#055
Monocasta – o bardo do asterisco*
Os verões da minha infância eram passados na Arrábida, onde o meu melhor amigo da altura tinha comics muito diferentes dos meus. Eu pendia para a Marvel, o João Luis Queimado por influencia da Minouche, sua mãe francesa de gema tinha imensas BD europeias. Li todo o Asterix em francês começando assim o meu contacto com essa lingua. Aquela repetição da situação na ultima vinheta, sempre com um lauto banquete pleno de javalis assados e o bardo amordaçado, matava-me. Assurancetourix era tão pouco dotado de inspiração que ninguém o deixava “trovar”. E assim foi esta primeira imagem com que fiquei de um bardo. Não como um contador de histórias mas sim como alguém a quem se cortava o pio para evitar um cenário pior.
Na sala de estar da casa em Lisboa havia um gira-discos e uma profusa colecção de discos de imensos estilos diferentes. Mas aquele que eu vim descobrir como o grande bardo americano Bob Dylan não estava presente. Nascido Robert Allen Zimmerman, em 1941 no Minnesota, filho de pais emigrados de Odessa quando dos pogroms contra judeus em 1905. No liceu fez várias bandas e num talent show os seus Golden Chords tocaram uma versão de Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay do grupo doo-wop Danny & the Juniors numa estridências tal que o reitor cortou-lhes o microfone (vejo aqui umas semelhanças com o destino do bardo gaulês).
Bob cresceu e de repente começou a ir até NYC, no intuito de tocar mas também para visitar o seu ídolo Woody Guthrie que nessa altura já sofria da doença de Huntington, uma condição do sistema nervoso que afecta a capacidade cognitiva mas também a motricidade. A sua primeira importante composição original foi chamada Song for Woody e Bob até começou a cantar e falar como o cantor de Oklahoma. A relação com o protégé de Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot abriu-lhe a percepção para os poetas e músicos afro-americanos de outrora, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson e outros. Costuma-se falar de Bowie como sendo um camaleão mas Dylan absorveu de uma forma tão mimética os seus fascínios pop que nele se pode observar tiques de Odetta , Sinatra, Dave van Ronk e Hank Williams entre outros.
Dylan tem um amor tão desmesurado pela música e pela sua cultura que só ele poderia ter feito um programa de rádio como o Theme Time Radio Hour, transmitido entre 2006 e 2009 pela estação de rádio satélite Sirius XM. Cada episódio semanal apresentava uma mistura eclética de folk, jazz, blues, country, pop, rock-n-roll, soul, R&B e rockabilly, todos relacionados a um tema central (clima, bebida, casamentos, café, amigos e vizinhos, numa concepção que me faz lembrar, para não dizer que se calhar até inspira esta m4we que ando a fazer).
Dylan sempre foi ligado ao seu biz de uma forma quase nerd, ao ponto de se vir a revelar um verdadeiro entusiasta por visitar lugares associados a estrelas do rock. Em 2009, numa visita a Mendips alguém ouviu-o a dizer: “This kitchen, it’s just like my mom’s”. David Kinney, autor de The Dylanologists, observou que Dylan também visitou a casa da infância de Neil Young em Winnipeg, bem como os Sun Studios em Memphis, onde se deu ao trabalho de se ajoelhar e beijar o local onde Elvis Presley cantou pela primeira vez That’s All Right. Aparentemente, quando Dylan saiu dos estúdios, um homem correu atrás dele e disse-lhe quanto o admirava. “Well, son, we all have our heroes” retorquiu o cantautor. A própria cidade natal de Dylan, Hibbing, no Minnesota, oferece hoje em dia passeios pela antiga sinagoga da sua família, pela antiga escola, por sua casa e mesmo pelo hotel onde se celebrou o seu bar mitzvah. No menu de um bar temático chamado Zimmy’s pode-se mesmo escolher coisas variadas como Hard Rain Burger, Pizza Slow Train e Simple Twist of Sirloin…
Dylan pode ser galardoado com um Nobel mas escreve cancioneiro popular porque “I knew I wanted to write songs because, not like books, it was just a whole new category”. Nunca teve a pole position nas tabelas de venda, muitas das suas canções são conhecidas nas versões de outros. “He played the way I would have done them if I was him” disse ele sobre a cover de All Along The Watchtower que Hendrix gravou e com que acabo a seleção desta semana. Os Beatles, salvo o erro quando da sua segunda visita aos EUA, foram visitados no camarim pelo trovador que os “introduziu a uns cigarrinhos cómicos”.
William Shatner não volta ao ataque, será que cada vez que ouvimos a rendition do capitão Kirk de Mr. Tambourine Man perdemos mais um pouco de espaço na alma? Não sei mas preferi a versão “fun-kalhona” dos Con-Funk-Shun. Entretanto os Clash que me perdoem mas não consegui resistir e a versão de The Man in Me que aparece em London Calling à ultima da hora foi substituída pela dos The Persuasions. A homenagem afro americana às palavras de Dylan sente-se ao longo da m4we. Brook Benton interpreta Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, versão que me fez preterir a dos magnificos Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, um dos mais famosos duos de bluegrass. Patti LaBelle interpreta Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine de uma forma que só podia ser esta a versão escolhida do clássico incluído originalmente no disco Blonde on Blonde de 1966 e que ganhou significativa visibilidade quando frequentemente usada para abrir os concertos da tournée de Dylan and The Band em 1974.
Desfraldo a vela e chego mesmo a ir pescar música e letra de Dylan ao continente africano. Por um lado tenho o senegalês Youssou N’Dour a cantar Chimes of Freedom, em francês e na sua lingua natal wolof, deixando só o refrão no inglês original enquanto por outro trago Fatoumata Diawara, uma vibrante cantora do Mali, que em Dylan… Revisited, recente compilação encomendada pela revista Uncut tira o cavalinho da chuva dos colegas com esta versão de Blowin’ In The Wind.
Talvez os mesmos ventos que me fazem chegar até ao Japão para ancorar uma versão de My Back Pages pelos The Magokoro Brothers (Hidetoshi Sakurai e Yoichi Kuramochi não são irmãos e não tem esse apelido), da banda sonora de Masked and Anonymous, filme escrito pelo realizador Larry Charles em parceria com Dylan e onde o nosso poeta contracena com um elenco infindável de estrelas cinematográficas incluindo John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Steven Bauer, Giovanni Ribisi e Michael Paul Chan. A canção é de longe a melhor coisa do filme apesar do realizador ter dito “…I wanted to make a Bob Dylan movie that was like a Bob Dylan song. One with a lot of layers, that had a lot of poetry, that had a lot of surrealism and was ambiguous and hard to figure out, like a puzzle”.
Encomende-se ao “tio” Bob a tarefa de escrever uma protest song que arrebite um poder bem maior, a um oceano de distância e quinze anos depois de ter sido escrita: quando Margaret Thatcher subiu ao poder os The Specials lançaram uma versão de Maggie’s Farm e o single chegou ao top 5. Substituindo o tom lacônico de Dylan com uma “fúria que levanta fervura” da voz também monocórdica de Terry Hall, num som ska 2-tone normalmente alegre mas que aqui serviu para elevar a termómetro da partitura perto do ponto de ebulição. Prova que Dylan pode muito bem ter sido a voz da sua geração mas que as suas canções acabam por serem gritos e clamores também de gerações futuras.
Repare-se: se alguém não estivesse prestando grande atenção a The Uplift Mofo Party Plan que os Red Hot Chili Peppers editaram em 1987 poderia não perceber a inclusão de Subterranean Homesick Blues, já que se mistura facilmente com o resto do disco, numa versão rap-rock completamente re-imaginada, mantém a letra mas não muito mais. Calculo que há por aí muito stoner que acabou por descobrir que afinal se trata de uma música de Dylan.
You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds
Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister
You’re going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain’t nobody there would want to marry your sister
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name
Temos aqui canções que são universais, dão voz a pensamentos e sentimentos universais. Escolho Jokerman cantado por Caetano Veloso no disco Circuladô Vivo, onde conta com a preciosa ajuda de Jaques Morelenbaum nos arranjos. Vem logo a seguir à frontwoman dos Pretenders Chrissie Hynde que no disco editado já este ano Standing In The Doorway – Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan interpreta um soberbo Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight. Mais à frente temos sequencias tipo montanha-russa: à inevitável Joan Baez com Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word segue-se uma misteriosa inclusão de Tomorrow Is A Long Time que Elvis canta no filme Spinout. Os angélicos The Neville Brothers cantam With God On Our Side para logo de seguida Polly Jean Harvey nos fustigar com a versão de Highway ’61 Revisited que gravou em 1993 no seu segundo disco, Rid of Me. Passo por Nina Simone com Just Like A Woman e por Bryan Ferry com The Times They Are A-Changin’, ambos responsáveis por uma longa lista de covers de Dylan.
Canções que ficarão para sempre e que, como o próprio autor afirmou em 2006 numa entrevista a Jonathan Lethem “my old songs, they’ve got something—I agree, they’ve got something! I think my songs have been covered—maybe not as much as ‘White Christmas’ or ‘Stardust,’ but there’s a list of over 5,000 recordings. That’s a lot of people covering your songs, they must have something. If I was me, I’d cover my songs too”.
Haiku ou homofonia externa; cruzada, alternada, interpolada, emparelhada ou encadeada, esta semana escrevam umas linhas, se possível numa folha de papel, dediquem essas palavras à pessoa que um dia foram, perguntando para onde vai essa pessoa agora…
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
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The summers of my childhood were spent in Arrábida, where my best friend at the time had comics that were very different from mine. While I leaned towards Marvel, João Luis Queimado, influenced by his French mother Minouche, had lots of European comics. I read all Asterix books in French, thus beginning my contact with that language. That repetition of the situation in the last vignette killed me, always with a sumptuous feast filled of roasted wild boar and the muzzled bard. Assurancetourix was so lacking in inspiration that no one would let him “troub” his troubles. And so this was my first image of a bard. Not as a storyteller but as someone who was “trebled out” to avoid a much worse scenario.
In the living room of our house in Lisbon there was a record player and a profuse collection of records of many different genres. But the one I came to discover as the great American bard Bob Dylan was not present. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, in 1941 in Minnesota, to parents who emigrated from Odessa during the pogroms against Jews in 1905. In high school he made several bands and in a talent show his Golden Chords played a version of Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay by doo-wop group Danny & the Juniors in such strident, noisy way that the dean cut their microphone (I can see some similarities here with the usual fate of the Gallic bard).
Bob grew up and suddenly started going to NYC, in order to play but also to visit his idol Woody Guthrie who at that time was already suffering from Huntington’s disease, a nervous system condition that affects both cognitive ability and motor skills. His first major original composition was called Song for Woody and Bob even started singing and talking like the singer from Oklahoma. His relationship with Guthrie’s protégé Ramblin’ Jack Elliot opened his mind to the African-American poets and musicians of yore, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson and others. Bowie is often spoken of as being a chameleon, but Dylan has absorbed his pop fascinations in such a mimetic way that you can see tics of Odetta, Sinatra, Dave van Ronk and Hank Williams among others.
Dylan has such an inordinate love for music and its culture that only he could have done a radio show like Theme Time Radio Hour, broadcast between 2006 and 2009 on the satellite radio station Sirius XM. Each weekly episode featured an eclectic mix of folk, jazz, blues, country, pop, rock-n-roll, soul, R&B and rockabilly, all related to a central theme (weather, drinking, weddings, coffee, friends and neighbors in one design that reminds me, not to say that maybe even inspires this m4we I’ve been making).
Dylan has always been connected to his biz in an almost nerdy way to the point where he turned out to be a real enthusiast for visiting places associated with rock stars. In 2009, on a visit to Mendips, someone overheard him say, “This kitchen, it’s just like my mom’s.” David Kinney, author of The Dylanologists, noted that Dylan also visited Neil Young’s childhood home in Winnipeg, as well as the Sun Studios in Memphis, where he took the trouble to kneel and kiss the spot where Elvis Presley first sang That’s All Right. Apparently, when Dylan left the studios, a man ran after him and told him how much he admired him. “Well, son, we all have our heroes” retorted the singer. Dylan’s own hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, now offers tours of his family’s former synagogue, old school, his home and even the hotel where his bar mitzvah was held. From the menu of a themed bar called Zimmy’s you can even choose assorted delicacies like Hard Rain Burger, Slow Train Pizza and Simple Twist of Sirloin…
Dylan may have been awarded a Nobel but writes popular songbooks because “I knew I wanted to write songs because it was just a whole new category.” He was never in the pole position of the sales charts, many of his songs are better known in other artists versions. “He played the way I would have done them if I was him” he said of the All Along The Watchtower cover that Hendrix recorded and that I use to end this week’s choices with. Barring the possible inaccuracy, during their second visit to the USA The Beatles were visited in the dressing room by the troubadour who “introduced them to some comical cigarettes”.
William Shatner doesn’t return for one more offensive, is it that every time we hear Captain Kirk’s rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man we lose a little space (that final frontier) in our soul? I don’t know but I beaming up into the funk version by Con-Funk-Shun. However may The Clash forgive me but I couldn’t resist and the version of The Man in Me that appears in London Calling got replaced at the last minute with The Persuasions cover. The African American homage to Dylan’s words is felt throughout this m4we. Brook Benton sings Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, a version that made me skip from the list the magnificent Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, one of the most famous bluegrass duos. Patti LaBelle interprets Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine in a way that could only make it the chosen version of the classic originally included in 1966’s Blonde on Blonde recording and that gained significant visibility when it was often used to open Dylan and The Band tour’s concerts in 1974.
I unfurl the sail and even go fishing for Dylan’s music and lyrics into the African continent. On one hand I have Senegalese Youssou N’Dour singing Chimes of Freedom, in French and in his native Wolof language, leaving only the chorus in the original English while on the other hand I take Fatoumata Diawara, a vibrant singer from Mali, that in Dylan Revisited, a recent compilation commissioned by Uncut magazine takes the piss out of colleagues with this version of Blowin’ In The Wind.
Maybe the same kind of zephyr that takes me to Japan where I anchor a version of My Back Pages by The Magokoro Brothers (Hidetoshi Sakurai and Yoichi Kuramochi are not brothers and don’t have that surname), from the soundtrack of the film Masked and Anonymous, written by director Larry Charles in partnership with Dylan and where our poet stars with an endless cast of movie stars including John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz, Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Steven Bauer, Giovanni Ribisi and Michael Paul Chan. The song is by far the best thing about the film despite the director saying “…I wanted to make a Bob Dylan movie that was like a Bob Dylan song. One with a lot of layers, that had a lot of poetry, that had a lot of surrealism and was ambiguous and hard to figure out, like a puzzle”.
“Ol’ uncle” Bob can even be tasked with writing a protest song that will conquer far greater power an ocean away, fifteen years after it was written: when Margaret Thatcher came to power, The Specials released a version of Maggie’s Farm and the 7” reached the top 5. Replacing Dylan’s laconic tone with a “fury that raises to a boil” in Terry Hall’s equally monotone voice, in a normally cheerful 2-tone ska sound but which here raises the temperature of the song beyond simmering degrees. It proves that Dylan may well have been the voice of his generation but that his songs ended up being vocal of future generations as well.
Note: someone not paying close attention to The Uplift Mofo Party Plan that the Red Hot Chili Peppers put out in 1987 might not have noticed the inclusion of Subterranean Homesick Blues, as it blends in easily with the rest of the record in it’s completely re-imagined rap-rock version that retains the lyrics but not much else. I’m guessing there are a lot of stoners out there who ended up discovering that it’s a Dylan song after all.
You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds
Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister
You’re going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain’t nobody there would want to marry your sister
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name
So, here we have songs that are universal, that give voice to a broad set of thoughts and feelings. Jokerman, sung here by Caetano Veloso on the album Circuladô Vivo where he counts with the precious help of Jaques Morelenbaum in the arrangements, right after Pretender’s frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, who in an album published this year, Standing In The Doorway – Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan plays a superb Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight. Further along some roller coaster sequences: the inevitable Joan Baez with Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word is followed by a mysterious inclusion of Tomorrow Is A Long Time that Elvis sings in the movie Spinout. The angelic The Neville Brothers sing With God On Our Side and then Polly Jean Harvey lashes at us with her version of Highway ’61 Revisited recorded in 1993 on her second album, Rid of Me. I stroll by Nina Simone with Just Like A Woman and by Bryan Ferry with The Times They Are A-Changin’, both responsible for a long list of Dylan covers.
Songs that will last forever and that, as the author himself stated in 2006 in an interview with Jonathan Lethem “My old songs, they’ve got something—I agree, they’ve got something! I think my songs have been covered—maybe not as much as ‘White Christmas’ or ‘Stardust,’ but there’s a list of over 5,000 recordings. That’s a lot of people covering your songs, they must have something. If I was me, I’d cover my songs too”.
Haiku or external homophony; crossed, alternated, interpolated, paired or chained, this week write a few lines, if possible on a sheet of paper, dedicate these words to the person you once were, asking where is that person now…
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
Fairport Convention – I’ll Keep It with Mine
Brook Benton – Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity – I Am a Lonesome Hobo
The Byrds – Spanish Harlem Incident
The Persuasions – The Man In Me
Chrissie Hynde – Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight
Caetano Veloso – Jokerman
Patti LaBelle – Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine
Rod Stewart – The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar
Joan Baez – Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word
Elvis Presley – Tomorrow Is A Long Time
The Brothers and Sisters – The Mighty Quinn
The Neville Brothers – With God On Our Side
PJ Harvey – Highway ’61 Revisited
Ben Sidran – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Nina Simone – Just Like A Woman
Fatoumata Diawara – Blowin’ in the Wind
Con-Funk-Shun – Mr. Tambourine Man
Cliff Aungier – Down Along the Cove
Cher – Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
The Isley Brothers – Lay Lady Lay
The Factotums – Absolutely Sweet Marie
Siouxsie & The Banshees – This Wheel’s On Fire
Howard Tate – Girl From The North Country
The Specials – Maggie’s Farm
Manfred Mann – If You Gotta Go, Go Now
Bryan Ferry – The Times They Are A-Changin’
Marion Williams – I Pity The Poor Immigrant
The Magokoro Brothers – My Back Pages
Boombox – Who Killed Davey Moore?
Cops ‘N Robbers – It’s All Over Now Baby Blue
Youssou N’Dour – Chimes Of Freedom
Bettye LaVette – It Ain’t Me Babe
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Death Is Not the End
Lucinda Williams – Queen Jane Approximately
Picadilly Line – Visions of Johanna
The Mixed Bag – Million Dollar Bash
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Subterranean Homesick Blues
Esther Philips – Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along The Watchtower