Don't Look Back

This documentary is about Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home (1965) tour in England, his tour for the album he released right before Highway 61 Revisited (1966). These two records, as Polizotti writes, mark the moment where he went from folk artist to rock star. Can you see evidence of this transition in the film? Also, what is this Bob Dylan like? How is he similar or different from the Dylan(s) you saw in Todd Haynes' film? What is his relationship w/ the press? And how does he talk about his own music? Do you think he's a good authority on his own music? Or do you think it's better to consult a trained professional critic like Polizotti?

Desolation Row

This is the last song on Highway 61 Revisited. It's also the longest song. Why do you think Dylan chose to end his song this way? Other questions:

• What or where is "Desolation Row"? 
• The first line is "They're selling postcards of the hanging" Whose hanging? Who is "they"? 
• Mark Polizzotti makes connections between the carnivalesque elements of this song and Fellini's films (p. 135). (Keep this in mind b/c we'll return to it when we watch Fellini's La Strada laster in the term.) How is this song carnivalesque (like a carnival)? 
• What is the tone of this song? Is the tone in keeping w/ the album or different? 
• Why does the song end w/ a harmonica solo? (Why does Todd Haynes' film end this way too?)

This week's blog

Since we don't meet this week, there will be no required blog entries. If you missed making entries last week, I'll give you until the end of this week to make them. Next week, it's back to business as usual. See you then.

Side 1 of Highway 61 Revisited

In Polizzotti's book, he analyzes the songs in order (even some songs that were cut from the final version of the album). Some questions I have about Side 1 (5 songs / 8 sections in book):

• What is your sense of Bob Dylan's voice? He was insecure about his voice. Is it a good voice? How do we judge it? What do you compare it to?
• What is your sense of the forward progression of the first side? 
• Polizzotti spends two whole pages talking about the 1-beat snare opening of the album. Why does he spend so much time on it?
• Here are the lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone": https://genius.com/Bob-dylan-like-a-rolling-stone-lyrics What is a rolling stone? Why were rolling stones so big in the 1960s? (One of the biggest British bands was called the Rolling Stones, a famous rock magazine was called Rolling Stone). 

Ballad of a Thin Man

Here are the lyrics to "Ballad of a Thin" man: https://genius.com/Bob-dylan-ballad-of-a-thin-man-lyrics

What is your reaction to the song and/or its lyrics?

Beginning on Bob Dylan

This week, we're going to start talking about the Polizzotti book and also about Bob Dylan as a performer and persona. If you want to hear Highway 61 Revisited w/out buying it, you can check it out on Spotify. The next two readings will get into the nitty-gritty of the album. This week I'd like to think about how director Todd Haynes interprets both the music and persona of Bob Dylan in his film.

Some questions I have:

• Haynes has six different actors play Bob Dylan including a woman (Kate Blanchet) and an African American boy (Marcus Carl Franklin). How come?
• Dylan has been a performer for over 50 years. In that time, he's played folk, rock and roll, soul, standards, gospel, and country. He's written a novel, an autobiography, and even starred in a few films. How does Haynes capture that aspect of Dylan?
• Why didn't he tell ea. story separately? Why does he jump back and forth between narratives? 
• Some of the music in the film are the original Dylan recordings and some are Dylan covers performed by bands like Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo. Why use a mix of originals and covers? Why not one or the other?
• Polizzotti quotes Dylan as saying that "protest [is] an amusement-park word...The word 'message' strikes me as having a hernia-like sound." How does the quote fit w/ Haynes' film? 
• On the first page of Polizzoti's book, he analyzes the album cover. (It's on the front of the book if you need to look). Do you agree w/ his interpretation of it? 

You don't have to respond to all of these questions. You can pick or choose or ask your own questions. 

Welcome!

I meant to do this yesterday, but it was crazy. So, anyway, welcome. If you post today or tomorrow I'll give you extra credit. Feel free to post about any or all of the clips we watched on Wed. night or to talk more generally about your feelings about pop culture, or to tell us something about yourself, etc. Next week and until the end of the term, you will be required to do at least two weekly entries.