D
Dr. No
Guest
Kαλά το θυμόμουν απλά στη θέση του Cohen είχα διαβάσει για τον Paul Simon
As in 1967 with the Beatles, all the top guns were brought in to re-invent Dylan in 1965 and save his faltering career. This is when “Like a Rolling Stone” hit the charts. It truly is a great song. The lyrics are fantastic and Dylan's performance is near-perfect. The arrangement is tight and fitting, and has a quality almost nothing else by Dylan has. So we have to believe the real musicians and lyricists were brought in for this one. Whoever wrote this one and “Shelter from the Storm” and a couple of others had some refined poetic chops. Slant rhyming “juiced in it” and “used to it” is masterful, and beyond almost everyone else at the time, including, of course, Dylan. Only someone like Paul Simon was capable of lyrics and storytelling on this level, and it is possible he is the one behind lyrics like this. Joni Mitchell was later on this level, but this doesn't have her signals or her female feel. She was capable of this richness, but not this grit. Many won't understand why I think Paul Simon could write this but not Dylan. They were of the same age, so if Simon could write it, why not Dylan? Let me answer this way. Paul Simon's career makes sense. It is of a piece. He didn't write a few magnificent songs in a short span of years and then crash into oblivion. With some comprehensible changes and growth, he was in the 1970's and 80's what he was in the 1960's. Simon was still capable of poetry in later decades. That is what we would expect from a real person. But that isn't what we find from Dylan. All his great songs are from the early years, and after, say, 1966, it appears his Muse (almost) utterly deserted him. I would suggest it wasn't any Muse that deserted him, it was the Operation that was finished with him.
