Bob Dylan takes us on a wide-ranging tour of songs he admires

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/31/bob-dylan-philosophy-modern-song/

by tintinnabula • 4 years ago

16 9 4 years ago

siegelzero• 4 years ago

jl6• 4 years ago

I know what they say about writing about music, but I enjoy reading peoples’ opinion on what music they enjoy. Such writing is still a useful tool for discovery. I haven’t had a lot of success with algorithmic suggestions. I want human curation back! Not the kind of human curation that magazines put out, where they seem compelled to appeal to all audiences (and thus do little better than the radio), but actual real individual human opinions.

jancsika• 4 years ago

Here's one I was thinking about recently:

Maroon 5's "Sex and Candy"

Listen to the chorus. It has a very simple rhyme scheme that a poet might find trite. But since it's a song in 4/4 we can measure the rhythms of the recitation more precisely than we can with poetry.

There is a simple two-measure rhyme scheme: "candy here" rhymes with "in my chair," and both happen toward the end of their respective measures.

Then things heat up: "devious stares" also rhymes, but it happens early in the measure. It audibly breaks the rhythm of the rhyme scheme set up with "here" and "chair." Additionally, the "here-chair-stares" rhyme is interleaved with a new rhyme: there's one between "castin'" and "direction" that has a different (shorter) rhythmic pattern than the first.

Here's where it gets interesting: "devious stares" is sung in a rhythm that clearly implies a rhythm "in three." That's partly due to the stress pattern and number of syllables in the word "devious"-- speak it out loud in a loop and notice that you're speaking in 3/4 (or perhaps 6/8, 9/8, or even 12/8 depending on how fast you speak and what music is in the recent search history of the music cognition web browser in your brain).

As if to drive the point home, the word "stares" is placed on a syncopation in 4/4 which just happens to continue the pattern of three mentioned above. It's a wonderful little poly-rhythm that flows naturally with the lyrics and creates musical interest at the same time.

Now here's the question that interests me: is there evidence that poets in history were embedding little poly-rhythms and hemiolas in their poems? These kinds of rhythms are all over the place in Bach and Handel, not to mention all the crazy rhythmic and tempo games played by Renaissance composers. (There are probably also similar poly-rhythms in other Maroon 5 songs.) It seems like it would just have been a matter of a) listening to music of their time, and b) choosing text with an appropriate syllable count and stress pattern to conflict with the natural pattern implied by the given poetic form.

Is there evidence that poets did this? I've never read about it, but maybe I'm looking for the wrong terminology...

Edit: clarification, typos

soupfordummies• 4 years ago

Marcy Playground, not Maroon 5 ;)

m463• 4 years ago

I remember back before the internet when "music discovery" rarely involved listening to music (except the radio). I would be so interested in music, but READING about music was a horrible hit-or-mostly-miss experience. I could read something like rolling stone and then be disappointed when the music didn't capture the emotion the description portrayed.

Even word of mouth was hit-or-miss unless someone had a tape in the car.

anyway... now we have infinite discoverability, and with youtube, you can get really interesting journeys like this deconstruction: https://youtu.be/QWveXdj6oZU

entropicgravity• 4 years ago

Tangled up in Blue.

8bitsrule• 4 years ago

These essays are not all terrifying verdicts on the fate of a corrupted humanity.

Those of us who've physically visited Hibbing are unconcerned about such verdicts, "Elston Gunn".

dieselerator• 4 years ago

While I prefer to make a positive comment, I think I should share this opinion for the possible benefit of other readers.

In my opinion that review is a complete waste of time.

My statement is not intended in any way as a judgement of Bob Dylan or his work.

Bob Dylan takes us on a wide-ranging tour of songs he admires

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