324: Bob Dylan, ‘Things We Said Today’

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Bob Dylan, ‘Things We Said Today’ (2014)

The Beatles, ‘Things We Said Today’ (1964)

The Beatles, ‘Things We Said Today (1964, live video)

Together Through Life with Dylan

I first encountered Dylan when I was 15, in the 10^th grade, 1964. I borrowed his new release, “Another Side of” from my friend Steve. I had a guy crush on The Beatles and was on very friendly if not intimate terms with the folk movement. (Tangent: If you’ve never seen Christopher Guest’s mockumentary “A Mighty Wind”, run to do so right now.) I was ready to fall for Dylan—his cranky voice, his aggressive non-commercialism, his anti-establishmentism, his Otherness had innate appeal for me.

But I was 15 in 1964, Dylan was 23. He was so much older then, I was just learning to point my finger indignantly. It’s not just that he had such a head start agewise and wiseage. He was so far ahead of everything and everybody that there was no chance of catching up. All I could do was strive to keep pace, to listen and learn and be inspired by Dylan, digesting the great albums over years as his corpus did what art should do—to illuminate what you already kind of know.

It seems I’m still trying to catch up, but I guess I’m in good company. George Harrison, reflecting back on Paul talking down to him: “He was always 9 months older than I. Even now, he still is 9 months older than me.”

When I first heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand” at 14, it spoke to me directly—all I really wanted to do was to hold her hand. Well, that was all I could reasonably hope for at that age, anyway.

‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere’ served as a reference point for me in my early 20s, a lighthouse beacon if you will, when I decided to make my biggest life choices. And here’s a list of my Song of The Week articles on Bobbie. And that’s just what I’ve published here. Believe it or not, I do a lot of listening and thinking before I write. So I’ve put in my time with the guy over the years.

Dotage Dylan, 2007-

Sixty years after I got a neckache gaping up at Dylan’s generation-defining 1960s oracles, I’m still playing catch-up. Even in his dotage, he outdistances me.

I’m talking now about Dylan’s last 18 years, post-“Modern Times” (2006), a remarkably vigorous album of mature, satisfying songs.

I confess that I haven’t memorized his five CDs of Sinatra ‘uncovers’ or his three latest albums of originals, finding only the occasional flash of brilliance, such as ‘I Contain Multitudes’. Despite his compulsive Never-Ending Tour, I haven’t seen him perform since 1993. One friend has seen him 20 times in that period! I did watch “Shadow Kingdom”. Once.

But it turns out that there’s still an unfathomed (and unfathomable) treasure trove:

The wealth of official bootlegs, from “Another Self-Portrait” (SoTW 262) through “The Cutting Edge”, outtakes from “Bringing It All Back Home”/“Highway 61”/”Blonde on Blonde”, which I listened to recently. I found an acoustic ‘Desolation Row’ that surpasses the electrified version we all know and loved. And an electrified version of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ from the BIABH sessions, way before Jim McG thought of it. I was horrified. How my generation would have been permanently scarred by hearing that version instead of the pure acoustic one.

His book of essays, “The Philosophy of Modern Music” is one heavy mother, in weight, price and content. The book design is a work of art in itself. If you’re not into making Bob richer, at least treat yourself to some time perusing it in your local bookstore. He writes about some 66 songs, chosen with Dylanesque quirk, in the most intense and gripping prose of his I’ve read since the liner notes of “BIABH” and “Highway 61”.

As if all that new music and the touring and the old music and the prose – oh, yeah, and a Nobel Prize in 2016 — ain’t enough, I’ve been looking a lot at his paintings. I wrote recently (SoTW 164) about how it broke up his marriage, leading to “Blood on the Tracks”. I’ve been enjoying his art greatly, so much that —

I recently published my rock novel The Greatest Band that Never Was and am about to let it fly the nest, a project of seven years. Seven years is a long time to spend on one project, and it calls for a celebration.

–after long deliberation, I’ve treated myself to a self-gift, a Limited Edition signed print by the Nobel Laureate. It’s called Sunday Afternoon. It’s a bit melancholy, but it has a lot of atmosphere and tone, and I’m sure looking forward to see it hanging on the wall of my office.

Things They Said Yesterday

‘Things We Said Today’ is one of my favorite Beatles songs. It’s on my playlist of the 30 Beatles songs that I still listen to on occasion, the ones that aren’t completely worn out.

It’s a Paul song in John’s style, a companion piece to John’s ‘I’ll Be Back’, both acoustic precursors of Folk-Rock. Both have an ambivalent minor/major vibe and haunting 3-part harmonies. Both are intelligent, sophisticated and loved by critics and Beatles aficionados of refined taste like yourselves and me.

‘TWST’ was recorded for “Hard Day’s Night” but belongs more to “Rubber Soul”. It was written about the strains on Paul’s relationship with Jane Asher due to their extended separations. Thematically, it sits with ‘I’m Looking Through You’, ‘You Won’t See Me’ and ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’. In the UK it was released as the B-side of the ‘Hard Day’s Night’ single and included on the movie soundtrack. In the US it was tucked away on the relatively low-impact combo album “Something New”.

Perhaps that explains the song’s relatively low profile in the Beatles oeuvre, despite the universal respect it commands. I couldn’t find a single cover version worth mentioning—except for our Song of The Week.

I did find three live versions of the song, two from BBC radio broadcasts and one knock-out high-energy version with low-quality video from the storied Hollywood Bowl show.

My grandson hasn’t discovered it yet. He’s brand-new to The Beatles, still working on ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Yesterday’. That’s okay, I have patience. At least it’s a pleasant break from talking with him about Steph Curry. He’s only 16, and I’m sure hoping that in time he’ll absorb the deeper cuts. Who knows, someday he may even matriculate to BDU–Bob Dylan University.

Things He Said Today

But if recording and archiving and philosophizing and touring and painting and Nobelling ain’t enough for one octogenarian, it turns out that Dylan recorded one of my favorite Beatles tracks for a Paul tribute project, “The Art of McCartney”, a 2014 collection of 42 Paul covers by a pile of musical luminaries, such as Brian Wilson, Billy Joel, Dion, and B.B. King. Most of the cuts covered are post-Beatles, and many sound like Wings et al with a guest vocalist—many of the backing tracks recorded by McC’s backing band.

To tell you the truth, the snazzy project is less than inspiring musically. But, hey, Sir Paul deserves all that respect, no? Dylan said of him, “He can do it all, and he’s never let up. He’s got the gift for melody, he’s got the rhythm, he can play any instrument. He can scream and shout as good as anybody, and he can sing a ballad as good as anybody. And his melodies are effortless, that’s what you have to be in awe of… He’s just so damn effortless.”

I’ve written in the past about the Dylan/Beatles symbiosis (SoTW 207) back in The Day. But Dylan’s 2014 ‘Things We Said Today’ is all Dylan. It goes way beyond ominous, headed towards Vincent Price spooky, quivering guitars and creaking doors and all. It sounds too my like Dylan doing an imitation of Leonard Cohen doing an imitation of Dylan.

What do I make of it?

Damned if I know. It’s as befuddling for me as Dylan has been since I was 15. I’m still trying to figure him out. In the meantime, he’s influenced my life choices, he’s hanging on my wall. Maybe someday he’ll even be on my grandson’s iPhone.