You know when you wake up and you’re still a little drunk? And maybe you’re a little bit sweaty, and feeling gross, and the sun is blazing down on you through an open window and you just want to sleep but it’s just too fucking hot? And you roll over and look at your watch and it’s already 11am, and you’re sleeping on a mate’s couch? And you have a mysterious cut on your hand which means you have to get a tetanus shot? Yeah, maybe that’s just me. This morning. After having been teetotal for a little too long, I thought it high time to get a little bit retarded, and so, on a balmy Thursday night, my mates and I went out and drank cheap long island ice teas in a pseudo-classy Newtown pub. And that’s why, at 11am, I woke up needing a tetanus shot.
Indeed, that’s what you get when you get a little bit buckwild. I lay on my mate’s couch with an arm over my face, blocking out the sun. Then I got stumbled up, found a collection of Seinfeld scripts and read them. Later, post-coffee, my mate walked in and we talked about Bob Dylan, as you do.
‘Some people say he’s done more with words than anyone since Shakespeare,’ he said, dropping to the couch. ‘Yeah,’ I said, more than a little sceptical, ‘you’d say that.’ Dylan’s good, I thought, but he’s no Shakespeare.
But later, eating a disconcertingly delicious chicken salad, it occurred to me that maybe Bob Dylan has done more with words than anyone since Shakespeare. Maybe you can compare ‘the ghosts of electricity howl in the bones of her face’ to ‘Death lies on her, like an ultimately frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field.’ Maybe, when we tally the literary greats, Bob will be up the top of the list. Voltaire, Heller, Hunter S. Thompson, Hemingway, Dylan. Yeah, I thought, that works.
But what is it about Dylan? What makes him so incredibly special, so desperately vital? It’s not just that he basically invented profound lyrical honesty. It’s not just that he combines a keen understanding of the power of words with a preternatural ability to use them. No, it’s that he captures everything. Everything.
Like an impressionist painter, he can get it all in one stroke. Frustration (Maggie’s Farm), loss (Sara), hope (The Times They Are A-Changin’), longing (I Want You). His music is the micro and the macro; the big picture and the little details; mass tragedy and personal loss; the cyclone and those in its path. Hurricane, from the spectacular Desire album, is the tale of one man wronged by the system, and simultaneously the tale of far too many like him. Without saying it, Dylan’s lyrics capture waking up at 11am, still a little drunk; his words understand how good a delicious chicken salad really is. And they know how bad it can be to lose what you love. If he hasn’t been there himself, his words have. And they’ll take you along. Nothing is left out.
The fact that he manages to combine such extraordinary literary talents with such a genuinely fine ear for music is awe-inspiring. Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright doesn’t just have great lyrics – it’s also a bloody good tune.
But no matter how good the music that frames his lyrics is, it’s always the words that are going to get the attention. It’s his words that have inspired devotion in a massive legion of obsessive, geeky fans who will discuss the relative merits of Blood On The Tracks, as opposed to Blonde On Blonde, for hours. And hours. And hours.
I’m not one of those geeks – not quite. Which is why I’m happy to call The Essential Bob Dylan a classic album, despite it being a compilation. Sure, ‘greatest hits’ packages take away the artistry of a complete album, and most of Dylans albums – well, most of the early ones and a couple of the later ones – are absolutely deserving of inclusion here on Replay/Rewind. But Dylan is one of the few artists who genuinely deserve such a ‘top hits’ compilation. Owning The Essential Bob Dylan is, uh, essential.
It will show you, in two discs, just how incredible Dylan is. It dishes up a lot of tracks – 36 all up – and almost every one of them is awesome. Sure, the epic, profoundly sad Sara – probably one of Dylan’s best tracks ever – isn’t here. But when you’ve got It Ain’t Me, Babe, Subterranean Homesick Blues, Tangled Up In Blue,, All Along The Watchtower, Just Like A Woman collected here, it’s hard to be too offended by one little oversight.
Go and buy Blood On The Tracks, Blonde On Blonde, Desire and all those Dylan albums you’re supposed to own. They’re all amazing. But buy The Essential.. . as well. And next time you’re still a bit drunk at 11am, put it on and listen to Dylan for a couple of hours. Just lie back and let the words wash over you like the brutal sun. An, like me, after thinking about it for a while – maybe over a delicious chicken salad – you’ll too realise that Dylan is one of the most important writers in our history.
(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au in the Replay/Rewind section).
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