h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

yeah !! "A Mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido..." what's not to understand

Ah, a chance to show off my old fart wisdom and experience.
Bob Dylan's Sub.Hom.Blus was in the tradition of a 'talking blues' a black amateur folk-musician style based on oral story-telling techniques. The song itself, was at the time (1962), typical of a kind of 'talkin-blues-meets-Greenwich-village-beatnik-poetry' kinda rap.
The word rap, came into being about this time "Hay man watcha rapping about?" or "Yeah, we was just rapping man!", meaning to talk, and comes from black jazz musician jargon. The current musical style of rap follows almost directly from the traditional talkin' blues as morphed by this 60's urban poet mix.

The only real drawback to Dylan's singing abilities is that his song writing was limited melodically by his vocal range. Had he a better singing voice his melodies might have taken his lyrics to even greater heights. But he stuck pretty much to a 'talkin' style of poetry with minimal melodic range. This did however cause him to widen his instrumental skills and expand upon arrangements, employing more versatile musicians behind him. John Hammond, The Band, Tom Petty, etc.

His newest album (his 43rd) comes out in September. As always there'll be at least one true classic on it and a half dozen others that'll screw yer head on back-words. He does know how to write lyrics and he is more faithful to real American language idioms than most modern 'poets'. Only Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen are in the same class, no one else comes close.

Yes, of course, there are lots of better 'songwriters' than these three guys, and nearly everybody has a better singing voice, but these 3 are true poets. The music comes from the words, they don't write tunes first and then think up clever words to fit.
(rant over)
peace
~jwf~

Dylan's voice was entirely unremarkable (however David Gray now sings exactly like Dylan used to -- just listen to both men sing 'babe') but as he's aged it's become much more distinctive. I think the way he sings on 'Things Have Changed' (the song he won an oscar for this year or last) is somehow a voice he has grown into as he has aged. He wrote songs he could sing with his voice, now his voice has adapted to his lyrics. Very fitting I feel.

I don't think his skill as a lyricist would have been improved by improving his voice. The two are seperate. Look at Frank Sinatra or Tom Jones, who are purely there for the voice and can't write songs for buttons. I know that's not your point, but I don't believe a handicap in one area limits a skill in another.

And as for Cohen's voice, his voice REALLY fits his songs. And I wouldn't say it was inferior, rather it is different. If you listen to the people who cover his songs (the men at least ) they all try to emulate that sandpaper sound.

I happen to be a big fan of both, but I consider Dylan the better songwriter of the two -- a preferance which is doubtless due at least in part to Dylan's role as a folk music hero and voice of his generation.

Etc, etc.

-- David, who isn't always flippant.

What I want to know is, how come Sweden gets four dates on the Bob Dylan tour, while Scotland gets one? And not even in Edinburgh? And sold out months in advance?

-- David, it simply isn't fair, arm the photon torpedoes

well, as for myself, i cant stand him or his songs.

I really don't feel that Sub Hom Blues was "talking blues", though I can see your point about urban poet rapping. When I think of "Ramblin' Srcamblin'" by Jerry Jeff Walker, that sort of thing. Dylan did a lot of it, but I wouldn't put Sub Hom Blues in that category. Oh well, I guess it's an opinion thing.

"You can get anything you want..."

That should have been "When I think about talking blues, I think of 'Ramblin' Scramblin'' by Jerry Jeff Walker". Sorry.

What I think Sub Hom Blues is like is "I Want You" by Savage Garden and "Tell Me When (Will I See You Again)" by The Human League. And neither of those are rap. It's Bob Dylan usual spoken style, just faster.

I think of rap as rhyming, but of having a variable number of sylables in each line, thus the requirement to change the speed of talking in rap songs, so that it fits the music. (Not always true, but a rule proved by exceptions). Where as Dylan's poetic background means that he is generally contrary to this, in that his songs carry a similar number of sylables per line.

Perhaps if we had an acceptable definition of rap?

-- David, mostly dangerous

What I think Sub Hom Blues is like is "I Want You" by Savage Garden and "Tell Me When (Will I See You Again)" by The Human League. And neither of those are rap. It's Bob Dylan usual spoken style, just faster.

I think of rap as rhyming, but of having a variable number of sylables in each line, thus the requirement to change the speed of talking in rap songs, so that it fits the music. (Not always true, but a rule proved by exceptions). Where as Dylan's poetic background means that he is generally contrary to this, in that his songs carry a similar number of sylables per line.

Perhaps if we had an acceptable definition of rap?

-- David, mostly dangerous

That or we need to get lives.

Johnny's in the basement
mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
talkin bout the gov'ment

Scan that y'bass!

Keep a clean nose
And don' mess wid dose
who play round de fire-hose


Jerry Jeff Walker is a washtub-scraping jug-band musician. (At least according to The Lovin' Spoonful's definition of Jug Band Music.) It's a rhythm thing with repitious refrains coming out of simple chants like "Hambone, hambone, stomp yo feets" and other group play rhythms mixed with hillbilly instruments and sentiments.

But the Talkin' Blues comes out of the 'moan', a solo tesimony to the grievances of life, expressed by one man's voice of experience. Robert Johnson's 'Walking Blues' is a talkin' blues.
The best known examples of the original moan are perhaps Old Man River or Old Black Joe, because the Depression era allowed whites to share misery with long suffering blacks and 'pop' music exploited the melancholy and popularised it.
The true moan was an individual cry of despair, like a poets expression of angst. With post war mobility and prosperity, the moan became the 'talking blues'. Son House, Howling Wolf, etc.
With the white intellectual element of sympathetic beatnik poets added to the 'talkinblues/moan' formula it became the poets' monotone protest rant. Ginsberg, etc...
And SubHumBlu was folksinger Dylan's unique take on it.
The form continued in the inner city and later exploded as rap.
IMHO
peace
~jwf~ (not making sense of something that needs to demonstrated to the ears and heart, not the eyes and brain)

It just gets deeper and deeper doesn't it...... perhaps if we define rap as 'semi-singing with your hat on the wrong way round to someone else's music' ?

I've always found musical definitions pretty poor things to pin down really, I tend to define stuff as either I like it or I don't.... I like rap, but not all of it, I know what I like when I hear it.


Harlequin - ambigious and not sure where this is heading

Hey, that's between 4 and 7 sylables a line. By 'eck that's close enough for me, chuck. I can't even count passed three.

And I will support that definition of rap. Why not, eh?

Lets drop Bob in a ditch and move on.

-- David, these are my tag lines, don't make me hurt you.

so what are we going to talk about because I was totally lost on the Bob Dylan convo because I didn't go online for two days!

but what about hiphop? is rap hip hop? is hiphop rap? hmm?

Hip hop? Rap? I think there's a difference, but I'm not sure what it is. Isn't hip hop usually poppier?

What about Indie? What's everyones feelings on that?

I think Indie's great, and I'm glad Harrison Ford is coing back to play him a fourth time.

yes. thats great, and also indie the gnre is good too.

Souldn't that be 'gner' for blood on the tracks?