Music Roundup 5
Highway 61 Revisited
I’m reluctant to start interpreting lyrics or anything like that because a) there’s a lot of them, and I’m mostly listening to these things while doing work at the same time, and b) I’m completely certain there’s people out there who’ve done nothing but study this album since 1965 like it’s the Torah. Nonetheless, I will venture to say that this album is really very good. Like a Rolling Stone is every bit the classic it’s made out to be, and I realised I’d never actually properly paid attention to it before. It’s just Dylan having a go at some lady for going from riches to rags, but then also maybe being just a little bit jealous at the end (When ya ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose/You're invisible now, ya got no secrets to conceal). Dylan was famous as hell at this point and wasn’t super keen on it I understand.
I’m going to skip right to the end then and add Desolation Row to the list of tracks that run more than ten minutes, but I’m happy to put on repeat. Again, not to jump to interpreting stuff, but there’s at least a handful of characters mentioned who committed suicide (Romeo, Ophelia), a lot of death imagery (from the very first line), and a plea at the end to leave him alone with your boring normal life stuff (Don’t send me no more letters, no/Not unless you mail them/From Desolation Row). It’s the kind of track where me at 17 would have memorised the entire thing and spend hours bashing it out on guitar in my room. That actually still sounds like fun, but now I’m 35 and don’t have that kind of time.
Fear Inoculum
This is structured as a bunch of 11-15 minute tracks, with a few short breathers in between, and the whole thing runs to about an hour and a half. I’m definitely happy enough while listening to it, but not a lot has really stuck, with the possible exception of Chocolate Chip Trip (which is mainly a long drum solo) followed by 7empest.
However, when I’m done with it and some time has passed, I still mainly find myself humming the bass riff from Schism.