Until you listen to his version of In the Mood!
That song--released in 1959--demonstrated a "new" form of music--one with a driving power surge that turned its wheels in an ongoing rhythm, progressing down the road of riffs at an ever-faster rate, yet with each new level reached seeming smooth as butter, and powerful as a 16 wheeler going downhill!
Compare it to Stevie Wonder's Maybe Baby, Hot Tuna's John's Other, or the rhythmic overlap of voices in counterpoint, as with the Beachboys & Beatles!
Compare it to Stevie Wonder's Maybe Baby, Hot Tuna's John's Other, or the rhythmic overlap of voices in counterpoint, as with the Beachboys & Beatles!
It was so different from the early Rock stuff where the music virtually stopped throughout the song, as changes of key or tempo happened, knocking the dancing mood into a holding pattern while the instrumentalists got going again!
When Hendrix or Beck (Jeff Beck, NOT Beck!) came along, I immediately sensed a connection with Fields's "Mood"!
Why would I--if it wasn't THERE?
Why would I--if it wasn't THERE?
Other songs from the 50's & early 60's had that element!
Tossin' & Turnin' by Bobby Lewis, Last Night by Floyd Cramer, New Orleans by US Bonds, later with Ike & Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High!
Tossin' & Turnin' by Bobby Lewis, Last Night by Floyd Cramer, New Orleans by US Bonds, later with Ike & Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High!
But I had to wait for Wonder's brilliant Maybe Baby for it all to come together!
It was THAT driving music that cast my love for the music in cement!
But music is more than the instruments played, or its tempo, or how it's layered & structured!
But music is more than the instruments played, or its tempo, or how it's layered & structured!
Music is Poetry too!
(Oh, thank you, Cliche!)
But it IS!!
And Poetry has Words!
And Poetry has Words!
(Brilliant, Child!)
I love you, yes I do!
Sun is burning, I am yearning.
I love you, yes I do!
Sun is burning, I am yearning.
Honey child, you're so wild!
Then Chuck Berry--May he Rest in Peace!--sang Nadine & Roll Over Beethoven & Johnny B Goode & Too Much Monkey Business--and we suddenly discovered that Rock had WORDS!
At puberty, one isn't exactly knowing of love & sexual desires & all that human relationships entail!
At puberty, one isn't exactly knowing of love & sexual desires & all that human relationships entail!
As Hendrix asked--Have you ever been experienced?--Well, at age 12 or 13, I haven't!!
(Nor have you, if you're honest!)
So words like I'll love you till the sun goes down passes over our adolescent heads--even bores us!
So words like I'll love you till the sun goes down passes over our adolescent heads--even bores us!
(Did you ever enjoy--or understand--a movie's or book's love story when in elementary school?)
Maybe that's one reason so many rock instrumentals found success early on--by bands like the Ventures, Dick Dale & the Del-tones, Johnny & the Hurricanes, Duane Eddy, B Bumble & the Stingers, or Ernie Fields!
I loved all of those, but when words were added, the story was complete!
Maybe that's one reason so many rock instrumentals found success early on--by bands like the Ventures, Dick Dale & the Del-tones, Johnny & the Hurricanes, Duane Eddy, B Bumble & the Stingers, or Ernie Fields!
I loved all of those, but when words were added, the story was complete!
I could FEEL a song's music, but I could UNDERSTAND it by its words!
And that's why the Beachboys, Beatles and Bob Dylan gave re-birth to this "dead" music!
And that's why the Beachboys, Beatles and Bob Dylan gave re-birth to this "dead" music!
Doesn't really matter who the killer was, but we knew that energy of Berry & Presley & Fats Domino & the Everly's just wasn't breathing too good!
Just as pockets alone don't make a shirt, nor do pockets of musical greatness provide a life-sustaining reason for going forward!
Music needed to be Born Again!
Music needed to be Born Again!
The British Mods understood that--or at least FELT it!
John, Paul, George & Ringo weren't the sexiest of Men--although McCartney was always referred to as the "cute one"!
But the impact of their combining adult words with smashing musicality stirred the secret soul of music lovers everywhere!
The Sexual Revolution was born--or at least Born Again!--with I Want to Hold Your Hand, Twist & Shout, and She Loves You.
They wouldn't let you sit down!
They shook the very foundation of your most intimate needs.
They wouldn't let you sit down!
They shook the very foundation of your most intimate needs.
Without a naked body to fuck, you had the tensed bodies wanting to ejaculate its caged passions, holding it all in because SOCIETY demanded you do so!
Until that music ROCKED your very soul, and like the Atomic Bomb, or like the tectonic plates below the Earth's surface rubbing together causing earthquakes, it all EXPLODED into a Shake, Rattle & Roll that was never-ending, and would more than merely survive, but would BE the underlying chemistry of our very existence!
Until that music ROCKED your very soul, and like the Atomic Bomb, or like the tectonic plates below the Earth's surface rubbing together causing earthquakes, it all EXPLODED into a Shake, Rattle & Roll that was never-ending, and would more than merely survive, but would BE the underlying chemistry of our very existence!
THAT was BeatleMANIA!
I attended the 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert!
Cost--$7.50 for a middle-Bowl seat!
I parked my Mustang convertible--red & black--in the lot 2 hours before the show!
Already, a few hundred kids were there!
Mostly braces-adorned girls!
I remember the KRLA News helicopter flying over, and the girls would SCREAM--There they are!!
But no, it wasn't "them"!
The Beatles arrived in a bullet-proof limousine 2 minutes before going on stage!
They left the same way, seconds after ending their 25 minute concert!
They left the same way, seconds after ending their 25 minute concert!
The "music" was more the noise of the screams than the guitars & drums played--mostly off-key!, because they couldn't hear themselves!!
The Beatles became a CULTURE more than a musical band!
They became 100's of "intellectual" arguments comparing them to Beethoven & Bach!
They became 100's of "intellectual" arguments comparing them to Beethoven & Bach!
(The only comparison I heard was their version of Berry's Roll Over Beethoven!)
Then someone wrote an essay saying that the Beatles were so popular because they used a repetition of a few simple words---you, I, love, need, want--giving breath to the idea that life & love & relationships were simple & pure--Zen-like!
Then someone wrote an essay saying that the Beatles were so popular because they used a repetition of a few simple words---you, I, love, need, want--giving breath to the idea that life & love & relationships were simple & pure--Zen-like!
If only!
And that's why we NEEDED Bob Dylan!!
And that's why we NEEDED Bob Dylan!!
When a child, you put jigsaw puzzles of 20 pieces together, learning how each piece interacts & intersects with the others!
As an adult, you play with puzzles of 500 or 1000 pieces!
As an adult, you play with puzzles of 500 or 1000 pieces!
Even the "pictures" become fuzzier, more intricate, more complicated, forcing your mind to "bend" with each puzzle's pattern!
She Loves You were those 20 piece puzzles!
Chimes of Freedom, A Hard Rain's-a-Gonna Fall, It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding, and later Like a Rolling Stone & Idiot Wind were the 1000 piece babies!
The challenge--for the lyrics writer--then became a CHALLENGE--in all its monster shapes & forms!
Whether rhymed or not, each line needed to tell a story, or to paint a picture!
I've often said Visions of Johanna is my favorite Dylan lyric!
For those immersed in ART--words paint a picture--as in the Chinese proverb that One picture is worth 10000 words!
She Loves You were those 20 piece puzzles!
Chimes of Freedom, A Hard Rain's-a-Gonna Fall, It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding, and later Like a Rolling Stone & Idiot Wind were the 1000 piece babies!
The challenge--for the lyrics writer--then became a CHALLENGE--in all its monster shapes & forms!
Whether rhymed or not, each line needed to tell a story, or to paint a picture!
I've often said Visions of Johanna is my favorite Dylan lyric!
For those immersed in ART--words paint a picture--as in the Chinese proverb that One picture is worth 10000 words!
Great books we've read--or even movies we've seen--describe moods and thoughts and scenery so you can SEE them!
Feelings & emotions are brought to life by the structure of the poem, the interlacing of descriptions broken off into sections (or verses!), not so much by the stories or the plot!
When the WORDS become that perfect recipe, you can TASTE the "lemon running down your leg", or the "country music station play(ing) soft", or those "visions of Johanna" that "make it all seem so cruel"!
(Aaah, Don't Be Cruel, Elvis sang!)
Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist.
(Aaah, Don't Be Cruel, Elvis sang!)
Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist.
But when I heard--then read!--the lyrics of Johanna, I thought of Edward Hopper, whose paintings of lonely folks sitting in lonely post-midnight cafes struck a heartfelt chord in my soul!
I could SEE that loft Dylan spoke of!
I could FEEL his lust for Johanna, even though "Louise held a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it!".
And when he sang those words--the ghost of 'lectricity HOWLS in the bones of her face", you could SEE the vampire-ic shadows of life's lines & indents in that face!
Howls.
Yes, Allen Ginsberg had written the epic poem "Howl" in 1955, about the same time Elvis & Bill Haley & Old Chuck was creating a music that would "howl in the bones of OUR faces" a few years later!
I saw the best minds of my generation--destroyed by madness--starving, hysterical, naked....!
I could SEE that loft Dylan spoke of!
I could FEEL his lust for Johanna, even though "Louise held a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it!".
And when he sang those words--the ghost of 'lectricity HOWLS in the bones of her face", you could SEE the vampire-ic shadows of life's lines & indents in that face!
Howls.
Yes, Allen Ginsberg had written the epic poem "Howl" in 1955, about the same time Elvis & Bill Haley & Old Chuck was creating a music that would "howl in the bones of OUR faces" a few years later!
I saw the best minds of my generation--destroyed by madness--starving, hysterical, naked....!
Dylan's new lyrics were the "Howl" of HIS generation!
And changed the idea of POETRY forever!
(Just ask those who wrote of Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature last year!)
To talk of my involvement with Dylan--NOT personally, NOT in our living rooms or in some loft!--but in the SEX of our connection, our joining of minds like Siamese twins, the siblings-like nature of the Beast--will take much more line space than this chapter provides!
Chapter 3 follows shortly!
And changed the idea of POETRY forever!
(Just ask those who wrote of Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature last year!)
To talk of my involvement with Dylan--NOT personally, NOT in our living rooms or in some loft!--but in the SEX of our connection, our joining of minds like Siamese twins, the siblings-like nature of the Beast--will take much more line space than this chapter provides!
Chapter 3 follows shortly!
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