a song like “Dead Man”makes me feel, or the utter stillness that “Real Silence” gives me.

Crucially, though, I don’t think I need to try anymore. Writing this helps, for one, but it’s music like this that gives me the kind of unfathomable joys and sorrows that our friend Ethan Hawke was referring to. It’s music like M. Ward’s that reminds me why I need music, and though it may seem fairly obvious an observation (I suppose all the best ones are), it’s the reminder that some things cannot be described; they must be felt, transfigured by poets and writers into an essence distilled for the rest of us.

[tobobby]

music review #2 - blowin' in the wind

rating: 10/10 song: blowin' in the wind album: the freewheelin' bob dylan (1963) artist: bob dylan

Originally published in the late May 1962 publication of Broadside Magazine, it is considered one of Dylan’s best compositions in his over 60-year career. Its iconic introductory line, “How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?”, has been sung by countless artists such as Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, and Mary Travers. This line can be interpreted in many different ways and contexts, but one way it can be interpreted is simply, how many experiences and how much life should a man have lived before he is considered an “adult”? Before he has the privileges that men have in our society? This can also be linked back to the Civil Rights Movement and how people of color, specifically Black people were not considered human and still are dehumanized to this day. The fact the tune is based off of an old slave protest song called “No More Auction Block for Me” emphasizes this idea even more. The next line I’d like to focus on is “Yes, and how many years can some people exist / Before they’re allowed to be free?”. Again, Dylan tackles slavery, and calls for the freedom of all oppressed individuals and groups. Dylan is clearly tired of white Americans and Europeans “deciding” when certain peoples are “allowed” to be free, and instead wishes that people who have existed for so long should finally just exist without prejudice. The next line of the song is also significant here; Dylan sings, “Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head / And pretend that he just doesn’t see?” -- and just a few lines later -- “Yes, and how many ears must one man have / Before he can hear people cry? [See Joan Baez’s “To Bobby”] / Yes, and how many deaths will it take ‘till he knows / That too many people have died?”. Here, he is actively calling out those who choose to ignore the oppressions that plague society. Within the context, it was likely written about the Vietnam war as Dylan was outwardly and adamantly anti-war in the early '60s, but can be interpreted to just about any atrocity in history. And finally, the refrain of the song; “The answer is blowin’ in the wind”. Dylan has said in reference to this song that people who choose to ignore the wars are the biggest criminals, and I believe here, he is saying that the answer is obvious, yet so many people actively ignore it. Obviously, from the very second one hears human suffering, their response should be to help, but so many stay neutral and act like they don’t have basic human decency or common sense. Neutrality is one of the biggest crimes in the eyes of 21-year-old Bob Dylan.

[girlreviews]

Review #287: Mr. Tambourine Man, The Byrds

I was four years old when I heard The Byrd’s version of Mr. Tambourine Man on the radio and asked my Mom what it was. She knew the name but not the artist. I constantly asked to listen to Mr. Tambourine Man after that. It just cast a spell over me. It was so gorgeous! I hadn’t ever heard anything like this! Okay so I hadn’t heard a lot of stuff when I was four but I still knew when something was magical when I heard it.

But you know, it was like 1992, and you couldn’t just easily listen to whatever song you wanted whenever you wanted (my God how did I function?). So eventually, after little success of actually getting to listen to it, I gave up asking and became obsessed with some other song and largely forgot about it.

And that’s pretty much how it stayed until I was 18 or 19 and got really really into Bob Dylan. Really into Bob Dylan. Obnoxiously into Bob Dylan. My teenage brain had no room for both The Byrds and Bob Dylan to be incredible and legendary — which of course they are — so my natural inclination was to disown my earlier love of The Byrds version and forever commit myself to Bob Dylan’s original, and Bob Dylan’s original ONLY. Why? Because!!!!!!!!!

So two weeks before I leave for college, I’m having a tonsillectomy. Which isn’t ideal. But that’s what we’re doing. I’m on a ward with three old ladies. This is what I remember from this hospital stay:

One: When I was awoken from my surgery, barely conscious from anesthesia, the nurses told me I had to briefly wake up to move from the surgery bed to my ward bed. I had my eyes closed but I was responsive. They kept saying “come on girlreviews, all you have to do is stay awake long enough to move beds”. I said to them “after I move beds, can I go back to sleep?” And they said “yes, of course you can”, to which I replied “this is the happiest moment of my life”. And it was. I could sleep peacefully without any fear or disruption with nobody I knew around. I never had felt so relaxed. I think about this all the time.

Two: They woke me up every two hours to make me drink tea and eat toast, which I also had no complaints about. During one of these intervals, a man was at my bedside that had a very calm and comforting demeanor. He ran the hospital radio station and asked me if I had a song I’d like to hear. I emphatically said “Mr. Tambourine Man, but the BOB DYLAN version!”, and then I was glued to that radio station until the moment I was discharged. Can you imagine how salty I was when he played The Byrds version? It makes me laugh now, because I definitely prefer it again. My four year old self was so much wiser than my sulky teenage mind.

I actually listened to this record a few months ago and was surprised to recognize another song I knew. I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better, made known to be by Tom Petty. The thing about The Byrds is how they didn’t enjoy the same success, or, magnitude of success as some of their peers even though they’re really responsible for creating entire genres. And their influence is just, immeasurable. I hear in this record a never ending list of records that wouldn’t exist without it. Too many to name. The vocal harmonies, twiddly guitar, and gentle percussion are what captivated me when I was four years old and it’s pretty clear that I was not the only one. It feels like a life reaffirming cup of tea when you’re hungover. That second sleep. That shower where you emerge feeling like a new person and everything’s about 37% funnier. What’s better than that? Other than not being hungover to begin with. Sometimes you gotta ride the Dao, though, you know?