How Does It Feeeeeeeelllll? ... Mark Steyn

Steyn Online ^ | 24 June 2015 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

Via Ed Driscoll I see that it's half-a-century since Bob Dylan recorded "Like A Rolling Stone". Here's what I had to say about the great man upon the occasion of his 60th birthday back in May 2001. Re the Dean Martin reference below, note that Dylan's big new release this Sinatra centenary year is his album of Frank covers, the very cleverly named Shadows In The Night. The piece below is anthologized in my book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn, personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore:

I first noticed a sudden uptick in Bob Dylan articles maybe a couple of months ago, when instead of Pamela Anderson's breasts or J-Lo's bottom bursting through the National Post masthead there appeared to be a shriveled penis that had spent way too long in the bath. On closer inspection, this turned out to be Bob Dylan's head. He was, it seems, getting ready to celebrate his birthday. For today he turns 60.

Sixty? I think the last time I saw him on TV was the 80th birthday tribute to Sinatra six years ago, and, to judge from their respective states, if Frank was 80, Bob had to be at least 130. He mumbled his way through "Restless Farewell", though neither words nor tune were discernible, and then shyly offered, "Happy Birthday, Mister Frank." Frank sat through the number with a stunned look, no doubt thinking, "Geez, that's what I could look like in another 20, 25 years if I don't ease up on the late nights."

[Rummyfan]

[Rummyfan]

After all, for the grizzled old hippies, folkies and peaceniks who spent the Sixties bellowing along with "How does it feeeeeel?" these have been worrying times. A couple of years ago, Bob's management were canceling his tours and the only people demanding to know "How does it feeeeeel?" were Dylan's doctors, treating him in New York for histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that in rare cases can lead to potentially fatal swelling in the pericardial sac. If the first question on your lips is "How is histoplasmosis spread?" well, it's caused by fungal spores which invade the lungs through airborne bat droppings. In other words, the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

[Rummyfan]

With Dylan, the songwriting styles they were a-regressin', the slyly seductive archaisms and harmonica obbligato designed to evoke the integrity of American popular music before the Tin Pan Alley hucksters took over.

"Without Bob the Beatles wouldn't have made Sergeant Pepper, the Beach Boys wouldn't have made Pet Sounds," said Bruce Springsteen. "U2 wouldn't have done 'Pride in the Name of Love'," he continued, warming to his theme. "The Count Five would not have done 'Psychotic Reaction'. There never would have been a group named the Electric Prunes."

Read the whole thing - it's hilarious!

[Servant of the Cross]

A Steyn classic ping ...

[Mr. K]

Reading Steyn makes you smarter

[Neidermeyer]

I used a line from “absolutely sweet marie” (if you live outside the law you must be honest) in a lawsuit response where I informed the pltf that he was now under investigation by the IRS and that the employer he refused to name was actually himself and I had proof he’s been running a business without a ein or personal ssn to file taxes under for the last 20 years.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

I loved the line about Bob singing at Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday and Frank thinking to himself he better cut down on all the late nights or he might start looking like that in 20 years. Hilarious!!!

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Stein ping list.

Thanks for the ping Servant of the Cross. I am slowly reading through “Undocumented” and maybe will finish it on a trip this coming week. I had not gotten to this essay yet. It is as you say a classic.

[FreedomPoster]

Ping.

Steyn on Dylan. Brutally funny!

[zeugma]

Visiting America a few years ago, Dave Stewart, of the Eurhythmics, said to Dylan that the next time he was in England he should drop by his recording studio in Crouch End, an undistinguished north London suburb. Dylan, at a loose end one afternoon, decided to take him up on it and asked a taxi-driver to take him to Crouch End Hill. Cruising the bewildering array of near-namesake streets - Crouch End Hill, Crouch End Road, Crouch Hill End, Crouch Hill Road and various other permutations of "Crouch," "End" and "Hill" - the cabbie accidentally dropped him off at the right number but in an adjoining street of small row houses. Dylan knocked at the front door and asked the woman who answered if Dave was in.

"No," she said, assuming he was referring to her husband, Dave, who was out on a plumbing job. "But he should be back soon." Bob asked if she would mind if he waited. Twenty minutes later, Dave - the plumber, not the rock star - returned and asked the missus whether there were any messages. "No," she said, "but Bob Dylan's in the front room having a cup of tea."

LOL.

Bob's not all bad. He's more conservative than most beatniks

[Liberty Valance]

bttt

[Albion Wilde]

Twenty minutes later, Dave - the plumber, not the rock star - returned and asked the missus whether there were any messages. "No," she said, "but Bob Dylan's in the front room having a cup of tea."

This is one of the many things I love about Bob. This and the story of how he went walking in a beachside town in New Jersey in a rainstorm with his hoodie on— he had left his ID in the tour bus. He was intently looking at a house with a sale sign and some neighbor called the police, saying there was a homeless vagrant wandering around. A 24-year-old hispanic policewoman transported him down to the station for questioning because he didn't have ID. She didn't recognize his name, didn't know who he was or anything about his music, but he went along quietly, no fuss, and when he got to the station the older white cops were blown away.

[Squawk 8888]

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[left that other site]

Watch out...Congress may have to ban Dylan because a certain evil little nazi has a similar first name (except for an extra “n”)

[a fool in paradise]

Jack Kerouac didn’t vote, liked Ike, and supported the war in Vietnam.

[zeugma]

Kerouac was a little before my time. I know the name, and who he was, but not much else.

[BradyLS]

Seriously, I’ve never understood the appeal of Bob Dylan.

Part of it must be that _anyone_ can sing the way he can. And when you do a Dylan-mumble to cover something like Van Halen’s ‘Jump’, it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious.

[Tainan]

IMO, Dylan has made his mark as a poet - a chronicler of the times as it were. Perhaps even a minstrel of the times.

His “songs” are mere observations of the political, physical and cultural evolutions taking place around him...and us by extension.

Remember, most of his target audience either could not read more tan the short snappy buzz-words on a protest sign or they were too deeply engrossed in their own navels to actually do much thinking of their own.

Just my Opinion. Although I do have a deep attachment to “Tangled up in Blue.”
But that is another story...;)

[Rummyfan]

Kerouac, writer and beatnik. His most known works are On the Road and The Dharma Bums.

[Rummyfan]

Don't think twice, it's alright is on of my all-time favorites. But Dylan has sunk to such a level with his voice and styling so that fans at his shows now have a difficult time figuring out what song he's playing.