The grandiose madness of Thick As A Brick

So there I was. It was a few weeks back, and I was slouching around behind my computer on a rainy Tuesday night. By all intents and purposes I should, as ever (or so it seems these days) have been working on writing a paper for one of my courses, but, also as ever, I was procrastinating the fuck out of it. So instead, I was absent-mindedly browsing upcoming concert dates for some of my favorite bands. After a bit of looking here and there I arrived at the website of Ian Anderson’s eclectic British rock outfit, Jethro Tull. While they only had a few tour dates for the UK for 2012, they did have one of those countdown boxes at the top of the page, usually used to count down the time left until some big announcement. Wondering what it was for, I decided to bookmark the site and check back when the counter ran out, and went on with what I was doing (which was mostly thinking of more ways to delay writing said paper for a bit longer).

Imagine my surprise when I loaded up the website about a week later and it contained not only an announcement that Ian would soon start touring Tull’s classic 1972 album Thick As A Brick in full for the first time since the year that record was released, but that he’d also be releasing a sequel: Thick As A Brick 2 (not exactly the most creative of titles, but hey, what’re ya gonna do).

Of course, I have to be a bit skeptical about the whole sequel thing; Ian is a talented musician and all ‘round creative guy, but doing a sequel to an established classic is always something of a risk – hell, one’d be tempted to call it a cash-in, but the guy really seems genuinely invested in the project. It’ll be another while before Thick As A Brick 2 hits record store shelves on April 2^nd though, so in the mean time, I thought it’d be a fun exercise to cast our minds back to 1972 or thereabouts and take a look at the album that started it all: Thick As A Brick.

Thick As A Brick is one of those records that comes ‘round once in a blue moon, where no matter what sort of criticism one might level against it there’s something about it that works, something that clicks, a sort of energy and cohesion that truly make it into more than the sum of its parts. That’s not to say it’s a simple album. In fact, it’s exceedingly complex. Of course it is: this is a progressive rock album, a genre that developed at the tail end of the sixties and into the seventies. After The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper showed the world it could accept rock music as a full-fledged, independent form of modern art, prog rock arrived to take rock to the next level, incorporating incredibly long and complex song structures, intricately poetic and often indecipherable lyrics and, quite often, a range of instruments so diverse it’d have even the Fab Four bow their heads in shame. Thick As A Brick is usually considered one of the early masterpieces of the genre. In true prog fashion, the album is grandiose, majestic and intricate – and, frankly, kind of ridiculous.

It was also made in a basement.  

But let’s back up for a minute or two. Before talking further about Thick As A Brick proper, it’d be interesting to say a few words about the genesis of this album: for it is an interesting one. 

The band in '72, from left to right: John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond, Ian Anderson, Martin Barre and Barriemore Barlow. I hear the baby auditioned to be on bass but didn't make it.

 

It was 1972, and Jethro Tull was basking in the glow of the success of their latest album, Aqualung. A departure from their humble blues-rock beginnings, with Aqualung the band took a turn towards a more heavy and intricate sound, but it paid off, as the album was enthusiastically received. But something was bugging Ian Anderson. The critics seemed to be in agreement that Aqualung was meant as a concept album: a sort of parody on John’s Gospel centered around a straggly hobo named Aqualung who appeared on the album cover. Ian vehemently denied this, stating that the album was just a collection of songs with a few incidental links between them here and there. But no one would have any of that, and interviewers and fans constantly congratulated him on what a terrific concept piece he’d written. This pissed off Mister Anderson to no end – so much so, in fact, that one day he decided to gather up his bandmates in a dank, badly-lit Bermondsy basement that he’d rented from The Rolling Stones (who were probably laughing all the way to the bank) to record an album that would be “a mind-boggler” and “the mother of all concept albums”.

So if this is a concept album, what exactly is the concept? Basically, if this album seems kind of silly and overblown then that is by design, for it’s meant as a parody on the idea of the concept album. It’s also a giant put-on. Ian claimed that the lyrics for Thick As A Brick were an epic poem written by the eight year old Gerald Bostock, who even won an award for it… which was later revoked because psychiatrists found the child’s mind to be unhinged, the poem being a product of an “extremely unwholesome attitude towards life, his God and his Country”. That quote’s not from an interview or anything, by the way. It’s from a newspaper piece in the St Cleve Chronicle & Linwell Advertiser… a periodical that was about as real as little Gerald (read: not at all), but that didn’t stop Ian and his mates from concocting a twelve-page issue of it, complete with a review of the album itself and a rather disconcerting item about a fourteen year old girl who claimed Gerald to be the father of her unborn child. The newspaper served as the record sleeve for the album (one of the more creative ones I’ve seen in my life) and apparently took more time to put together than to record the actual music they laid down on vinyl. It’s only the hors d’ouevre though – it may be funny, sure enough, but the songs, boy do they kick ass.

Wait, my bad, did I say songs? I’m sorry, I meant song, as in singular, for Thick As A Brick contains only one song (named, well, “Thick As A Brick”). 

The record sleeve for Thick As A Brick, a fold-out version of the fictional St. Cleve Chronicle.

 

Of course at about forty minutes long, said song is certainly no slouch. While other prog rock outfits such as Yes had been experimenting with sidelong compositions at the time, to my knowledge Tull was the first to actually come up with (or at least, act on) the crazy idea to fill an entire record with only one track. Well, alright, it’s two tracks covering each side of the vinyl; but they’re acoustically and thematically linked into a continuous whole.

Lyrically, Thick As A Brick is about as intricate as they get – well alright, it’s not as inscrutable as 1973’s sequel A Passion Play or the metaphysical ramblings of Jon Anderson of Yes (no relation) but as far as albums with any kind of concrete message go it’s still pretty far out there. On a whole, it seems to be continuing the societal criticism featured on Aqualung in songs such as “My God”, "Wind Up" and of course that album’s title track, but conveys it in much more abstract terms. The poem being framed as little Gerald Bostock’s attempt to come to terms with the trials and tribulations of growing up in twentieth-century England, Thick As A Brick seems to thematize how modern society shapes its citizens’ lives and personalities through their upbringing (with particular attention to father figures). The singer asks the song to “spin me back to the years and the days of my youth”, recalling his birth and his upbringing through which he was enticed to confirm to societal standards, with even such seemingly spontaneous outbursts such as singing in the rain revealed as being taught as part of the process of instilling conformity:

See there, a son is born

And we pronounce him fit to fight

He’s got blackheads on his shoulders

And he pees himself in the night

We’ll make a man of him, put him to a trade

Teach him to play Monopoly

And how to sing in the rain

The singer is asking the masses, who through this process of brainwashing have become “thick as a brick”, to escape from the vicious cycle in which man has been trapped by society. But to do that, it is imperative that they learn to think for themselves, for as the opening verse goes, “I may make you feel / But I can’t make you think”. The young, in particular, hold the key to bringing about a change for the better, for mending our “rotten ways”, but can only achieve this if they pull their heads out of the sand and break free from the fantasy world they have willingly trapped themselves in. What is the following verse, set to John Evans’ ferocious Hammond Organ and Barriemore Barlow’s roaring percussion (and preceded by an ringing alarm clock, a literal wake-up call), if not a call to arms to bring about a change for the better:

So come all ye young men who are building castles

Can you state the time of the year

And join your voices in a hellish chorus

Mark the precise nature of your fear

See the summer lightning casts its bolts upon you

As the hour of judgment draweth near

Will you be the fool stood in his suit of armor

Or the wiser man who rushes clear

The young are called upon to step forward and take charge, to “rise up from the pages / Of your comic books, your super crooks / And show us all the way”. But any attempt at improving the lot of man in this context seems doomed to failure, for after this bombastic call to arms “Thick As A Brick” ends on a reprisal of the song’s opening lines, the singer informing us in a melancholy tone that despite everything, men still “make all their animal deals” and are still “thick as a brick”.

This central message is not remotely as straight-forward as I am here presenting it to be though, for Ian adorns his lyricism with a wealth of poetic imagery that often feels very symbolic, though I’m not always entirely sure what it’s supposed to symbolize exactly – the song even contains several verses driven by vague medieval British imagery a la early Genesis (think “Selling England By The Pound”, which came out after this album, but shut up, that's not the point). Compared to the relatively restrained Aqualung, Ian really let his poetic capacities flow freely on this one, and the casual listener might find himself lost trying to decipher much of his more enigmatic, ponderous poetic ramblings. Still, the imagery is well-constructed, evocative and oftentimes rather beautiful, and if Ian indeed aims to make us “feel” moreso than making us “think” then I would say he accomplishes at least that.

Ian playing an abridged "Thick As A Brick" in 1978: a magnficently fun, energetic performance that has to be seen to be believed.

And hey, I don’t mind an album having some lyrical chaff as long as the music is good. People don’t listen to prog rock to hear what it has to say, they listen to it to be blown away by intricate, rocking arrangements and exquisite musicianship; and musically, Thick As A Brick is no less complex than on the lyrical level... and more importantly, the entire record is just simply damn catchy.

Tull does prog rock tradition proud, as there’s tons of instruments on display here. The main one most of you’ll notice is Ian Anderson’s flute. Ian was one of the first people to really bring the instrument into rock music, and the way he plays it truly is rather unique (check out this seven minute(!) flute solo, it’s the craziest thing I’ve seen in a while). His prowess is on display in several sections of this album, such as the flute-driven marching music of the “So come on ye childhood heroes” section. But apart from the flute and the basics like drum and guitars there’s also harpsichords, pianos, glockenspiels, saxophones, a tambourine and perhaps even more instruments I’ve as of yet been unable to pick out of the mix. The musicianship is, needless to say, immaculate, or at least it sounds pretty excellent to my tone-deaf ear: all that rehearsing in that dank little basement sure did pay off, for the band reportedly finished the actual recording sessions for the album in little over three hours time.

And despair not: the fact that this record contains only a single song doesn’t mean it gets boring, for as the great variety of instruments employed would have you expect, Thick As A Brick is a magnificently varied record. George Starostin mentions that it could have easily worked on a short-song level, as the album’s various segments are quite different from each other and mostly linked through sparring instrumental passages. I’m not sure I’d agree with this assessment entirely: while an album like Quodrophenia by The Who is indeed a collection of quite distinctly separate songs linked together via instrumental bits, the aforementioned “So come all ye young men” bit or the “Poet and the painter” segment feel, despite their differences, like they are each part of a bigger whole. Still, I see what he’s getting at in underlining the record’s diversity this way, and it is indeed easy to pick out your favorite bits to go back and listen to after taking in the album in as a whole. Rather than labeling the “Thick As A Brick” composition as a song it might more accurately be called a suite, which would simultaneously underline its unity and the diversity of its various pieces, and would also be a nice nod to the classical influences displayed by the record and by seventies prog rock in general.

The album contains a wealth of musical ideas that make it simply a joy to listen to. There are tons of different kinds of tunes here that all flow perfectly into one another, each working in unison with the lyrics to underline the intended mood of the moment, be it calm and serene, enchantingly beautiful or energetic and urgent. Some of the more memorable bits include the exquisite folksy acoustic guitar section that starts off the album, with Ian’s flute poking in and out as the lyrics lay down the song’s central thematic premise (“And your wise men don’t know how it feels / To be thick as a brick”). The charming tune quickly turns somewhat dark and ominous, however, as the singer voices the call to be swept back to his childhood - then quickly develops into a fast ‘n furious rocker backing the aforementioned “See there, a son is born” section. The verses dominated by Ian’s medieval imagery are marked by bombastic and complex yet beautiful balladry, and there’s even something that sounds like a nursery rhyme in there, albeit with somewhat twisted lyrics that contrast amusingly with the upbeat tune they’re set to  (“You curl your toes in fun / As you smile at everyone / […] / And you laugh most ruthlessly / As you tell us what not to be”).

To underline the various sections’ underlying cohesiveness as parts of a larger suite of music, a number of tunes pop up several times throughout the record, though often in slightly different ways. After the split between side on and two of the original record, which is marked by a short sound collage reminiscent of some of Frank Zappa’s more abstract moments, a foreboding, howling wind gives way to a flurry of drumbeats and a reprisal of the “See there, a son is born section”, albeit with modified lyrics and set to a much more bombastic, percussion-driven interpretation of the original melody. The upbeat, keyboard-driven “So come on ye childhood heroes” section is featured near the tail end of both sides of the record, with its second appearance eventually followed by the aforementioned reprisal of the song’s opening lines set to a somewhat slower, more melancholy reinterpretation of the charming acoustic ditty that the suite opened with, bringing us full-circle both musically and lyrically.
  

Flyer for the '72 Thick As A Brick tour, the only tour on which the full album was played live.

 

It’s funny that despite its status as an overblown parody of the idea of concept albums in general, Thick As A Brick ends up, in my mind at least, being a lot more interesting, enjoyable and downright listenable than most serious concept albums out there – indeed, apart from Animals and Tommy (and maybe Joe's Garage), I can’t really think of any that come close. Then again, the parody aspect might actually be what salvages this record from seeming too overblown and pretentious for its own good. Sure, the music sounds so bombastic as to occasionally border on the ridiculous, and the vague poetic ramblings of Ian’s lyrics with their rather preachy underlying message (which I do feel is quite sincere and heartfelt) might be a put-off to some people. However, when taking the album as a whole, from the amusing story of its conception to the whole Gerald Bostock hoax and the absurd live shows, which featured set pieces like a guy in a gorilla costume walking on stage to answer the telephone mid-performance, you get the feeling that despite the serious edge to the album and its message a lot of it is part of a big joke that we, the listeners, are in on. 

The year after Thick As A Brick, Tull would repeat the one-song concept album stint with A Passion Play, which, while it did chart high on both sides of the Atlantic, was a rather resounding critical dud. While the album (good as it is - give it a shot some time, it's not as awful as people make it out to be) was simply less musically diverse and interesting than Thick As A Brick, I feel A Passion Play's failure and lack of apparent accessibility also has to with the fact that, while similarly overblown as Tull’s previous effort, this time the idea was executed entirely straight-faced, with no offbeat tongue-in-cheekness to offset Ian’s preachy and now entirely enigmatic lyricism and no upbeat, silly melodies to give any solace on an exceedingly pompous and pretentious seeming album.

Thick As A Brick itself, however, still stands the test of time on all accounts, and Ian sure has a tough act to follow up on with Thick As A Brick 2. There’ve been some reports here and there that the new album is pretty good on its own terms (the 5.1 surround mix is done by Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson, who seems to be tentatively positive about the whole thing), so while I really can’t bring myself to be excited for it exactly, you can at least color me interested. So yeah, I’ll be there buying on the 2^nd of April, and if old man Ian’ll be so good as to finally post up some tour dates for the Netherlands, I’ll gladly attend to hear his aging vocal chords struggle their way through a live performance of both albums (because really, comparing his old performances to some of his more recent ones I can’t help but wonder if he wouldn’t do well to just retire from singing at live shows). 

 

But whether Thick As A Brick 2’ll be any good or not, we’ll always have the original album to listen to. Don’t let the one-song format or the lyrical and musical complexity scare you away from this one. It might be hard to get into at first, but beat by beat, this is simply one of the coolest albums I’ve ever heard. “Really don’t mind / If you sit this one out” might be what Ian sings in the song’s opening line, but if you were to ask me, sitting this album out would be a dang shame.

Bob Dylan, the great enchanter

Seeing as how this blog is currently named after a Bob Dylan song, I thought it would be pungent to start off by writing about the man who is currently one of my favourite artists and entertainers, not to mention a rather inspiring figure. A word of warning, this will be a fairly noncritical and praise-filled treatise: if you do not wish to see me gush, then pray, avert thine eyes!

I’ll be the first to admit the music of Bob Dylan, born as mister Robert Zimmerman (no, you can't call him that), isn’t the type that’s going to appeal to everyone, especially in this day and age. The elitist in me wants to lament how much of a shame this is. That if you don’t ‘get’ Bob Dylan you simply don’t ‘get’ music. Of course at the end of the day that’s all rather subjective. It just means that you look for other things in music than I do. That’s perfectly alright.

And of course. I understand. That particular blend of blues and folk rock that characterizes the majority old Bob’s oeuvre isn’t the sort of thing likely to be heard blasting out of the speakers tuned into your local radio station. That corny old-fashioned harmonica, the often rather scarce and sober production values and especially those bizarre, unpolished vocals aren’t necessarily easy to get into. They’re an acquired taste.

Indeed, when you take a purely analytical approach to Bob Dylan’s music, when you start picking apart the various elements and putting ‘em under a magnifying glass it’ll quickly start to seem that most of it really isn’t all that special. While certainly proficient with his guitar and harmonica he’s not that outstandingly skilled at ‘em for anyone to take special notice. His melodies are uncomplicated and repetitive (and derivative, I hear, but I don’t know dat music too well on a technical level so stop asking). This isn’t King Crimson or Yes we’re talking, this is pretty simple stuff. Grab any old busker off the street, give him a scrap of sheet music with a Dylan song on it and a bit of time, and he could likely play a serviceable impression. And veritable bibles’ve been written about Bob’s infamous singing voice, that wheezy, rasping, nasal whine that sounds like a dying dog’s last desperate cry transmitted through a barbed wire microphone and an amplifier made of polystyrene. 

But doggonit, you can’t be purely analytical with something that tugs at our heartstrings quite as much as music and you can’t be purely analytical with Dylan. A while ago I said I doubt anyone can really put their finger on what it is that makes him quite so good and quite so fascinating. Indeed, there is something elusive and mystical about his power, but I think I can still say a thing or two about it.

Dylan's iconic mid-60's image: a thin tiny fellow in shades, a strange look for a big music star at the time compared to say, The Beatles or The Beach Boys. 

Of course the simple (and probably too easy) answer is that rarely the “greater than the sum of its parts” argument has been more relevant than with mister Zimmerman. Sure, his playing is fairly basic, sure, his music is rather simple, and sure, his voice tends to sound like he gurgles with a cup of shrapnel every morning. But when you put it all together something special happens. There’s a sincerity and an authenticity there that transcends those shortcomings, the way it all blends together to form the Dylan we (well, I, at least) know and love is quite unique. 

And while I’ve spent a paragraph and a half lambasting aspects of his music (purely out of rhetorical reasons, I swear) the one part of Dylan I think no one should truly complain of are his lyrics. With the Zimm-meister, the main driving force has always been the words. That’s why you’ll find nary a purely instrumental track by him, and if you do it’s not going to be very interesting. It’s about the words man, it’s all about the words!

And those words, well, they’re a doozy. In a letter to a lady friend I recently wrote that I consider Dylan to be a great poet. To some this might at first seem an overblown label to apply to a 'mere' musician, but it’s true. Dylan was one of the first musicians, and certainly the most significant and influential, to truly marry art with popular music, showing us that it could be about more than simply hot cars and fast women (or were those adjectives the other way around?), that it could be significant, that it could mean something to us. At the dawn of time (of the modern music industry, that is) it was Bob Dylan, not The Beatles, who was the first to really bring the art, the poetry, into popular music.

As I write this, I’m listening to Dylan’s 1965 album Blonde on Blonde. It’s not quite my favourite Dylan album, that title still goes to Blood on the Tracks (which I should blog about in full at some later point in time). But as much as I love Blood on a personal level, one has to admit that his Bobness’ finest work as a lyricist is to be found in his 60’s catalogue, of which Blonde on Blonde provides some of the best examples. This is Dylan the enchanter at his greatest and most mystical, this is him taking the enchantment to its highest level. “Visions of Johanna” is often seen as being his crowning lyrical achievement, so it might be rather chewed out to reference it here, but it’s cited as an ur example of his magic for a reason. If you’ve never heard it, go ahead and listen to it. Run along. I’ll wait.

Ah, you’re back. Excellent. Wasn’t that beautiful? But what of those words, you ask? What of those lyrics? Surely when you get down to it most of it's nonsense, it doesn't actually mean anything? But ah, young grass eater, herein lies the power of poetry, herein lies the power of Bob Dylan! 

 The cover for Blonde on Blonde, the album said by Dylan to be the closest he ever got to the sound he hears in his mind: "that thin, wild mercury sound".

Only a few months after recording Blonde on Blonde Dylan went and suffered a mysterious motorcycle accident, and it’s tempting to think this busted his brains so badly he was never able to produce anything quite as artistically immaculate afterwards. The truth however is probably that in those early years of his career he was simply graced with some sort of divine inspiration. He claims to have written the enchanting “Blowing in the Wind” in ten minutes. I’m inclined to believe him. It's likely that he was simply on some sort of creative high that just had to fade with time, that no mortal man could have sustained for long. Just look at the opening lyrics for “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” off of his first electric album, Bringing It All Back Home:

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child’s balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying

What the shit does that even mean? Hell if I know, and I’m pretty sure old Bob wouldn’t be able to answer the question any better. There likely is some kind of sense and logic to these lyrics that might be plumbed with time and rigorous analysis, but at a casual listen, it really sounds like nothing more than silly, senseless raving. Yet when set to that dreary guitar line and spoken with that gruff and honest voice of his, it simply works. If you or me tried to write something like that we’d end up with gibberish, but Dylan pulls it off magnificently. Even the most seasoned of professors would have trouble untangling the knots of songs like “Visions of Johanna” and the title track on Highway 61 Revisited, at least if it’s any sort of clear meaning we’re looking for. But, of course, those songs don’t actually mean anything, not in any concrete sort of way. Dylan's poetry isn’t meant to convey something grounded in reality but an emotional mood, a state of mind, perhaps an abstract idea. What these songs mean is what Bob feels and thinks as he writes them, as he sings them, what we feel and think as we listen to them. That effect, that’s the mark of a true poet.

Of course in the early to mid 60’s Bobbo wasn’t just writing pseudo-mystical word salad poetry devoid of any concrete meaning. One of the main criteria often given for art (which I don’t entirely agree with, but that’s a topic for another day) is that it has to be invested with a certain social consciousness, the urge to bring about a change in society. This is certainly strongly present in a lot of Dylan’s songs: indeed, it was by penning protest songs (although he personally disliked the term) that his Bobness first achieved widespread fame and notoriety. I could name several examples here but let's suffice with what is probably my favourite Dylan song in this category, “Masters of War” off of The Free-Wheelin’ Bob Dylan. This song is arguably as relevant today as the day it was written. It’s a fantastic piece of work simply for how downright spiteful and venomous it is. Just look at those words. They send a chill down my spine, that they do, a chill at the righteous anger Dylan must’ve felt when he wrote them:

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good?

Will it buy you forgiveness?

Do you think that it could?

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul

That’s not to say his records after the mid-60’s should be binned and forgotten, far from it. My praise doesn’t merely apply to his early work. I’ll give that the general consensus is that there’s certainly a lot of chaff among his later output (his trilogy of Christian rock records from the early 80's, his so-called "born-again period", comes to mind). However I’ve already said Blood on the Tracks is my favourite album of his, and that one’s from 1975. And by all means, check out some of his more recent stuff! The ones I’ve heard are Modern Times and Time Out of Mind, and they’re good fun, with the latter being something of a minor masterpiece in my opinion (if you can stand the singing, which has gone from merely a nasal wheeze to a deep, gravel-like growl like coming from some sort of monstrous rock golem – I think it’s great though, he’s become a real dishevelled old bluesman now). It’s all not as mystical or innovative as some of his earlier outings but there’s lots of enjoyment and above all lots of stories to be had, because I think Bob is perhaps above all a great teller of stories through music. Blood’s tantalizing kaleidoscope of tales of love lost and hearts broken is a fantastic example of this. And in this Dylan once again proves his ability as a poet, for while one often gets the sense these stories are highly personal they are usually presented as abstracts, we feel they could be anyone’s, they’re as much his as they are ours.

His Bobness singing at the 2011 Grammy Award ceremony, backed by rising folk stars Mumford and Sons and The Avett Brothers. 

With that, though, I feel we haven’t quite entirely put our finger on the magic. His words and how they operate are a big part of it, but that's not the entire story. It’s in the complete package, the way all the parts come together, as I already mentioned earlier. And what characterizes said complete package most of all in my opinion is just that rough edge, that lack of sophistication, that ordinariness for which one might condemn it. 
 

Let’s go back to Bob’s singing voice for a moment. While many people have condemned it for being whiny, grating and sometimes downright unlistenable, frankly I think it’s great. Author Joyce Carol Oates described it as being “as if sandpaper could sing”. Isn’t that a wonderful thought? Just think what it’d be like if sandpaper could sing. Think of the things it might sing of. If it’d be anything like the things Bob Dylan sings of, then I think that would be downright marvellous. What makes his singing so attractive is exactly that lack of training, that hoarseness, that everydayness. Like this could be the voice of any of us. Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk expressed the desire to be able to write sentences that any man might have written, yet imbue them with weight and significance in a way only a single man out of an entire generation could. If we substitute “sentences” for the vocal instrument (because indeed, not just anyone could write the stuff old Bob wrote) then we might have a good characterization of Bob Dylan’s singing. It’s the voice of the everyman singing words and meanings that are completely and utterly unique, combining the everyday with the mystical. 
 

Indeed, this might be where the magic, the enchantment can be found. The music of Robert Zimmerman is so captivating because of the distinct lack of pretense and artificiality through which it reaches us. Bob Dylan has never been particularly interested in blowing away his audience. Listening to his music you never really feel yourself awstruck or humbled by its magnificent splendor. Instead Bob himself is the humble one, as if he's saying: these songs're all I got, they may not amount to much, but won't you listen to what a guy's got on his mind? At the start of this blog I said you could pluck any old busker off the street and he'd probably be able to do a decent cover of a Dylan song after a bit of practice. But of course his Bobness himself started out mostly playing in clubs and cafes and on street corners, and he never really shed the feel and image of the simple street musician. Listening to his records you get the idea that this is the sort of man you might imagine playing his heart out in an alley somewhere, in a grimy little basement bar or even in your own living room. And you think that yeah, this guy is one of us, he shares in our worries, in our hopes and in our dreams. He may be more skilled at expressing them than we are, but listening to his music it never seems like he lets his skill, his creativity, his genius go to his head. His music is never self-indulgent or pretentious. Instead it is intimate, personal and always extremely sincere. We can find ourselves in his words and the images and feelings they invoke in us. Thus his voice is our voice and can remain our voice. 

 Dylan during the mid-70's Rolling Thunder Revue: more a fool or vagrant than a rock star. 

To conclude, one factor of Bob’s music I haven’t really touched on here is that while I find it deep, moving and beautiful it’s often also hilarious – mister Zimmerman’s obviously always had a good sense’a humor. In an interview he once responded to the question “what makes you laugh?” by saying “oh… something funny”, after which he flashed the interviewer a sly grin. So I’ll leave you with the to me most amusing Dylan lines I’ve come across so far, from the aforementioned “Highway 61 Revisited”:

Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”

Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”

God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”

God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but

The next time you see me comin’ you better run”

Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”

God says, “Out on Highway 61”