Dylan on my Mind

So I play guitar. I don't write music, I play a wooden microphone with six strings, and I play it like I hate the goddamn thing. My real motivation for playing guitar: I hate punching things. Punching walls, punching pillows, punching bags. Stupid, stupid, stupid, nothing good comes out of it. But pick up a guitar, and all of a sudden, boom, the arm goes wild, the sounds are violent, the banging, the mess. Disgusting sounds, sounds unearthly.

Truth is, I just recently stopped caring what other people think of my work. Certainly, I am willing to admit that an idea I originally thought had value, is really complete garbage. So, with music, I might write lyrics - except, I never write lyrics. I hate lyrics, actually to be honest. Clarification: I hate reading lyrics. It's like when people perform poetry as though each line is suppose to be read like a period. The thing needs to flow, but without those chord, it's shit.

Here's a way to get to the core of something - create epic battles between two artists who represents two sides of the same side of a line.

Bob Dylan Vs. Leonard Cohen

Cohen wins for me. That probably identifies me with the hipster crowd. But I actually like Phil Ochs more than either, for personal reasons. Back to Cohen vs. Dylan: Both are indulgent, ego-centric, wild drug addicts and junkies for words. Why do I return to Cohen with more interest than Dylan?

The simple answer would be that Cohen is more obscure, but that's a cop-out really. I think Cohen never gained the kind of popularity of Dylan because the latter could really write a meaningless pop song that seemed to mean something. Take Rolling Stone, a song that makes me jump out of my skin, like I just want to start banging shit together and run in circles. It's got the best rock structure, because you're waiting for that moment when the things going to explode. And BANG! BANG! BANG! - boom there it is, the organism hits and we're floating for a little bit.

But the lyrics I could take or leave. Sure, there's craft, but I think it's all rhythm, Dylan's delivery. Cohen's different. He's a black-and-white film, but his words carry more. I have mediated on the song Suzanne for hours, thinking about oranges from China and the mind-body divide. What's it about - a ghost, a spirit, an intangible notion of love that's all peace, all tenderness, like those moments in a Fassbinder film where the characters are genuinely happy.

But happiness is not always fun, and Cohen is not nearly as much fun as Dylan. Dylan's a folk comedian who really can't stand being taken seriously, beyond a performer. I think that Cohen knows that those lines, a performer versus an artist or politician, someone that should really be listened to and celebrated, are all really just imaginary. Watch the press conference with Dylan: it's a joke on the society that wants to take meaning from his silly songs that are just vocal images for emotional effect. Songwriters are all about emotion - the highs, the lows, the in-between that really has no name, and so on.

But Cohen has a different quality. His images are cropped. Except maybe Dress Rehearsal Rag, which I love, but you could fault it for Cohen letting his morbid side get the best of him.

"Just relax man, take a chill pill. It's not that serious." Or maybe it really is that serious.

Too quote a Replacement song that I love:

I think big once in a while. - Thinking big to me is a Cohen song, while Dylan is more of the man himself - the character of Bob Dylan, mystery apostle, saint, idol, a man beyond a single man, a transcendent figure that pushes the boundaries of a single body. There is the flesh of Dylan, and that spirit of Dylan, and the two are not the same thing.

May 6th, 2008 - Todd Haynes fittingly all-over-the-map bio pic of Dylan drops on DVD. This post did have a purpose after all.