Maggie's Farm

An Unholy Alliance

Who is to blame for the London bombings?  According to news reports, both London Mayor Ken Livingstone and radical Islamist Anjem Choudary agree: it's Britain's fault.  The implied corollary in each case is that the bombings were a justified response to legitimate grievances (even if the method employed was a bit distasteful to the sensibilities of "Red Ken").  If both Britain's leaders and enemies are against her, who will stand for her?  

Islam, Religion of Peace, Part 2

Continuing on the topic of yesterday's post, The View From 1776 has more analysis of Islam and the current geopolitical situation here.  One particular point he makes that is worth repeating here is that of course there are many individual Muslims who are staunchly opposed to terrorism and mistreatment of non-Muslims, and I would add that it is not right to hold present-day Muslims accountable for the crimes of their forbears.

That said, the bulk of the evidence from opinion surveys, muted and even positive reactions to terrorist attacks in many Muslim nations, and general attitudes toward non-Muslim minorities in these nations shows that these "moderate" Muslim voices, if they exist in significant numbers, have effectively no voice in making domestic or foreign policy.  Those nations that are generally considered most "Westernized," such as Turkey, still conduct persecutions of minority groups (i.e., the Kurds), while the few nations that have legally-enforced tolerance, such as Iran, are happy to do so when over 98 percent of the country is already Muslim.  If anyone knows of a Muslim-majority society with significant religious minorities where such groups exist in peace, harmony, and demographic stability, please let me know.

View From The Right also tackles this issue  here and elsewhere.  The excerpted passage from Robert Klein Engler demands reading in full here - it's rare indeed to find someone able to write with this degree of honesty, openness and courage about the current "War on Terror." Here's one paragraph I might have cited the other day:

"The West against Islam is nothing new.  What’s new is that because of oil, the conflict has now expanded to the New World. There are no radical Muslims, nor Islamo-Fascists, there are just Muslims doing what they have always done--spreading Islam by force and terror.  Compare the spread of Islam with that of Buddhism, and the truth of this history becomes obvious."

The truth hurts sometimes, but far better to confront it openly and with the courage of one's own convictions than to cover ones eyes and ears, as the English have done, and pretend that the problem simply doesn't exist.

Reading the reactions of Canadian Muslims to the London bombings as they attempt to paint themselves as victims of nonexistent crimes made me think back to some of the very real crimes that have been committed by Muslims against the Christian (and other non-Muslim) minorities in their midst throughout history.  Most Westerners, familar only with the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Holocaust, may be surprised by this:

The Armenians: Over 1,000,000 killed by the Turks in 1915 in a forgotten genocide.

The Assyrian Christians: An ancient, non-Arab people of Northern Iraq, 500,000-750,000 - almost three-quarters of the entire Assyrian population - killed in 1915 by the Turks.

The Serbians: The first true ethnic cleansing in the Balkans was committed by the Ottomans, who after a failed campaign against the Austrians in the 1680s killed thousands of Serbs and destroyed hundreds of churches and monasteries, notably in the Serbian homeland of Kosovo.

The Egyptian Copts: The first major persecutions of Egyptian Christians began during the medieval Fatimid Caliphate, but they continue today in the form of abductions, forced conversions and harsh laws overlooked by the government of Hosni Mubarak.

The Lebanese: Christians were a majority of the inhabitants of Lebanon from late Roman times until the 1980s civil war, when tens of thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands more driven to emigrate.  In 1980, Lebanon was majority Christian nation: today, Christians are a shrinking minority.

The Sudanese: 1.5 million Christians have been killed by Muslims in the north of the country, and many more have been tortured, enslaved or driven from their homes.

The Nigerians: Muslims in the north of the country have launched a virtual civil war against the Christians of the south, killing thousands of innocent civilians in attacks over the past several years.

The Iraqi Christians: One of the lamentable results of the Iraq war has been the persecution, killing and emigration of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians, who are suspected of being in league with the Western occupying forces.  Christians made up as many as 15-20 percent of the Iraqi population 25 years ago: today the figure is three percent and falling.

The Hindus: The Muslim conquest of northern India and Afghanistan resulted in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Buddhists and the destruction of entire cities.  Even when nearly every last non-Muslim had been killed or converted, the Taliban still insisted on destroying the harmless and beautiful Buddhist reliefs carved into cliffsides to eradicate every trace of their memory.

The Indonesians: Attacks against Christians in recent years have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Christians and the destruction of thousands of Christian-owned homes and businesses.

This is only a very partial list, of course, but it is fairly representative of the atrocities that have been committed all over the world throughout history and up to the present day.  All of this is in addition to continuing legal discrimination against Christians in Muslim-majority nations, including laws against interfaith marriage and Muslim-to-Christian conversions in Egypt, laws against public worship and the establishment of new churches in Saudi Arabia, and laws against proselytization of Muslims in Malaysia.

Cont'd on continuation page below:

Dylan Performs For Amazon

Click here to see the taped version of last night's performance at Amazon.com's 10th anniversary concert, which also featured Norah Jones.  Dylan's part of the show begins at roughly 1:45, and I strongly encourage you to skip forward.  The setlist is not very exciting, but make sure to catch "Blind Willie McTell" about halfway through.  Also, no closeups of Dylan - a prearranged agreement I'm sure. This probably will not be available tomorrow...

Those Oh-So-Rare Muslim Extremists

To counter the endless and pathetic apologizing of the likes of Tony Blair, who insist that only a "tiny minority" of Muslims support violence in the name of Islam, this Pew Poll, despite its headline, shows very high levels of support for bin Laden and his methods (though the numbers have fallen in the past three years).

In Pakistan, over half the population - that's more than 80 million people! - maintain confidence in bin Laden, while in Jordan fully 57 percent support the use of suicide bombings to advance the cause of Islam.  Support varies dramatically from nation to nation of course, but a casual glance at these figures shows that far from being the work of a tiny core of extremists, international Islamic terrorism has the full-fledged support of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world.  I don't know if similar polls have been done among European Muslims, but the results would likely be no better, and possibly a lot worse.

By the time 1997 rolled around, Bob Dylan had gone seven full years without releasing any original material, and it appeared as though he had permanently put aside the creation of new compositions in favor of year-round touring and performing.  Though 1989’s Oh Mercy was hailed as a comeback, its 1990 follow-up, Under The Red Sky, was widely panned, and Dylan sunk further still with a disastrous tour in 1991.  Less attentive observers might have written off Dylan completely by 1992, but those dedicated fans that continued to attend live performances may have noticed a startling turnaround in concert quality by 1993, as Dylan found a strong new voice that reflected both a wiser maturity and much-improved tonal command.  After the release of two albums of blues and folk covers in 92 and 93, Dylan continued to hone his live performances to an even greater degree, giving hard-rocking shows in 1995 that continued to redefine and renew songs from throughout his vast catalogue.  A breathtaking performance of Restless Farewell for Frank Sinatra’s 80^th birthday celebration in the waning days of 1995 led some perceptive commentators to suspect that Dylan was only beginning to rediscover his powers.

For most critics, however, the arrival of Time Out Of Mind in September 1997 came as a complete surprise.  That the album was excellent, rivaling his best work from the past 20 years, was even more of a shock to the public, its high quality further magnified by the reputation of the author and the seemingly permanent break he had taken from songwriting.  The album captured a Grammy award and landed Dylan on the cover of Time magazine, but the music itself was anything but typical pop-scene fare.  In fact, Time Out Of Mind was perhaps the gloomiest, most pessimistic take on life and the human experience that Dylan had ever put together, backed by exquisite and immensely atmospheric arrangements courtesy of producer Daniel Lanois.  The songs themselves are bleak and haunting, always returning to the tried and true blues themes of lost loves, feelings of loneliness and isolation from society, and the inevitability of death and loss.  As he had been doing for decades, Dylan often appropriated classic blues phrases in their entirety, perhaps tweaking them here or there, but leaving the most memorable imagery intact.  Lines like “Going to walk down that dirt road ‘til my eyes begin to bleed,” and “turn your lamp down low” are taken almost word for word from old blues standards, and their very familiarity, their innate, almost subconscious power, lends the songs a powerful foundation in a century-old musical tradition.

Following a mysterious motorcycle crash in late 1966, Dylan retreated almost entirely from the public eye, instead choosing to concentrate on raising a family in his Woodstock, New York home.  Tired of the accolades and weighty titles that had been heaped upon him by critics who saw him as the voice of the 60s counterculture, Dylan released albums that either directly repudiated the trendy psychedelic sound of late 60s rock (1967’s “John Wesley Harding”) or which aimed to drive away his fans altogether through sheer awfulness (1970’s “Self Portrait”).  In 1974, with his marriage beginning to crumble, Dylan teamed up with The Band to record a new album shortly after leaving behind the tranquil domestic life he had enjoyed for the previous seven years.  The resultant product, “Planet Waves,” is a pleasant, soft-sounding album that on the surface does not seem to foreshadow the drastic changes that were poised to occur in Dylan’s life.

Musically and lyrically, “Planet Waves” is no groundbreaking album, staying true to Dylan’s early 1970s pattern of simple, sparsely arranged songs that Dylan himself admitted (in his recent “Chronicles Vol. 1) “could blow away in cigar smoke.”  Apart from “Forever Young,” none of the songs have made much of an appearance in concert, either, making it one of Dylan’s least favorite albums to perform live.  The album, which is bolstered by the first-rate musicianship of The Band, is highly listenable nonetheless, and a close reading of the lyrics reveals a man split between his love for his wife and family and his restless, foot-twitching desire to keep moving on and exploring new ground in life.

The second track on the album, “Going, Going, Gone,” the title itself a play on a distinctive home run call of Yankees announcer Mel Allen, reads on the page as though it were written not in 1974, but in 1997 for that year’s album “Time Out Of Mind.”  The words here, like most of those on the later release, are simple and straightforward, clearly laying out the dilemma that Dylan faces.  In “Hazel” the singer seems to be leaning towards staying the course with his marriage, and this sentiment continues in “Something There Is About You” until the third stanza where Dylan abruptly declares that faithfulness may be too much to expect from him.  By “Dirge,” the album has descended to “Blood On The Tracks” depths of angst and self-pity, and everything looks as though it’s fallen apart.  “Wedding Song” ends the album on a final, fittingly equivocal note, as declarations of love and affection are joined to a slow and mournful melody, resulting in an experience that tugs the listener in two separate directions.  Even the lavish praise that Dylan heaps upon his wife in the song seems born of desperation and comes across as an attempt to win back the attentions of another as much as it is a simple confirmation of existing love.  Both “Tough Mama” and “Forever Young” work better as standalone songs, and are also two of the stronger vocal and instrumental performances on the album. 

After the short break required to record “Planet Waves” (some say the sessions were completed in three days!) Dylan was back out on the road continuing to tour for the first time since 1966, and would never again take such a protracted break from live performances.  “Planet Waves” would quickly come to be eclipsed by the two outstanding albums that followed, yet it succeeds on its own relatively limited terms and remains a pleasant if unchallenging listening experience 30 years later.

Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Bread

Jimmy Buffett bemoaned the fact that he missed his true calling as a pirate by 200 years, but he apparently never thought to check out Somalia, where honest-to-goodness pirates recently hijacked a UN-chartered freighter bearing food aid for tsunami victims.  Now, one could more easily sympathize with the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who are known for plundering gold-laden Spanish galleons, but the theft by Somalis of food destined for their starving compatriots somehow strikes one as less daring and romantic.  Do we now need to bring in food shipments to these people under full military guard to prevent criminals from stealing the whole lot of them?  I seem to remember us trying something like that back in 1993 but somehow I don't think it ended up very well.

By late 1964, Dylan had already confounded his folk audience with his perceived abandonment of politically-charged protest songwriting on “Another Side of Bob Dylan.”  The folk music crowd had been puzzled by the increasingly whimsical and romantic songwriting on that album, but they were totally unprepared for the surprises Dylan had in store for them in 1965.

“Bringing It All Back Home” represents the first time Dylan broke with his acoustic past to embrace an electric sound – the entire first half of the album features electrified tracks, giving the folk audience a preview of the shock he would deliver live later that year at the Newport Folk Festival.  Even the “folkier-sounding” acoustic tracks on side two abandon traditional folk sensibilities in their lyrics, instead exploring a colorful, often bizarre world of fantastic imagery that nonetheless represented a personal vision far removed from the collective social commentary common to folk music of the time.

Some writers have noted a continuing tendency to social criticism on songs such as “Maggie’s Farm,” a track that can be interpreted as a bitter and sarcastic take on (metaphorically-represented) American institutions, yet the song works just as well, if not better, as a more generalized depiction of the travails of most any job that involves working under a superior.  “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which some critics have anointed as the “first rap song,” features an infectious Chuck Berry rhythm (try listening to his “Too Much Monkey Business” for a glimpse at the song’s direct predecessor) overlaid with rapid-fire lyrics that expand far beyond the ones on Berry’s original.

 On the acoustic side, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” features some of Dylan’s most mind-bending imagery and razor-sharp observations, while “Gates Of Eden” (a “Desolation Row” precursor) strikes a death-blow to the very notion of unquestioning certainty and self-righteousness on any issue, social, political or otherwise.  “Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream” gives the listener a dose of comic relief amidst all the weighty poetry as well as an early look at the whimsical side to Dylan that would be fully explored a few years later in “The Basement Tapes.”  Mr. Tambourine Man, perhaps the best-known song on the album due to its chart-topping cover by The Byrds, stands as a landmark songwriting achievement whether or not you believe it was the product of drug-fueled escapades.

 With “Bringing It All Back Home,” Dylan had truly let the cat out of the bag, throwing to the wind whatever folk-related inhibitions he had retained and letting his unique poetic impulses run wild.  “Highway 61 Revisited,” released only a few months later, would extend this period of astonishing creativity by developing and refining the blues-based rock sound and exploring new lyrical ground, but “Bringing It All Back Home,” far from being merely a transitional album, stands on its own as a momentous achievement in the history of 20^th century "popular" music.

Review of 6/14 Dylan Show, in Bowie, MD, plus Jenna Bush

Well, the air was so stuffy, I could hardly breathe, and while it was clearly too hot to sleep, it wasn't quite hot enough to keep The Dylanologist from driving out to Bowie, Maryland, to see Bob again.  Temperatures in the mid-90s during the day hadn't subsided very much even by Dylan's appearance a little past 9 p.m., but as the first few chords of "Drifter's Escape" blared out the heat and the sweat were forgotten and all eyes turned to the frail, black-garbed man on stage.  The show overall was quite good: the band was on, and Bob's voice was generally solid throughout, particularly on "Senor," "Shooting Star," and "Chimes of Freedom," my three favorites from the evening's setlist.  Bob's harp solos were particularly good, far better than when I heard him last.  "Summer Days" seems to have lost some of its punch, but it still got people up and dancing and is a perfect tune for the time of year and the type of venue (a minor league ballpark, like most other stops on the current tour). 

Today, the Dylanologist is pleased a new addition to Maggie’s Farm: the Bob Dylan album review series.  Beginning today, with new installments appearing (almost) every Friday, The Dylanologist will cast a critical eye on each of the song and dance man’s albums, from the introductory “Bob Dylan” up to 2001’s widely acclaimed effort “Love and Theft,” or at least as many as he can cover before exhaustion sets in.  Reviews will NOT be posted in any sort of chronological order, but according to the Dylanologist’s mood and current listening preferences.

This week’s review tackles one of Dylan’s most maligned albums, “Empire Burlesque,” released in 1985.  The 1980s are generally considered to have been Dylan’s weakest decade, a time when his well of creativity at last dried up after a long fertile phase.  While it’s difficult to point to any albums from that time that are as consistently good and well-structured as Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, or even Street Legal, many of the individual songs on these albums are excellent in and of themselves, even if the albums on which they are found can’t rank with Dylan’s greatest works. 

 Familiar themes are illuminated on several of the tracks. The classic-film-quoting “Seeing the Real You At Last,” for example, a jaunty rocker that Dylan has often featured in superior form in concert, references failed relationships. On “Clean-Cut Kid” Dylan makes his only explicit statement about Vietnam, though the anti-war sentiment here is not so much different from that on “John Brown.”  “Trust Yourself” is a fairly direct plea to his audience, in much the same vein as “It Ain’t Me Babe,” while the haunting acoustic closer “Dark Eyes,” a throwback to Dylan’s pre-electric days in the early 60s that nonetheless does not feel out of place as the last song on the album, features provocative lyrics tethered to a simplistic melody.

 One of the biggest criticisms of Empire Burlesque, however, has not been the songwriting but rather the production.  In a bid to capture a “contemporary” sound, which he achieved with somewhat greater success on 1979’s Slow Train Coming, Dylan brought in a crack production team that layered synthesizers and thumping electronic beats over Dylan’s competent lyrics and melodies.  The result is a sound that has not aged well over the years, showing all too plainly its mid-80’s origins.

Kerry Flunks GPA Comparison

After endless late-night jokes during the campaign mocking George W. Bush's supposed lack of brainpower, it turns out that Dubya actually maintained a slightly higher average during his time at Yale than John Kerry, and earned only one "D" as compared to Kerry's four (though neither man's academic record is especially praiseworthy).  Kerry had declined to release his college transcript until just last month, and it seems we now know the reason for the delay.

Comment from Editor: Now how long must we wait for his military records...but at this point, who really cares? (except the Mass. voters)...I just want to see Hillary's military records.

Zimbabwe and the African Crisis

Yet another story which has received very little coverage in the US media about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's efforts to punish the urban poor for supporting the opposition candidate in the most recent election.  In fact, the whole sad tale of the once-prosperous nation and its self-inflicted economic collapse has gone all but unreported in American news outlets, nor has the US government done anything other than issue its tepid disapproval of Mugabe's actions.  We ignore Zimbabwe and the continent at our own risk.

Sadly, Zimbabwe's story is not unique among the nations of sub-Saharan Africa.  As many of the former so-called "third world nations" advanced out of poverty in the years 1970-2000 - much of southeast Asia for example, and many countries in Latin America - African nations actually saw their per capita incomes decline during this period, as explosive population growth overwhelmed small gains in productivity.  Five years into the new millenium, the trend has only continued to accelerate, as the old, post-WWII categories of first world (the West and Japan), second (the old Communist bloc) and third (all the rest) give way to a new order in which sub-Saharan Africa increasingly occupies a category of its own. 

For example, of the 30 lowest-ranked nations in the world in terms of per capita income, sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for 20 (with many of the remaining ten being small, isolated island nations with tiny populations or Palestinian territories). Of those nations with the highest birth rates, often a good indicator of education, urbanization and women's rights, African nations are almost uniformly far above every other country in the world with the exception of Afghanistan and Yemen.

The population dynamics in particular are rarely considered in a geopolitical sense, yet what we are witnessing today is the greatest change in the distribution of human beings in history.  From a population of roughly 100 million in 1900, Africa will grow to a projected 1.3 billion by 2020, while during the same time Europe's population will have less than doubled (from 400 million to under 700 million and shrinking).  The future here is more or less set: already Nigeria has nearly as many 0-14 year olds as the entire European Union.  The implications of such a massive population shift combined with increasing economic inequality is a recipe for unrest on a giant scale.  The rapid spread of AIDS and the fact that Islam is gaining ground in southern Africa add additional explosive elements into the mix.  The tension is already evident in the huge number of African emigrants desperate to enter Europe, yet what has happened thus far only represents the very beginning.  The only question now is how Europe and the West will respond.

Bad Bad Books

Human Events online has compiled a list of the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries, with The Communist Manifesto easily grabbing first place.  The runner-up list provides comprehensiveness, but I'm sure there are a few more works which readers could add (or some which they feel don't belong on the list).  Any ideas?

Most readers are probably already aware of the recent proposal by Sen. Ted Kennedy and (nominally Republican) Sen. John McCain to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and create a massive new immigration category allowing an additional 400,000 unskilled workers to enter each year to take those pesky jobs that "no Americans want to do." 

This proposal is already reminiscent of the catastrophically failed 1986 amnesty, which legalized millions of illegals without providing the promised border or employment enforcement afterwards, resulting the massive, uninterrupted influx since that time.  The biggest red flag, however, should be the name of the Massachusetts senator attached to the bill.  For our readers' benefit, here is a little excerpt from remarks delivered by Kennedy in 1965 prior to the passage of the Immigration Act of that same year (which ushered in the current age of mass immigration):

"The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.)

As many people have noted elsewhere, Kennedy's description of what would not happen in fact provided a brilliantly concise and accurate picture of what actually did happen, right down to the letter.  Let's compare those remarks with some he recently gave in reference to the bill currently on the table:

"This bill is not amnesty. This bill does not provide a free pass to anyone. This bill does not give an automatic pardon to anyone. This bill does not put those that have been illegal that are here in the United States at the front of the line," Mr. Kennedy said.

As one might say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Now, Kennedy may be technically correct when he says there is no "free pass" involved, but it hardly sounds better to tell the truth, that American citizenship is now on sale for the low, low price of $2,000 (the fine that illegals must pay to be eligible for a green card and citizenship).  In any case, while this is the sort of thing we might expect from Kennedy, McCain has truly sold out his nation and his Arizona constituents, who just a few months ago overwhelmingly passed a ballot referendum denying certain social services to illegals.  Stay tuned for more on this story.

A cat's meow and a cow's moo, I can recite em all
Just tell me where it hurts yuh, honey,
And I'll tell you who to call.
Nobody can get no sleep
There's someone on everyone's toes
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybodys gonna wanta doze.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

Dylan, from Quinn the Eskimo
Lyrics here.

Many people have probably read about the little flap that occurred recently over Vincente Fox's statement in a speech that Mexican immigrants in the U.S. take "jobs that not even blacks want to do."    For a long time now, having failed to implement any meaningful domestic reforms at home, Fox's administration has turned into what is essentially one huge lobbying firm on behalf of illegal Mexican immigrants, reasoning perhaps that if one cannot placate a disgruntled, jobless citizen, what better solution than to simply ship him out of the country while scooping up the remittances that flow back home?  Of course, Fox is forced to praise these undesirables as "dignified" and "hard-working" citizens who make a critical contribution to the American economy, which should raise the question (among Mexicans and American both) why Fox would want to see such valuable workers out of his country at all costs.

With his most recent remarks, El Presidente has inadvertently called attention to another unsavory feature of Mexican society: its endemic racism.  Like almost every other Central and South American nation, Mexico is a racially stratified country, with the elite ranks occupied almost entirely by whites, mestizos in the middle, and blacks and indigenous Indians on the lowest rungs.  Discrimination and outright violence against the lowest classes in Mexican society is a common feature of everyday life in that nation, yet Fox spends the greatest part of his time complaining about "mistreatment" of Mexican illegals in the USA, such mistreatment usually referring to gross injustices like the refusal to issue drivers' licenses or discounted in-state college tuition (!) to illegal aliens.  Of course, such blinding hypocrisy is nothing new for Fox, who recently leveled harsh criticism against the volunteer Minutemen project, even as the Mexican army patrols its own southern border with Guatemala, routinely imprisoning and deporting Central American illegals.

And where is the guy who is supposed to be on our side in all of this, George W.?  Far from standing up to Fox's tin-pot grandstanding, Bush has gone out of his way to praise illegals in the highest terms, condemn the Minutemen as "vigilantes," and advocate mass amnesties, concessions which have earned him nothing more than further scorn, abuse and even threats from the Mexican government.  Note to W: A nation which exports drugs and crime north of the border, vocally opposes the Iraq war, presses for "rights" for illegal criminals, meddles in our domestic policymaking and maintains a system of institutionalized racism to prop up a corrupt elite is not our "friend."  If we can go halfway around the world to destroy a corrupt dictatorship (and one that posed no immediate threat to us), surely we can stand up to the one in our own backyard!

It's May 24 once again, and all of us here at Maggie's Farm would like take a moment to acknowledge the birthday of the man seen at right.  Happy 64th Bob!  May you stay forever young.

Crash on the levee, mama,
Water's gonna overflow.
Swamp's gonna rise,
No boat's gonna row.
Now you can train on down
To Williams Point,
You can bust your feet,
You can rock this joint.
But oh, mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
You're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend somehow.

Dylan, from Down in the Flood

Dylan Live

Good sample - the music itself - of recent and not-so-recent live performances.  Best ones: Hank Williams' Cant Get you Off of my Mind and Po Lazarus from 1961. Plus they have Hazel.

Word to the wise: if you don't know what Dylan is, you'll never know until you hear the live stuff. Even then, you won't know what he is.

Dylan and Lousiana

A piece from 2002, but an interesting review of his fondness for New Orleans.

Next Dylan Tour

Announced today. Interestingly, again with Willy Nelson. Drove down to see them in New Haven last August - seeing Willy was a nice appetizer.

Get your tix beginning Apr. 23, via BobDylan.com, link to left.

Towering Ambitions

Anyone care to guess the location of the soon-to-be tallest skyscraper in the world?  If you logically said Malaysia, or Taiwan, or even New York with its new World Trade Center site plans, you'd be wrong.  Actual location: Dubai, lately of the United Arab Emirates, which has recently completed the foundations for what will not only be the world's biggest skyscraper, but tallest man-made structure, beating out even Toronto's dizzying CN tower for the title.  (Here's a list of the tallest towers currently standing, though as the footnote states, a handful of radio masts stand even taller than these).

Now, while I have to admit that constructing a building like this in Dubai - not exactly one of the great metropolises of the world - can only be for the sake of image, the design does look quite cool and sleek, and it certainly is like nothing else that has ever been built.  Check out the official site for the project here.

The New Tour

Guess everyone wants to hear Merle. I heard the NYC shows were sold out on the first day. Click here: bobdylan.com

(Looks like a big day for photos on ye olde blog.)

40th Anniversary

Today, of the release of Bringing it all Back Home, Click here: Amazon.com: Music: Bringing It All Back Home [HYBRID SACD] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] , one of Dylans' first great records, with the original recording of - what else? - Maggie's Farm.