Golby, eh, Dylan, seems correct

Golby, eh, Dylan, seems correct

I am a big fan of Mike Golby's blog [1]. I like what Mike writes about, and how he uses quotes from songs to illustrate points, summarize, or just frame out a discussion.

Like that Carole King lyric [2]: "music is playing inside of my head, over and over and over again." More about that one later.

For many, many years my life was filled with music. I was in bands for years, and then worked in Radio. I was a Music Director, Program Director, Programming Consultant, Music Research specialist, etc. In later years I also did some research and computer work for record companies.

For me it has always seemed there were lyrics to match the moment. If not from song song or another, then I'd just concoct them. I remember a guy at one station, a copywriter for the ad department, who was a wannabe songwriter. "My life is nothing more than a series of events that are captured in songtitles," he lamented to me one day. I responded, "Yeah. You're So Vain." I think the Carly Simon reference [3] offended him.

To this day I still think of lyrics, hear tunes in my head, and make associations with song titles or the words. And then there are those days when a song just pops into that random cranial jukebox (in which every song I've ever heared is in storage) and plays in heavy rotation until it goes away on its own. No control, no decision, no taking it off the playlist. It being a cranial thing, it has a mind of its own.

Music Soothes The Soul

As I drove down to NC last month to pick up my son for this year's Summer Visit I picked out music for the drive. I knew I'd listen to some Yankee games on the car radio, as their play-by-play flagship WCBS-880 in NYC has a 50,000 watt signal. But I also wanted music.

This time around it was Coltrane's Blue Trane [4] and Larry Carlton's [5] Last Night that got played, over and over. I was in a contemplative jazz sort of mood, and wanted to hear virtuoso performances. And one can never hear too much of Coltrane's Blue Train [6]. Note to Sax players: there's a transcription of Coltrane's Blue Train solo on the web [7]. Study it, learn from it.

Larry Carlton's 1986 live LP, Last Night [8], is virtuoso playing from the period during which he was showing up on Steely Dan LPs, TV ("Hill Street Blues" theme) and on movie soundtracks.

Each year, each trip, the drive to North Carolina from New York seems to get a little longer. The unmarked mounties in Maryland and Virginia are out in full force, and it just makes no sense to taunt them. Last time around, in December of 2003, I got a ticket in VA that cost a small fortune.

So I decided to go with music that would soothe the soul, keep a careful eye on the speedometer, and make the most of the situation.

Also a great benefit is having friends in NC, who live just two (or so) hours away from Charlotte where my kids live with the ex. My friends, over in The Triad area, are also music lovers and Yankee fans. So after the long drive -- including a two hour traffic jam in West Virginia, usually a state one sails through on I-81 in about 20 minutes -- stopping over there, listening to more music, watching the Yanks, and resting up is a delight.

On the ride back Elias and I listened to all sorts of music. Among the CDs was a special compilation my daughter put together. More on that another time. for sure. On that CD: Coltrane's My Favorite Things [9].

Funny how some of the McCoy Tyner piano riffs on My Favorite Things seem to sneak into Carole King's tune Music, from her Music LP, the one that followed Tapestry. Those riffs keep running around in my head. And then they blend into the Carole King song, and back to the Tyner piano from the Coltrane tune.

This is like having a Psychedelic cranial-audio experience without any synthesized chemical stimuli.

And yet it soothes the soul, despite the peripatetic, Psychedelic, haphazard dreamlike transitory aspects. Go figure.

Back To Golby, and Dylan

One of the songs on the compilation my daughter made is Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man [10]. Nearly 40 years later, this song resonates in my head, still packing the impact and emotional power inherent in the lyrics. And no, it isn't about a Marijuana dealer. Save that lame sort of analysis for where it belongs, like blatant John Kaye songs.

Is it that Golby awakened me once more to Dylan lyrics? Recently I wrote a note to Golby (and to Frank Paynter [11], too) about Dylan lyrics jumping into my head as I drove home from Chinatown one night, along the FDR Drive and to the GW Bridge. In that e-mail I attached a link to a NY Times Book Review article about Dylan's writing.

Golby frames some blog entries with Dylan songs, as though adding an exclamation point via use of lyrics. It always seems correct, his use of the lyrics. Dylan's prose also seems so very apropos; the poetry so apt; to, of, and about our lives.

Maybe it is an age thing.

Dylan songs are swirling around my head these days. Listening to Mr. Tambourine Man, one section of the lyrics is of particular notice:

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come following you.

Then take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

This is from the pre-electric Dylan, the Dylan living in The Village, the Dylan who stayed in New York. Dylan who was the poet laureate of the time.

Far from the reach of crazy sorrow. These are words to live by.

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, Let me forget about today until tomorrow. This is about maintaining one's sanity, one's perspective.

In some ways this seems like a microcosm of what my life's been about for the past few weeks. The sudden loss of the blog for a short time, a short -very short- time to spend with my son (and no time with my daughter until the Fall), some other business and family events, plus a small vacation with Susan after my son's visit.

Perspective, sanity. Lyrics as though bookends, framing my recent few weeks.

BACK TO THE PRESENT

As I watched the official naming of Edwards as Kerry's running mate, yet again Dylan music and lyrics was running thorugh my mind. Actually, Hendrix's version of Dylan.

I was thinking about Edwards facing Cheneyburton in a debate, and how that could well be the tipping point. Edwards is more than just a pretty face, telegenic and a great stump speechifier.

He's a brilliant man, a mind sharp as a tack, able to store information and create powerful and persuasive arguments, using the truth and the law as his weaponry. This may explain how he became so successful a trial lawyer. Preparation, knowledge of the facts, and the ability to present his arguments in a persuasive and factual manner.

Smug, thieving, profiteering Cheneyburton will have trouble going against Edwards in a point-by-point, standard Debate rules [12] sort of face-off. Think Lincoln-Douglas [13]. Think Carter-Reagan ("There you go again!"). Bentsen-Quayle ("You're no John Kennedy."). And think about living in a time when being telegenic is a major plus.

Edwards is loved by the camera. Cheney will be sweating through his shirt. The nation will be on alert for another heart episode.

From Dylan's All Along The Watchtower (as in the Hendrix version):

"There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thief."
After seeing Fahrenheit 9/11, the 23rd letter [14] comes off as The Joker; Cheney as The Thief.

Think about the lyrics [15] to this Dylan song. It could be about the present-day Presidential campaign.

The Joker (the 23rd letter), he who broke the Kyoto accord, he who has done more to go backwards environmentally than any of his predecessors, can surely be described as one of the plowmen who digs [my] earth, and as one of the
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.

Cheney the Theif, a profiteer who drinks the wine, might perceive the hour as getting late. After all . . .

Outside in the distance a wild cat did growl
Two riders where approachin', the wind began to howl.

Two riders . . . from the opposition, spotted from the watchtower.

---

Maybe all this is a reach. Maybe it is just this past month of music playing in my head, lyrics seeming to reach out to me. Carole King, Coltrane, Dylan and others, somehow manage to coalesce with the mood of the moment, the events of the day.

Perhaps all that music, so familiar, so appropriate, playing during Fahernheit 9/11, sparked some of this, or gave it that much more significance.

But somehow these days things seem to have the same air of seriousness and consequence as did matters when Johnson or Nixon were in power. Bodies coming home for burial, others coming home alive but damaged for life.

A war of choice, liars and thieves in the White House. Telegenic figures capable of terrific speech and argument, representing change. Edwards may be a cross between Clinton and RFK with his youth, his passionate ardor and concern for the middle class and the underclass, and his looks.

Dylan songs (and others) were the mood of the moment when the Viet Nam was was raging. Now we have the war in which the bottom line is the enrichment of the Powercrats: Carlisle/Cheneyburton/Bush-the-Elder's financial cohorts in Saudi Arabia. And for this lives of American and Coalition soldiers are being sacrificed?

Hmmm ... what's that one hears, blowing in the wind?