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Photo by Don Hunstein, New York Times
“with a voice like sand and glue”
Robert Zimmerman, Bob Dylan, however you know him, you either love, hate, or love and hate him. Those that have no interest in him mostly cannot get past his gruff and raspy voice… well, I won’t force you to listen to him. There are those fans that idolize Bob up until 1965, when he plugged in his guitar and went electric. Again, I won’t force you to listen to Bob rocking it out. (How can you live without “All Along The Watchtower”?) Then there are the second group of fans that love all Bob, from his folk playing days in the early 60’s, right up to the present time – he realeases his 47th album today, a collection of Christmas songs, all proceeds benefiting charity.
David Bowie, in 1971 realized the greatness of Dylan, and wrote this song as a tribute to him, including it on of his greatest albums, title Hunky Dory. You can also imagine the song as a parody at the same time – it can go both ways. As a tribute, Bowie calls out to Dylan, asking him to call upon his art in songwriting to bring back a togetherness amongst the masses that, in Bowie’s eyes, only Dylan could achieve. I also find it funny that the opening few bars of this song sound remarkably like “Free Bird’, by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was recorded a couple of year’s after Hunky Dory was released.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:50 am
[...] it seem like yesterday that I was posting a song by Bowie… where as this last week gone to? Anyway, here we are [...]