Dylan MusiCares Speech Transcript
The above link is a transcript of a recent Bob Dylan speech that he gave recently in connection with the charity MusiCares. If you are even the slightest bit interested in Bob Dylan or music in general this speech is worth reading. The original speech was around 30 minutes long. In it he pays tribute to his heroes, talks about confounding critics, and calls out those musicians who were close minded during his early years.
The following is the entirety of Rolling Stone’s album review for Willie Nelson’s new album Band of Brothers:
A minute into Willie Nelson‘s new set of songs – largely self-penned for a change – it’s clear the man who wrote Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” 50-some years ago has lost neither verve nor cojones. Co-writing with producer Buddy Cannon, Nelson sticks to his wheelhouse: love, heartache, rambling and music-making itself. The vocals remain indelibly creaky against stony acoustic guitar, bright steel whines and dusty harmonica whinnies. “We’re a band of brothers and sisters and whatever/On a mission to break all the rules,” he sings on the title track – a pledge of solidarity from an 81-year-old outlaw that, even at this late date, rings 100 percent true.
Wtf?!!! There are blurbs on the back of book jackets longer than that! I picked this review at random, but there are plenty of reviews at Rolling Stone and other places that are this short. This review tells us absolutely nothing about the record other than Willie co-wrote most of the songs. A critic’s job is to inform the reader about a work of art. A good critic can not only help us make informed choices about what art we want to support, but can also enlighten us so that we understand a work of art better. Criticism is and still is a way in which I have found many of the books, films, and albums that I treasure. Until he died I used to like to go to Roger Ebert’s website to see what he thought of the latest films. I didn’t always agree with him, but I came away more informed than when I started reading. Go to http://www.rollingstone.com and read some of the old reviews. Sometimes it is laughable how wrong they got an album, but there is at least some kind of opinion. They are at least grasping for the truth even if they fall far short of it. This review is just plain lazy. A little part of my brain died by reading it. Unfortunately the Deadwood quote, “It’s the learning fucking nothing that has kept me young,” does not apply here. We can only hope that the writer got paid by the word…
I never bought into the cult of Kurt Cobain. I’m not saying that he is untalented, in fact I’ve actually been thinking of checking out one of Nirvana’s records again. I think he had a unique way with melodies. Nirvana the band had a simple power to them, but what they did was in no way groundbreaking in any way other than sales. Bands like the Pixies had been treading similar ground for awhile before Nirvana broke through. I think Cobain did carve out a unique space in music, but only incrementally. Even a small degree of originality should be seen as something of an achievement, but the music press has made it seem like they were the second coming of the Beatles, which they were not.
When I listen to Nevermind now, it seems really slick to me. The drum sounds are horrible. It’s kind of funny to hear something that wants to sound so dangerous when it has such a shiny radio gloss on it. If you can take the rose colored glasses of nostalgia off, I find their other records to be much better as the sound of them is more primal and raw. My point is not to say that Nevermind is a bad record, only that it gets praise that I think is unwarranted. It’s not really their fault. When Cobain committed suicide at the height of their popularity it was an easy thing for the media to canonize.
It’s really the whole “voice of a generation” thing that bothers me the most though. It is really in the lyrical department that I think Nirvana was at its weakest. At his best he sort of had a poetic surrealism to his writing. Often though, his lyrics just seem abstracted to the point of being almost meaningless. Let’s take a look at the second verse of Heart-Shaped Box:
Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself on angel hair and baby’s breath
Broken hymen of ‘Your Highness’, I’m left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back
If you want to view the words above as a painting, that is fine. There is some unique imagery there. But it is art for art’s sake. You either fall in love with the imagery of the words or you don’t, but he is not essentially saying anything. If someone is going to be the “voice of a generation” they have to actually voice something that actually pertains to the life of that generation.
George Carlin begins his concert It’s Bad For Ya by saying, “Fuck Lance Armstrong.” He then goes on to say that he is, “tired of being told who my heroes should be.” Maybe it’s not Nirvana’s fault at all. I’ve been thinking about exploring their records again. There is something there. But the truth is I’m just tired of being told over and over in the music press that Kurt Cobain was a spokesperson for my generation. We should all trust our own compass and find our own heroes. Kurt Cobain is not one of mine.
Windup Wire 
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