Rock critic Greil Marcus right after the pubblication of his book "Like A Rolling Stone", on Bob Dylan, the famous song and the American traditional music. Interview by Stefano Pistolini. Filmed by Massimo Salvucci in Rome, 2005.
When I was training as a nurse we were told not to use closed questions, we had to ask "How does it feel?" "How does that make you feel?" Rather than "are you OK?" where they can answer yes or no. "How does it feel?" Is a reflective comment, you can't answer it without asking yourself, "How do I feel?" Yet in those 4 words so many answers are available. And for Dylan to be aware of that at so young an age when he wrote 'Like A Rolling Stone' is kinda, genius.
@@timgelder4263 I luv it too. I say how you feeling to my friends. They have spent knees and all kinds of stuff for pain like pills followed by different pills. One she's fading fast from Parkinson's disease but she is still with us. I am the strong one. I give out my free high grade skunk #1. But they want pills. We hangout with the big screen TV and the covid19 doom. It's possible our little group will get hit hard someday. Till then it's hey how you feeling?
@@timgelder4263 You're living the new normal. Shelter in place with your own thoughts,weed and the unlimited vast wasteland of modern technology. I have been living like this for years after my wife from cancer . Right now I am the boy in a plastic bubble. I poach free WiFi and stay self contained in a mini van with the back seats out. The world is changing and I am trying to stay the same. The growing season is coming. Outlaw style in the mountains. It's a whole technique and it's practically free. They just need love and attention and the government demons to stay away. Don't we all want that?
Thank you for the brief sketches of this interview. His appreciations on Dylan's music match my own deep feelings about the Hibbing genius. While reading and listening to Dylan's music I got that feeling of a timeless conversation with a kindred soul: a spirit that swims into the infinite vastness of past and future time to forge something new. I feel he's not just a singer-songwriter: to me he's a brilliant philosopher and a sharp historian.
Marcus is the only really intellectual critic of pop music in America- Trying to approach any pop culture thing, like comic books, films, etc.- they become diminished somewhat when it is deconstructed this way. He has however written beautifully about the Harry Smith material that Dylan was able to consume and then spit out again in his own personal way (Penny's Farm to Maggie's Farm) that also fits into our current culture. Dylan's lyrics in the 60s were surreal, purposely obscure but in sink with the times. Sometimes overly dramatic, sometimes dumb but always in sink. The same was true for Picasso also. He studied the classic painters in his youth, then broke them out of their original time and placed them in the early 20th century. Dylan was able to do this with weird old American music. And uniquely so. Read "Invisible Republic". Marcus writes better than he speaks.
The Odessy, Ulysses, like a rolling stone ,all from the same cloth...
5 лет назад
I have not liked this guy since he said, "What is this shit?" about Dylan's Self Portrait LP. Which actually sold well. My feeling was that if he has to ask what is this shit, he knows very little about American and traditional music. And doesn't know where Dylan is coming from or the depth of Dylan's musical knowledge. Dylan isn't just a rock star but kind of an ethnomusicologist himself. But how pretentious that a critic talks that way about Dylan. I got to meet Dylan and talk with him alone the day he made the vid for Political World in Bloomington, IN. At IU's telecom bldg. Bob was very genuine and shook hands etc. It was like the day before Thanksgiving and the campus was dead. It was really neat. Contrasted with BS artists who make money from writing stuff about Dylan. Almost like fake news is now. Dylan acted normal unlike how you see him when the media or critics are asking him questions that are awful. They never really talk or ask him musical stuff. nOw this guy publishes a book Like A Rolling STone after saying What is this shit. When I saw he wrote a book i thought, What is this shit? he turned me off a long time ago.
I guess we can't take critics too seriously. Artists do what they feel when they are in a creative mood. Dylan has said he made bad albums, when he was married and didn't want attention.
John Desmond ...I remember a guy got up on stage once in Melbourne where we were part of the live poetry gigs. We’d have open mic as well as guest readers etc. He performed a poem of his called Critics. I can’t remember a lot of it now because it was so long ago...but he said that they’d all ‘....graduated from the University of Longing.’ Brilliant! 😂
After watching several interviews with Bob Dylan, esp. with Bill Bradley he appears to be the one least interested in having his art dissected. Doesn't appear to enjoy all the attention. "People come to my house, knock on my door, and ask me questions about everything. I know nothing about organic farming." He writes great poetry and music, but all the hoopla must get tiring to any artist.....
What he's saying toward the end, about people who write about songs who can't write about music so they just write about lyrics, and then he talks about people who interpret lyrics, what this means, what that means, who this character represents, who that character represents or what they represent, i think this is true not just of songs but of air in general, interpreting it, you are just laying out your own trip, what you see in it, it's not authoritative, it's not the objective meaning of the art. it's what it means to you, like looking in a mirror and saying what you see, or a rorschach.
Which Dylan himself has said...& just because this landmark piece LRS was aimed originally at a particular person doesn't mean it doesn't contain aspects of others...or of a generation unmoored. Isn't that expressive skillful interplay between & coming together of conscious, collective unconscious, superconscious & personal, interpersonal & transpersonal dimensions what goes into creating great art? Analysis of art, including of song, might be useful fun sometimes for varieties of reasons including hopefully to pique another's curiosity to experience & delve more deeply into the piece themselves...&/or can mislead, but it of course can never fully speak for the artist & his/her art. To me, Greil is on target about some thing's, probably where his discussions with Bob have paid off, & in the bs speculation zone or off target on others. And as Bob has indicated, if he felt he could explain/express whatever it was that he was trying to convey at any given time better than in the song itself then he would have chosen, & of course has at times, some other medium to do so.
I still have a hard time reading or listening to Marcus after the infamous first-line of his review for the "Self Portrait" album. (I won't repeat it here, but if you don't know it you can Google it.) I've tried. I even bought his 2010 book, "Bob Dylan, Writings 1968-2010," and gave up on wading through Marcus's pontificating. I know that some may read anything written about Dylan, but not me...babe!
Well apart from The Mighty Quin and She Belongs to Me it is indeed and incredibly weak album and shows very poor judgement by Dylan. Its his worst apart from the trio of "Christian" albums.
I loved the book. I adore Dylan like nobody's business but he's not a god. Greil Marcus is unmatched in my view as a writer about music. I love his books.
Agreed. Yet another self-absorbed product of San Francisco. He wrote the liner to The Bootleg Series release of Self Portrait and, as expected, his content contains overarching statements that are misleading or simply not true. The guy needs an editor, a fact checker and a course in Freshman Composition 101.
@@lesliescott2362 (Well, someone's gotta support the bum. Yet, you gotta hand it to Marcus: he sure has a great gig, which can be summed up thusly: "do nothing -- get paid".)
It's probably a meaningless slip-but when he's talking about the music of Like A Rolling Stone -he says something to the effect about how Bloomfield is going to explain how the keys are going to change and all that -but the chords change -not the "keys" it's one key all the way through-later he says,it's harder to write about the music-and a lot more important than looking for "meanings" (I agree)-but it's really hard to write about the music if you can't identify the chords in a simple progression like " Like A Rolling Stone"-and can't identify the difference between chord changes and modulations .
well you know you can totally be an appreciator and critic of art and music without understanding the technical aspects of it. Some critics may not understand chord progressions or key changes (or the lack of a key change) but they are still able to explore the meanings of the song and how it affects them. You and I both probably don't want to hear a lot of the critical things people have to say about Dylan because i feel like they are missing the essence of the song by thinking of it that reductionistically. I see what you're saying though- it would help if someone knew some music basics. I think that someone who doesn't can still be a critic. One of the music journalists I knew in LA was originally a sports journalist, and he's really good at what he does now, but not because of his expertise in musicality itself.
You know then again, he really seems to talk about it as if he does understand the rules of music himself, which seems to be presumptuous when he's talking about a key change and there is no key change in the song. Maybe he should stop talking like he understands the musicians' internal experience and process with the art when he doesn't even understand the rules of music. I think what he says is valuable but he may be crossing some lines of presumption. I see what you're saying for real. That's an interesting point.
Theresa C: I just read G.MArcus' book on the basement tapes.It's a real critical tour de force that illuminates a lot more than the music itself.I recommend it whole-heartedly-and it incidentally proves your first point -that it's possible to be an great critic even if one is not always familiar with all the technical aspects of the craft under consideration. Marcus has been demonstrating that for many,many years . Your fair minded,thoughtful,and logically unimpeachable response response to what I wrote has led me to re-evaluate the implications of what I said. Being absorbed in the technical/theoretical aspects of music ,as I have often been, can result in a crippling loss of perspective.-(Then again basic music theory ain't rocket science -it's really not too much to expect or ask of a rock critic that they acquire a a certain grasp of the essentials somewhere along the way.) Thank you for your response .
David, what would be a sample sentence or three from Marcus's Basement Tapes stuff that you think is particularly informative and insightful? I read it and wasn't impressed.
Great insight. The song was apparently inspired by Dylan's brief encounter with Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol. My favourite line:- "Ah you never turned around to see the frowns On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you You never understood that it ain't no good You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat Ain't it hard when you discovered that He really wasn't where it's at After he took from you everything he could steal"
I've heard this song so many times, but didn't know that was what this part was about. It makes sense. thanks. I was around for Disco, but never liked it much.
I had once heard that the song wasn't about any certain person, but about an imaginary older person. Don't know if it's true or not. Probably Bob is the only one who can elaborate on it. He could have had a specific person in mind for an inspiration then recorded it as if it could apply to anyone in the same or similar circumstances. The lyric "in your prime" appears to be a much older person than Edie would have been at that time.
the key doesnt change....not that it matters.....its an interesting story ....if im not mistaken....the song just faded it out right? dylan was infamous for moving on ...he was never short of material....not in those days. i was born to late ...i listen to those old songs and dream what it mustve been like then
And this, Ladies and Gentleman, is why Greil Marcus is one of the Big Boys of golden age Rock Journalism... because his ability to spin sparkling bullshit from nothing but air is nonpareil. In point of fact, Greil is way off here, as is every other critic who interprets the "How does it feel?" line as a direct challenge to the audience. The "you" the song is addressed to is no more the *you* of the audience than it is in "Walk Away Renee" or "Layla". The "you" of "Like a Rolling Stone" is hugging herself off-camera as we innocent bystanders witness Bob's epic needling of her with the moist poetic dressing-down in Popular Music History. The tables have turned and an arrogant, narcissistic and until-now-pampered Rich Bitch is suddenly on the street, unshielded, broke and within range of Bob's merciless weapon of analysis. Bob's critique of what the former Rich Bitch did, liked and resembled could not possibly apply, even in general terms, to any but the rarest minority within Bob's audience... and the fact that this relentless assault on social pretensions applies as readily to a few dozen other fallen debutantes (of all ages)... as it did to (probably) Edie Sedgewick... is a tribute to Bob's power as a writer. This isn't just about one girl, it's about a type... and most of us aren't it. So just nod and smile and say, "Well done, Greil..." but realise that he is gumming up the song's actual precision, and power, in his preposterous reading of it. Remember, too, that whatever a songwriter says about a song's meanings has to be taken with grains of salt, as the whole point of metaphor and allusion is to *not* nail the subject (and/ or old girlfriends) down. PS As for the brilliance of "How does it feel?" as a line (the launching _howl_ of the first syllable, the nice solid springboard of that "d" before the juicy, invective "f" and the drawn-out sneer of the long "e" after): that was surely an unpremeditated gift from Bob's subconscious. The best songwriters learn to get out of their subconscious' way pretty early in the process. He may even have sung it as a place-holding line until he realized it was *THE* line. Elsewhere in these threads a very intelligent lady writes "How does it feel?" Is a reflective comment, you can't answer it without asking yourself, "How do I feel?" Yet in those 4 words so many answers are available. And for Dylan to be aware of that at so young an age when he wrote 'Like A Rolling Stone' is kinda, genius"... but we can be quite sure Dylan didn't think any of that in the crafting of that line. Place-holding rhymes he cycled through before coming up with that line weren't even close, but any of them could have been the one he decided to keep... in which case we probably wouldn't be talking about the song now. The "luck" of the creative subconscious at work.
"Most people who write about music write words, because they dont know how to write about music". I could not disagree more. The situation is exactly the opposite. Lyrics get barely a mention if at all in todays music journalism, and its been this way for about 20 years.
Great song (like a rolling stone) if not the greatest ever but depthlessly mean and vicious, targeted at a woman who was already on the ground. There is an interview where BD quotes advice he was once given by Liam Clancy which goes something like 'remember Bobby, no envy and no meanness' whereas you could argue his entire career is built on the latter.
I've said this before,but I believe it bears repeating; music journalists who try to analyze lyrics have a tendency to suck all of the joy out of the recording.
Overstated. I don’t believe for one second the first run through was the released version. Give me a break. This guy is just trying to sell his books. In all fairness I have enjoyed his books.
This is quasi-intellectual clap trap- ‘suspense’ ‘fear’ ‘there losing it’ what about the contextual elements of the song, what about some actual input as opposed to saying ‘he’s a great scholar’...
They say there is a special area in hell set aside for critics. Wanna know why? Watch this drivel. OR you could listen to Like A Rolling Stone 3 times through.
Is all the fuss because Rolling Stone magazine named “ Like a Rolling Stone” the greatest rock song of all time, some time back? Does that seem like a conflict of interest to anybody else, on the most basic friggin’ level!? … Like , did they actually poll thousands of people to come up with the Top 100 list?… or did Jann Wenner( think that was original editor’s name) and company just decide that rather obvious act of self-promontion and self- justification of the relevance of their magazine’s name, would actually elevate it’s status somehow? If they did a list of the greatest rock bands of all time ( did they?) who do you think would be #1…!? Just sayin’…if they did and it’s not the Stones, I stand corrected, partially. This guy is no genius and it sounds like he’s humble enough to admit that. Kind of just depends on whether you enjoy rock criticism, innit? I think he makes some interesting points and it sounds like he may have had multiple conversations w Dylan himself during the course of his research… so if Bob found him interesting enough to converse with, maybe that counts for something.🤷🏻Enough with the haters, I say; the guy is doing his thing, he’s good at self-promotion( maybe that’s what people are angry about? -Nobody gets on Bob Dylan’s case about it.) If you don’t like reading his stuff or listening to what he has to say… well, don’t. Easy. Write what you would like to read. “ You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you.” How DOES it feel?!😉❤️AC
