With Dylan, you'll never know.
If you've had the opportunity to skim through the list of 66 songs discussed in this book (you can check the list at the end of this text), it's plausible that you're wondering why the author chose these and not others. But Bob Dylan never tells us the motivations behind his choice, at least not in a way that's perceptible at close range.
Or, alternatively, perhaps we can ask ourselves if, without a shadow of a doubt, we're dealing with 66 of the best popular songs of modern times. It would be bold to say so, even using some of the possible methods for assessing a song's quality, one of which, crudely, consists of looking at the breadth and duration of its public success. While some of the selected songs achieved lasting global success (such as "Blue Moon," "Black Magic Woman," "Mack the Knife," "Strangers in the Night," "Volare," "Blue Suede Shoes," or "My Prayer"), others were simply forgotten hits or exclusively confined to the United States.
Likewise absent from the selection are universally recognized gems, including those written by Bob Dylan himself. One of these ("Like a Rolling Stone," 1965) was considered, over the decades and in successive specialized polls, the best pop song of all time, and the last time this happened was in the 21st century (2004). Let's assume that Dylan was modest or wanted to avoid judging his own interests. As for any merit that can be associated with the value of the songwriters, the list doesn't include any songs by composers/performers who have left an indelible mark on popular music—and the related global culture—and, more naturally, those corresponding to Dylan's generation: there's not a single Beatles song, not a single composition by Leonard Cohen or Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel), not a single song by the Velvet Underground, The Doors, or Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), or Chuck Berry. All of these are people Dylan was close to and admired, even referring to Berry as the "Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll."
On several pages, in a marginal observation about a song he's commenting on, Bob Dylan lets slip that one way to assess a song's quality is by the number of versions others have made of it. But even following this suggestion doesn't lead to any conclusion, as several of the songs by the absentees we just mentioned have spawned thousands of versions: Lennon and McCartney's "Yesterday" spawned around three thousand, and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" over three hundred. This, once again, leaves Dylan out of the running, as his songs have spawned over five thousand versions to date.
So where do we stand? Dylan, as is his habit, does what he wants and doesn't explain himself; he even has a long-standing fondness for frustrating those who try to guess his tendencies or interpret his motivations. Let us try, in an attempt to find out why these songs and no other ones are included here, continuing to guide ourselves by the weight of a few numbers. Of the 66 songs chosen for review, most were originally released as singles, a quick way to promote songs that were thought to be destined to climb the top of the charts in the days when radio was the main broadcast medium and commercial sponsorship of programs required interruptions every few minutes to allow advertising. Unlike the LP (Long Playing), the single, using a physical medium that could hold only a couple of songs (one per side of the narrow vinyl record) and with each side lasting approximately three minutes, was the ideal medium. Of the songs chosen by Dylan, 37 (56%) were released as singles and 27 (41%) were songs included on LPs, which means he prioritized songs that achieved success through singles, a format for immediate consumption and prepared for radio broadcasts. Looking at the date these songs were released allows us, to some extent, to establish a connection between the songs chosen and the way they were released: more than half (60%) were released in the 1950s and 1960s, when Dylan (born in 1941) was between ten and twenty years old. In other words, we are dealing with songs from the early days of his musical development, when radio was practically the only means of listening to music, especially in a place as remote as Minnesota. In addition to this majority, about a quarter of the remaining songs (26%) date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Only four songs were released in the 1990s to 2010, and one of them ("Nelly Was a Lady") is a recent version of a composition written in 1849. There are also four songs recorded between the 1920s and 1940s.
Supporting the importance and influence that radio had on Bob Dylan, remember that for three years (2006 to 2009), he hosted a highly successful radio program called Theme Time Radio Hour. As the name suggests, it was a thematic program, and throughout its more than one hundred broadcasts, topics such as women's names, drinking, dogs, marriage and divorce, the weather, smoking, etc. were covered. In his unmistakable and charming husky voice, demonstrating great talent as a broadcaster, Dylan would comment on the songs he played, reflecting on the performers, the environment in which the song was composed, or commercially produced; revealing short related stories; or interweaving reflections on the topic of the day, which could include reading allusive poetry. This is something he revisits in the chapters of this book, in a much more developed, structured, thoughtful, and even freer-thinking form. Of the 66 songs featured here, about a quarter were broadcast on that program, and almost all of them were in the same versions Bob Dylan is discussing now.
And, once again, of the more than a thousand songs broadcast on Theme Time Radio Hour, none were written by the host.
***
What we find primarily throughout the pages of The Philosophy of Modern Song are descriptions, observations, and reflections (technical, existential, social) delivered in a conversational tone, often on a first-name basis. These considerations are triggered by the chosen songs and extend to the performers and composers, or even to the environment in which these songs were created or recorded—songs that encompass the rich and thick broth that is so-called popular music: country and folk, blues and rhythm & blues, gospel and soul; a smattering of rockabilly and rock 'n' roll; a dash of jazz and bluegrass. The reader can also count on the author's strong presence and special taste for the standards that crooners and jazz have always been quick to interpret and adapt to their respective worlds.
In joyful coexistence and with no apparent order (chronological or otherwise), page by page, songs by Elvis Costello and Bing Crosby, Little Richard and The Platters, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, Hank Williams and Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone and Santana, Judy Garland and The Who, Rosemary Clooney and The Clash, among many other performers, both universally famous and not so much, unfold before our eyes. A few, rare, will have the right to appear with songs in more than one chapter, such as Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, and Little Richard. And some of them, like Presley, Dean Martin, Johnny Cash, and Sinatra, will see their names frequently mentioned in comments on songs performed by others. Although dominant in this journey, Dylan doesn't limit himself solely to North American music: he frequently draws on songs of European origin, but not exclusively those of British origin, as would be expected from a musician with his origins and native tongue. In addition to these, there are persistent references to French chanson, but also to the (primarily) German "Mack the Knife" or the Italian "Volare (Nel blu, dipinto di blu)." The musical universe of Italian roots is, in fact, omnipresent: repeatedly, those who read will stumble upon singers with veiled, soft voices, American by birth but of Italian descent: such is the case with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Perry Como, Dion, and Vic Damone.
The reading also highlights Bob Dylan's fascination with crooners and standards singers, a fascination already perceptible in the phase of his career when he focused almost exclusively on genres like folk, blues, and rock, more compatible with the years he rose to fame. In 1968, the album Nashville Skyline surprised audiences, as never before had Bob Dylan's repertoire or voice sounded so calmly mellow, and critics were immediately stunned by the work's aroma of Sinatra and Dean Martin. Regardless, on his next album (Self Portrait, 1970), Dylan would dress up a series of popular songs with personal versions, one of which was "Blue Moon," the 1934 classic by Hart and Rodgers made famous by Mel Tormé, Billy Eckstine, and Frank Sinatra, and of which Dylan would choose Dean Martin's interpretation to comment on in this book. Paying tribute to his enduring taste for classic entertainment music, three of Bob Dylan's four most recent albums (Shadows in the Night, 2015; Fallen Angels, 2016; and Triplicate, 2017) are entirely filled with attempts to recreate no fewer than fifty-two popular music standards from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
But within the orbit of the list of chosen main songs, hundreds of other songs and by other authors and performers gravitate, to which Dylan will refer, either because they intertwine with the songs under review or to illustrate the theory (dear to him and a constant in folk music) that all songs—like all works of art—evolve from one another, and that everything influences everything. In this light, references emerge in the text to the influence of choral lines from Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion on Paul Simon's "American Tune," or of a movement from a Rachmaninoff symphony on the melody of Eric Carmen's "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again," a hit for the composer himself, but equally for Tom Jones and Frank Sinatra.
Besides imitation as a source of creation, Dylan addresses another question, also frequently discussed regarding sung music: what is more important in a song, the melody or the words? As expected, Bob Dylan doesn't take sides on either side of the issue, but he does bring up, as a counterpoint to German—a language, according to him, suited to beer festivals—the wonderfully plastic and melodic quality of the Italian language, or even hints at how far it is from essential to understand a single word of Portuguese to feel that fado is a musical genre that "drips with sadness." Within this topic of lyrics, Dylan also reminds us that the words used to serve a song shouldn't be subject to the logic of language, written or spoken, and that, unlike what is desired in a text or dialogue, it is musically appropriate to repeat and repeat the same words, exemplifying the paradox with verses from the songs "Black Magic Woman" and "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy." Occasionally, Bob Dylan doesn't even waste time commenting on the song he chose to comment on, disregarding it or ignoring it completely and only using the song's name for considerations related to that name, as happens in "On the Road Again," where he uses the title solely to dwell on his experience in a traveling music band; in "Saturday Night at the Movies," where he takes advantage of the ride to talk to us at length about cinema; or in "I Got a Woman," where he creates a short story whose plot is the opposite of the meaning of the original song and in which the connecting point between the two is the saxophone solo that the main protagonist plays on the steering wheel of the car, while listening to that Ray Charles song. Thus, in clever, amusing, and provocative phrasing, full of double meanings (not a few of them musical, affecting both melody and rhyme), Dylan outlines and unfolds the narrative, using other people's songs to discuss themes that have always been dear to him: the road, leaving, and nostalgia for his homeland; outlaws and those lonely and marginalized; hypocrisy; the value of frugality in life; women and impossible love; cinema, literature, and, of course, music and the temperaments of those who practice it. And, equally, time and the ephemeral nature of fame and success, the invincible defeat always associated with the passing of days. Although he rarely reveals himself personally and directly, as you read on, you become aware of where this man, a descendant of Jews from Odessa and born in 1941 in Duluth, a small mining town in Minnesota, as Robert Zimmerman, came from, what catches his eye and attention, what he likes and what he despises.
As for the songs he chose to comment on, without the bother of explaining why, one thing is certain: after reading them—and whether or not we were previously familiar with them—we will hardly listen to them again with the same eyes.
***
All 66 songs can be found on YouTube in the versions Dylan chose to comment on. The exception is "Nelly Was a Lady," for which Bob Dylan used a version performed by Alvin Youngblood Hart (2004), which, at the time, is not available on that site. However, several other interpretations of this song, composed by Stephen Foster in 1849, can be heard there.
As for the lyrics, they are easy to find online, but it is recommended that, whenever possible, official websites be used for reference, as it is not uncommon to come across hastily transcribed versions that do not correspond to the original, not only in the transcription of the words, but particularly in the metrical arrangement of the verses.
© pedro serrano 25 November 2022.
List of commented songs and performers
1. Detroit City (Bobby Bare) / 2. Pump It Up (Elvis Costello) / 3. Without a Song (Perry Como) / 4. Take Me from This Garden of Evil (Jimmy Wages) / 5. There Stands the Glass (Webb Pierce) / 6. Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me (Billy Joe Shaver) / 7. Tutti Frutti (Little Richard) / 8. Money Honey (Elvis Presley) / 9. My Generation (The Who) / 10. Jesse James (Harry McClintock) / 11. Poor Little Fool (Ricky Nelson) / 12. Pancho and Lefty (Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard) / 13. The Pretender (Jackson Browne) / 14. Mack the Knife (Bobby Darin) / 15. Whiffenpoof Song (Bing Crosby) / 16. You Don’t Know Me (Eddy Arnold) / 17. Ball of Confusion (The Temptations) / 18. Poison Love (Johnnie and Jack) / 19. Beyond the Sea (Bobby Darin) / 20. On the Road Again (Willie Nelson) / 21. If You Don’t Know Me by Now (Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes) / 22. The Little White Cloud That Cried (Johnnie Ray) / 23. El Paso (Marty Robbins) / 24. Nelly Was a Lady (Stephen Foster) / 25. Cheaper to Keep Her (Johnnie Taylor) / 26. I Got a Woman (Ray Charles) / 27. CIA Man (The Fugs) / 28. On the Street Where You Live (Vic Damone) / 29. Truckin’ (Grateful Dead) / 30. Ruby, Are You Mad? (Osborne Brothers) / 31. Old Violin (Johnny Paycheck) / 32. Volare (Domenico Modugno) / 33. London Calling (The Clash) / 34. Your Cheatin’ Heart (Hank Williams) / 35. Blue Bayou (Roy Orbison) / 36. Midnight Rider (The Allman Brothers) / 37. Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins) / 38. My Prayer (The Platters) / 39. Dirty Life and Times (Warren Zoe) / 40. Doesn’t Hurt Anymore (John Trudell) / 41. Key to the Highway (Little Walter) / 42. Everybody Cryin’ Mercy (Mose Allison) / 43. War (Edwin Starr) / 44. Big River (Johnny Cash and the Tenessee Two) / 45. Feel So Good (Sonny Burgess) / 46. Blue Moon (Dean Martin) / 47. Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves (Cher) / 48. Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy (Uncle Dave Macon) / 49. It’s All in the Game (Tommy Edwards) / 50. A Certain Girl (Ernie K-Doe) / 51. I’ve Always Been Crazy (Waylon Jennings) / 52. Witchy Woman (The Eagles) / 53. Big Boss Man Jimmy Reed) / 54. Long Tall Sally (Little Richard) / 55. Old and Only in the Way (Charlie Poole) / 56. Black Magic Woman (Santana) / 57. By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Jimmy Webb) / 58. Come On-a My House (Rosemary Clooney) / 59. Don’t Take Your Guns to Town (Johnny Cash) / 60. Come Rain or Come Shine (Judy Garland) / 61. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (Nina Simone) / 62. Strangers in the Night (Frank Sinatra) / 63. Viva Las Vegas (Elvis Presley) / 64. Saturday Night at the Movies (The Drifters) / 65. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy (Pete Seeger) / 66. Where or When (Dion).
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