Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, May 2. 2010

Love and Theft

Is Bob Dylan a musical thief? Of course he is, to some extent. So what?


Sheesh, most singers don't even write the songs they sing.


Mrs. BD told me that Martha Graham said "If you're going to steal, steal from the best."


I remember flying home on Aer Lingus one time, listening to the Irish music. I thought to myself, "Damn. That's the tune of Boots of Spanish Leather. Where did Dylan hear that?" He's a human jukebox. Not the Second Coming, but a darned interesting jukebox, and he has gone the distance.


Smart, perceptive, and eccentric too, with or without a rhyming dictionary. He adds a "special sauce," as they say on Wall St.


Whiteside rips Dylan. (h/t, Driscoll)

Posted by Bird Dog in Our Essays, The Song and Dance Man at 12:30 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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I read that in the Times and thought Joni was being sarcastic. Sheesh. Read the whole thing for yourself.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-jonimitchell-20100422,0,601452,full.story
#1 Jim Bass (Link) on 2010-05-02 13:01 (Reply)
Is she an arrogant twit or what?
#1.1 Tom Francis on 2010-05-02 13:57 (Reply)
There are only so many ways to form a song, or musical piece - it's a mathematical fact. 90% of all pop or folk songs rely on one of two archetypes - three chord Major progression or the four chord Minor progression. There are only so many notes that one can use to make a tune within these progressions. The only thing you can do is change the voicing of the music in either key or chord forms - other than that, it's all the same in terms of form. How it is performed is what makes for the differences.

Plagerism when it comes to music, the industry's propensity to sue at the drop of a hat besides the point, is silly. Even the classics are not immune to this - there are passages from Mahler's Symphony #1 in D Major which are musically identical to Brahms' Symphony #1 in C Minor for example and it happens not only to contemporaries but to composers who are not comtempary to each other.

It's all in how the music is put together that makes it different - voicings, instruments, words and expression.
#2 Tom Francis on 2010-05-02 14:19 (Reply)
He fishes, and he knows music.
Typical Maggie's Farmer.
#2.1 Bird Dog on 2010-05-02 14:21 (Reply)
"Most Dylan fans would be stunned to realize that his vocal style (for lack of a better term) was high-jacked, in its entirety, from long-dead bluegrass-country singer Carter Stanley. We’re not talking about an influence, like Lefty Frizzell for Merle Haggard, but a total appropriation of Stanley’s highly idiosyncratic approach."

I am not a Dylan fan, but he is right I am stunned by this information, mostly because I am a Stanley Brothers fan and Dylan sounds nothing like Carter.

I suppose this only proves what a lousy singer Dylan is, too boot.
#3 B Moe on 2010-05-02 16:12 (Reply)
Whiteside had to be completely joking, or he is crazy delusional. I picked up on that one, too, Carter Stanley is who Dylan copies? In what universe?

OK, next he will be telling us how Emmylou Harris has been ripping off Ethel Merman all these years, and Allison Krauss is really using Billie Holiday's style.
#3.1 Seppo on 2010-05-03 12:40 (Reply)
This must be a typo, he didn't mean Carter Stanley, he meant Jimmy Martin. Just compare Jimmy Martin on "Skip, Hop and Wobble" with Dylan on "Stuck Inside of Mobile". It's uncanny, at least after the first sixpack or two
#3.2 Dan D on 2010-05-03 13:46 (Reply)
the slimy elite institution that elevated such barely able snake-oil salesmen as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger to celestial heights

I forgot to mention, all you need to know about Whiteside is in that sentence.
#4 Tom Francis on 2010-05-02 18:09 (Reply)
"Good artists borrow, great artists steal."
~Someone (perhaps Picasso)

Take it as you may.
#5 Jephnol (Link) on 2010-05-02 20:15 (Reply)
Great musicians don't borrow; They steal.
#6 Wes (Link) on 2010-05-02 22:59 (Reply)
I did not see the comment directly above mine (Damn scotch!). Sorry. I guess I stole it from a mind quicker than mine.
#7 Wes (Link) on 2010-05-02 23:01 (Reply)
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the Irish song was copying Dylan. There are quite a few of the more recent (20th century) folk songs that just adopt the tune of a contemporary song.
#8 Sean G (Link) on 2010-05-03 13:12 (Reply)
Joni getting just a little jealous in her old age? Not dealing too well with the fact that her 15 minutes was over a long time ago and she is long since forgotten?
Clearly also a slow day for the writer, or maybe he is another nobody trying to make a name for himself going after famous people, just to try to get people to notice him. Toby Keith has a great song about this, "The Critic."
Those that can't do, teach and those that can't teach become critics.
#9 Dirk on 2010-05-04 07:59 (Reply)

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