Kinderland Zim, pt. 1

First of all, a hearty Sholem Aleichem to the multitudes of Jewish Currents readers who are here because of Nick Jarh's very flattering blog post about me. As he mentioned, I, the KassaNostra, serve as host of this modest cavalcade of musical idiosyncrasies, and all are as welcome here as a hobo on Pesach. A quick point of reference, if I may: this is a blog about music particular to Camp Kinderland and its extended mispocheh. That matters not a lick as to the accessibility of the music, but a lot of my prose tends to lean inside rather than out. At some point, I'll probably add a glossary of terms to the site (especially since I often get the feeling that no one knows what the hell I'm talking about anyway). Comments are accepted and encouraged, tho' practice would suggest nobody really believes that. Pity. 

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By now, I assume all of you own, or have heard of, or are lusting after, Amnesty International's four-disc Bob Dylan tribute, Chimes of Freedom. 72 cover songs from a variety of artists ranging from Miley Cyrus to Pete Seeger, with the only real surprise being that Cyrus out-performs Seeger (and at this point, it's not all that big a surprise). Chimes is but the latest entry on a list of Dylan tribute albums -- a list so copious, the category has its own Wikipedia page. Now usually, this kind of overexposure tends to stick in the KassaNostra's craw, but really, in this case, it fits. Bob Dylan emerged on the scene fifty years ago and began confounding expectations almost immediately. Over the years he's changed his public persona enough times to make David Bowie blush. That there might be a single lens through which to view his career is an idea as obsolete as the Kingston Trio. So for once, a little gluttony isn't too bad a deal.


On the whole, Chimes mostly works, wisely steering clear of any real organizing principle in favor of an unpredictable hodgepodge of songs and artists that often sounds like they sequenced the tracks by shuffling them in iTunes. (And I mean that in a good way.) (Although I would like to know which genius programmed the Kronos Quartet immediately after Ke$ha, playing the same exact song? Pretentious gits.) But the truth is, a project like this is virtually unreviewable, too big and too diverse to be captured in a single evaluation. No individual person can possibly be expected to like every track. In that way it's emblematic of the vast ocean of Dylan covers floating around the ether: for every Hendrix version of All Along the Watchtower, or Nico's I'll Keep It with Mine, there's also, say, Sebastian Cabot's reading of Like a Rolling Stone, which I happen to think is the most pointless cover song in the history of cover songs, but which may be the bee's knees for someone else, for all I know. Anyway, there's a lot out there. Got a fave? Let me know about it.

Me, I keep trying to get my head around the Kinderland relation-ship to Dylan, assuming there even is one. Only four of his songs have been deemed slice-worthy, which at first seems painfully low, until you think about it. Dylan as an artist did not generally embrace what Ira calls "reasonable group singability," even during his earlier protest song period. Tunes like Masters of War or With God on Our Side would have to be seriously rearranged to fit into a music circle. And that doesn't even begin to address the lyrical complexity that often keeps his oeuvre out of reach of the dirty hands of us mere mortals.


But there's something else afoot here. When people talk about Dylan breaking with the folk music crowd, they're generally talking about us. Not because the wag who cried out "Judas!" at Albert Hall was Ruby Holtzman or anything, but because inasmuch as we define ourselves through our heroes, it was those heroes who, this time, ended up on the wrong side of history. And make no mistake, it was the wrong side. Even Pete Seeger has taken to revisionism, weakly insisting his infamous attempt to take an ax to Dylan's sound system at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival was out of concern for the audience hearing the lyrics through the static.


History, we are told, is written by the victors. It's worth noting, however, that in this instance, there's one very key person clearly not doing a touchdown dance in our end zone. Dylan didn't abandon the folkies so much as he abandoned everybody, which may have been his chosen trajectory all along. In his wake, an audience of self-proclaimed acolytes has codified that moment as the Great Schism of '65, and made sure to let everyone know they stand with Bob on the right side of history. Which, fair enough, may be the case. But make no mistake: Dylan sure as hell didn't invite them along for the ride, and that makes them and their proclamations, in the grand scheme of things, the equivalent of whale lice. In the story of Bob Dylan, American legend, no one gets a free pass. And all the puritans have rightly been named as such. But in an epic as long and meandering as this one, with whole swathes that we admittedly will never fully understand, the character who reaches for the hatchet, right or wrong, is always more credible than the one who straps on the kneepads. And that makes the story ripe for a little reexamination.


We'll explore the Dylan-Tolland connection down the road aways, but for now, lesstalkmoremusic! Because, of course, all of this a flimsy excuse to post a lot of awesome Dylan cover tunes. None from Chimes, tho' -- those are still a little new to have made a lasting impact (even Miley Cyrus). I figure we'll give each of the four slice songs their own post, plus some bonus stuff, because lord knows there's so damn much of it. And thank goodness for that.


1. Blowin' in the Wind


Let's not split hairs: it's a sappy song. It lacks the acrimony, conviction or humor that makes the rest of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan such a dynamite album. It combines the self-righteousness of a protest song with the emptiness of a feel-good pop anthem. Dylan himself says it took him ten minutes to write, and it sounds it, swiping the melody of the spiritual No More Auction Block, a song possessed of the kind of courage that Blowin' in the Wind can only dream about.


But... to call its 1963 release earth-shattering would be to undersell the moment. Simply put: in the history of recorded music, there had been nothing like it before. Folk songs of the Woody/Pete variety are an invention of 20th century activism, marrying movement-friendly lyrics with authentic sounding acoustical music (as opposed to more lavishly-arranged corporate pop). Even the best of them were written and meant as propaganda. And then Bob Dylan came along and monkey-wrenched the whole model. If Blowin' in the Wind is vague because of It's rhetorical nature, it's also timeless in a way that sacrifices none of its relevance. And at the time, nobody else was anywhere near thinking like that.


I would never presume any insight into Dylan's motives, but I'll bet the farm he knew all along he was writing an anthem. Freewheelin' was released in May 1963, but he had been performing Blowin' in the Wind live for a year before that, and it had already been published in both Broadside and Sing Out! As to its first recorded release, The Chad Mitchell Trio may carry the day here, on their In Action LP, if in fact that came out in March '63 (there's conflicting evidence). In any case, Dylan's single on Columbia (August '63) was beaten to the punch by Peter, Paul & Mary's on Warner Bros. (June '63), who had an immediate smash hit with it. That's a lot of exposure for a song so closely associated with it's creator (although that may have been par for the course in the ethos of the NYC folk club scene of the early '60s -- I just don't know). And I think it's a fair guess that, in appropriating a spiritual, Dylan meant for it to be a song in the populist tradition that both the folk revival and the Civil Rights Movement were turning to for inspiration. A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall is a far more poignant song, but less accessible. If PP&M had performed that at the March on Washington instead of Blowin' in the Wind, no one would remember it today.

The thing about an anthem is that everybody covers it, but picking Stevie Wonder's 1966 Tamla single is a no-brainer. Stevie, naturally, could sing the camp packing list and make it soar. What I really like about his take, besides how he returns the song to its spiritual roots, is the sense of familiarity he sings into it. The rhetorical questions don't sound particularly rhetorical here; they sound joyous, almost casually so. And why not? By '66 the Civil Rights Movement had tangible victories to celebrate. The lyrical queries get turned on their ear, no longer deriving strength from their ambiguity. Instead, Wonder makes it a hymn, something that everyone can recognize and can revel in. The answers are no longer the point. But understanding that we have the strength to ask the questions is cause for celebration.


Stevie Wonder: Blowin' in the Wind

And as an added bonus, with Cinco de Mayo so recent in our rearview mirrors, I'm gonna throw in Nina Simone's cover of Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, one of three Dylan covers off her 1969 LP To Love Somebody. At the risk of making an entirely unoriginal observation, the song, ostensibly about a Mexican jaunt gone sour, is an entirely different jewel in Simone's care. In the song, weary from all the deviance he encounters and feeling abandoned, the narrator gives in and returns home: "I'm going back to New York City/I do believe I've had enough." But it's instructive to remember that when Dylan recorded it, for 1965's Highway 61 Revisited, it was at the apex of his ascent. The sneering contempt with which he sings it -- practically his hallmark during this period -- is an affectation of his own success. His ultimate retreat to the safety of home, and even the entire trip in the first place, are luxuries afforded him by his success. And the solitary state he finds himself in at the end is at least a product of his own design. (Just so we're clear, it's a brilliant tune, in both writing and execution.)


But what Dylan takes for granted, Simone was struggling to find. She routinely chafed against conditions Dylan couldn't possibly ever relate to (what she felt were expectations on her race and gender, an abusive marriage, what is now considered to likely have been a bipolar disorder), and some which he probably could (struggling to define herself as an artist on her own terms). She approaches Tom Thumb's Blues with a chilling despondency, singing it with a softness -- almost a tenderness -- for the adversities holding her down. It is the song of a battered woman, and when, just before the last verse, she ad libs, "Well, that's it folks," you can't help but wonder if you're listening to some kind of last confession; if it's even possible for an artist to take their own life on vinyl. It's one of the saddest songs I've ever come across, and she knew it, because she sequenced it as the penultimate song on the album, followed by a rousing cover of The Times They Are a-Changin', that's religious and triumphant and steeped in gravitas, and can't help but sound like a complete phony following the personal ordeal that precedes it.


Nina Simone: Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues



Sorry to leave on such a blue note. We'll go upbeat next time, and look to the King to get us there.


Peace & Vinyl,
The KassaNostra