I like a good deal of the later Dylan, Dom, and though I started with Dylan
pretty early -- Bringing it All Back Home when it came out -- I agree with
you about "Mr. Tambourine Man," which is pretty weak in its attempt to be
trippy & profound. My first encounter with that song was actually the Byrds'
AM radio version when I was in the 9th grade, which is pretty good for top
40 radio. I didn't tune in to Dylan till the next year.
And those first 77 Dream Songs simply lifted me out of my seat, spun me
around & dropped me down again a changed boy when I was 18. Some of the
later ones are wonderful. Somebody should put together a 125 Dream Songs
volume.
jd
On 5/7/07, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> There are 385 Dream Songs in the book, of which the first 77 are those
> that were first published together. I have not read them in order, but
> am skipping backwards and forwards, so that the later and earlier ones
> happen for me side-by-side. You can't sustain the wow-factor of the
> first encounter - for both reader and author - of a new poetry
> indefinitely; there just isn't a career's worth to be had of what made
> early Dylan so hugely impressive. But people disappointed with later
> Dylan might in some cases have been less disappointed if they'd been
> able to start with later Dylan and work backwards - even to the point
> of finding some of the earliest material (e.g. "Mr Tambourine Man") a
> bit gauche and wishy-washy, even given the steely charisma of the
> person singing it...
>
> Dominic
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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