Sweder Wrote:I trust you have the Richard Burton audio version?
What's not to like?
Geez, don't get me started...
Suffice to say I think Burton's performance appalling - to my mind he sounds like a sleep-deprived, half-drunken funeral director; I think Thomas's writing is pretentious and extremely on the nose, and oftentimes quite incomprehensible... for example, what does...
It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning, in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, sucking mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's loft like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour...
actually mean? And why did he have to communicate whatever it does mean in such ugly, stupid verse?
Anyway, I shan't go on. I have tried to like this work and I can't. I have totally given up on it. I criticize it only because you asked
"Idiot Wind" however, is a piece of Dylan I
can enthuse about. Like Andy, I think this is a masterpiece. I love the whole album, even "Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts" which it is fashionable to dislike (it even regularly turns up on "10 Worst Songs of All Time" lists), and aggressively defend it against its detractors - much as you've supported UMW.
"Tangled Up In Blue" - what a song!
"If You See Her, Say Hello" - such feeling!
"Buckets of Rain" - what a clever end to the album!
etc. etc.
To my mind, it is Dylan's most accessbile, and most thoroughly enjoyable album. Do buy it, won't you?
July. Just July.
