For
next week I had scheduled to present a handful of LGBT-related obscure acts
from the 60s and 70s. Then as I was preparing to begin writing today's story, I
was listening to music (as I always do), an album from 2015 in particular. A
song caught my attention and I stopped writing for a moment. The song made me
tear up. I felt that I needed to present it to you right away, so there's been
a last-minute change in my planning: starting with our next entry, we'll have a
few weeks of 21st century artists, before returning to our current time-frame.
Now,
let's get on with our Bob Dylan Top 125
Countdown, as well as this week's statistics.
Before I go on, I'd like to note that I haven't
forgotten the Oscar-winning Songs countdown. We had a scheduling problem for a
while, but I do believe that the list will return at the following weekend, or
the next one at the most.
At #66 in our Dylan countdown is a song from one of
his best albums, his best in the 70s, Blood On The Tracks (1975). The song is
the album's longest and it's called Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts. It
is one of five songs on Blood on the
Tracks that Dylan initially recorded in New York City in September 1974
and then re-recorded in Minneapolis in December that year; the later recording
became the album track.
The song takes place in a cabaret that is being
renovated in an unnamed town where most of the residents "with good
sense" have already left. The town's bank is being targeted by a gang of
thieves led by an enigmatic figure called "The Jack of Hearts", and
are using the renovations at the cabaret as a cover for their robbery – they
are able to drill into the bank without causing suspicion. The Jack of Hearts
appears inside the cabaret right before the show, with the intention of meeting
up with Lily, a beautiful a dancer in the cabaret (Lily and the Jack of Hearts
have a history together which is never explained). Big Jim and his wife
Rosemary are in attendance of the show, though they arrive separately and it is
apparent that Big Jim intends to use the night to pursue his affair with Lily.
After her performance, Lily meets the Jack of Hearts in her dressing room with
romantic intentions, but Big Jim makes his way to the dressing room as well,
followed by Rosemary who has been driven to despair by her years of
mistreatment at the hands of Big Jim. Big Jim is going to shoot the Jack of
Hearts but is killed by a penknife in the back wielded by Rosemary (her
"one good deed before she dies"). "The next day," Rosemary
is executed, a hanging overseen by "the hanging judge", another
figure in town who is in attendance at the cabaret the night before.
The fate of the Jack of Hearts is left ambiguous,
but it is implied that he reunites with his gang, who have fled to the nearby
riverbanks waiting for their leader with the safe from the bank (having drilled
through the wall to retrieve it). The next morning, after Rosemary's execution,
Lily thinks about her father, whom she rarely sees, along with Rosemary and the
Jack of Hearts.
There are a vast variety of interpretations of the
story line, and at this time it is unknown which is the most accurate since
Dylan has yet to comment on the plot. According to Tim Riley of National Public
Radio, "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts is an intricately evasive
allegory about 'romantic facades' that hide 'criminal motives', and the way one
character's business triggers a series of recriminations from people he doesn't
even know."
This is the Minneapolis version that eventually
found its way into the album:
This is the New York version, which is just as good:
This is a great live version by Joan Baez:
At #65 is a track from Dylan's best album in the
80s, Oh Mercy (1989). The song is called Man in the Long Black Coat. The album
was produced by Daniel Lanois.
"One of my favorites is Man in the Long Black
Coat, which was written in the studio, and recorded in one take", recalls
Lanois. Praised by author Clinton Heylin as a "powerful reinterpretation of
The Daemon Lover motif", Man in the Long Black Coat also contains some
prominent use of apocalyptic imagery, evoking a place where the "water is
high" and "tree trunks uprooted". In his own assessment of Man
in the Long Black Coat, Dylan wrote that "in some kind of weird way, I
thought of it as my I Walk the Line, a song I'd always considered to be up
there at the top, one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time, a
song that makes an attack on your most vulnerable spots, sharp words from a
master". Here it is:
And here's an excellent cover version by Mark
Lanegan, used in the soundtrack of the film I'm Not There (2007), a very
original Dylan biography by Todd Haynes.
Finally for today, at #64, a track from Dylan's best
protest album, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964). The song is called Ballad
of Hollis Brown. Musically, this song is a simple blues. The album version is
played by Dylan alone on an acoustic guitar in the flatpicking style. Lyrically,
this song consists of 11 verses which bring the listener to a bleak and
destitute South Dakota farm, where a poor farmer (Hollis Brown), his wife and
five children, already living in abject poverty, are subjected to even more
hardships. In despair, the man kills his wife and children and himself with a
shotgun. Critic David Horowitz has said of this song:
Technically speaking, "Hollis Brown" is a tour de force. For a ballad is
normally a form which puts one at a distance from its tale. This ballad,
however, is told in the second person, present tense, so that not only is a
bond forged immediately between the listener and the figure of the tale, but
there is the ironic fact that the only ones who know of Hollis Brown's plight,
the only ones who care, are the hearers who are helpless to help, cut off from
him, even as we in a mass society are cut off from each other.... Indeed, the
blues perspective itself, uncompromising, isolated and sardonic, is superbly
suited to express the squalid reality of contemporary America. And what a
powerful expression it can be, once it has been liberated (as it has in Dylan's
hands) from its egocentric bondage! A striking example of the tough, ironic
insight one associates with the blues (and also of the power of understatement
which Dylan has learnt from Woody Guthrie) is to be found in the final lines of
Hollis Brown:
There's seven people dead
on a South Dakota farm,
There's seven people dead
on a South Dakota farm,
Somewhere in the distance
there's seven new people born.
Here's an outtake:
Here's a live version from 1963:
Here's a fiery version by Nina Simone:
Here's an unexpected version by Nazareth:
... And here's the most recent notable version by
Rise Against. The accompanying video is chillingly effective:
Now, let's move on to the weekly statistics. This was
another good week for neighbors Greece and Cyprus, as well as a return to form
for neighbors Russia
and Ukraine. The full Top 10 is as
follows:
1.
the United States
2.
Greece
3.
Russia
4.
the United Kingdom
5.
Cyprus
6.
the United Arab Emirates
7.
Germany
8.
Ukraine
9.
France
10.
Italy
Here
are the other countries that graced us with their presence this week
(alphabetically): Angola, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Georgia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq,
Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Panama, Philippines, Poland,
Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand,
Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Happy to have you all!
In
the all-time Top 10, the US is still increasing their lead, but Greece is also
doing very well. The UAE are still doing fine, while Cyprus continues its
spectacular climb, replacing the Netherlands at #9. Here's the all-time Top 10:
1.
the United States = 50.9%
2.
Greece = 9.8%
3.
Germany = 7.5%
4.
France = 6.7%
5.
Russia = 5.1%
6.
the United Kingdom = 3.2%
7.
the United Arab Emirates = 1.17%
8.
Italy = 1.10%
9.
Cyprus = 0.74%
10.
the Netherlands = 0.73%
That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!
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