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08/25/2004 Archived Entry: "On the Radio"
On the Radio:
"I Shall Be Released" by Bob Dylan. More Dylan. This is one in a string of Dylan songs played this afternoon, among them "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "Highway 61." The finale of The Last Waltz turns the song into an anthem of sorts. But listen closely:
They say everything can be replaced,
Yet every distance is not near.
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here.
This is a song about revenge. For every peace rally which revitalizes the song as an ode to final liberation, be careful. Dylan never represented the peace movement. While Woodstock roared, he was having motorcycle accidents in upstate New York. Dylan resists the movement. This song, therefore, should be the anthem of biker gangs, sub/versive compositionists, and anyone looking to knock off somone's hat just for the hell of it, as Ishmael wants to do in the gloomy opening pages of Moby Dick.
"On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson. I always associate this song with Dyan Cannon. Kind of silly, kind of bumpy. It's a song that's just like being on the road again...think about Opus sitting in the car in the driveway shouting out nonesense while pretending to drive. "Sorry, the road makes me giddy," he tells the character sitting next to him. This song is nowhere near as self-reflective and mournful as Red Headed Stranger. I was listening to Red Headed Stranger the other day, in fact. "When the killing is done...." is a line that keeps echoing throughout the room long after it's been sung... "He Ain't No Better Than You" by Mavis Staples. Can you explain the non-Christian drawn to gospel music? If you've ever heard the Staple Singers' "Respect Yourself" or Dorothy Love Coates "Ninety Nine and a Half," you know what I'm talking about. These songs fill you with emotion and energy. Forget the Jesus riffs. Forget the Christian iconology floating around in morality and what not excuses. Just sit back and groove. If only the Christians were as groovy as some of their best music.
