Queen Jane Approximately

Recently I was listening to a Bob Dylan cover by a really great artist and was disappointed to realize it left me cold. And it occurred to me that that one of the keys to a great Dylan cover is that the singer not be technically fantastic. 

They don’t have to be as unconventional as Dylan—an underrated singer, actually, but not one with universal appeal—but that having an unusual voice is perhaps not only a bonus but in fact necessary for it to be great. 

I'm thinking of, obviously, Jimi Hendrix and "All Along the Watchtower" or Bruce Springsteen's cover of "I Want You" or the Drive-By Truckers joyful "Like a Rolling Stone" or U2's "All Along the Watchtower" or Dave Matthews' "All Along the Watchtower" or, frankly, Bob Dylan's cover of Jimi Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower." 

(I'm sensing a pattern here.) 

This isn't to say great artists can't do fine versions. I mean, The Staple Singers. Stevie Wonder. The Byrds. Adele. Bryan Ferry. Rod Stewart. Van Morrison. I would perhaps stipulate that in addition to being outstanding singers, they all have an abundance of character.

But, still. To my mind, the majority of the best covers are by singers who don't come close to approaching the vocal prowess or purity of, say, Mariah Carey. 

And then this hit. And I’m proven, once again, totally wrong. Because absolutely everything about this is spectacular, from the very first bits of guitar picking to where her impossibly gorgeous vocals enter. And yet she manages to convey the essence of the lyrics without ever lapsing into style over substance.  

Like a Rolling Stone

 So a while back I wrote:

I've heard a few good covers (Jimi Hendrix, Green Day), a couple okay (the Rolling Stones' version actually was better than I'd expected if still not exactly transcendent) and a bunch of terrible (John Mayer, sure, but David Gilmour?! What were you thinkin', man?), but few if any great. 

And I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Because this cover is not good. It's absolutely great. 

I think what I missed the first time is that element that takes it from good to great. 

It's not Bille Joe Armstrong's vocal delivery, which is indeed great and has a similarly punkish attitude as the original did, even if their nasally vocal tones sound nothing alike. 

It's not Mike Dirnt's typically great bass playing, laying a perfect foundation over which the others can go anywhere. 

No, what makes this cover great is Tré Cool's typically incendiary playing. His post-post-punk playing gives the cover the kind of energy that the Bobby Gregg gave the original—especially that opening snare shot that, as one fan put it, "sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind"—but updated for a new century. 

As the bard once said, "play it fucking loud." 

Election Day Bob Dylan Listenings

I have written it many times here on Reason to Believe, almost on an annual basis. On Election Day
each year I tend to turn to Bob Dylan. As there is no voice for the unheard, advocate for the unseen, and spotlight into the darkness that has been louder, more prominent or shone brighter than Mr. Zimmerman for more than a half-century now. A big part of American music? Hell, Bob Dylan is American music. He is America, through and through.

So today I listened to a few old nuggets, some of which have been featured here before. The clarion call for the forgotten of "Chimes of Freedom." The meditation of hollow exceptionalism that is "With God On Our Side." The monument to white privilege and injustice that is "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." And the paean to Medgar Evers and the civil rights movement that is "Only A Pawn in Their Game."

Those words rang out in the early 1960s and they still ring out today. Because they have to.

And our votes counted and needed to be counted in 1800 and 1864 and 1904 and 1932 and 1952 and 1960 and 1964 and 1972 and 1980 and 1992 and 2000 and 2008 and on and one because they always will, and always have to.

So consider this my annual PSA. Listen to a little Bob Dylan today. And then go vote. It always feels so good when we do!

Happy Election Day. Go vote!

"Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales,
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position.
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts,
All down in taken-for-granted situations,

Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute,
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute,
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit,
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

- "The Chimes of Freedom" - Bob Dylan, 1964

Election Day Bob Dylan Listenings

Well I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother 'n son
I ain't different from anyone

- Bob Dylan, "I Shall Be Free No. 10"

You all know what to do. Go vote...and even listen to a little of Mr. Zimmerman—that uniquely American voice which pretty much drills down to the marrow of who we are every time it sounds—to give you a little additional motivation. I know it always helps me.

(And a question. Does Bob Dylan ever get true credit for being as funny as he is? Seriously, if there has been a funnier songwriter over the last half-century or so, I'm really not sure who he is. This song is a pretty solid example of that).

Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)

Today I Learned two things.

First, that when Leo Sayer, he of the mid-70s smash hit "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing," first entered the biz, he decided going with a sad clown look was a good idea.

(It was not.)

The second is that he's the one who wrote and recorded the absolutely kickass but only dimly remembered "Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)," which answers the never asked question "would it be good if Bob Dylan got drunk and recorded a song on the spur of the moment with The Faces trying to do a Steeler's Wheel impression?"

(It was.)

Election Day Bob Dylan Listening

'Tis that time of year. More specifically 'tis that DAY of the year. Vote. For real. Do it. Today.

As I have stated numerous times in this space, my Election Day listenings always go to Bob Dylan. Why? Probably has something to do with his being the most enduring American voice of the last half-century and more. A voice more often than not for freedom, for empathy and for understanding.

So that's why, I think. And today (Have we done this before? Seriously, I am asking - I've spotlit a lot of Dylan songs here and can't recall if I've done this one yet...oh well. I'm doing it anyway) I choose one of his most perfectly written songs. A song that remembers the forgotten, pities the afflicted, speaks for the voiceless and lifts up the persecuted. It is such a magnificent piece of writing that it's almost a shame that he had to put it to music.

Almost.

Read these lyrics. And go vote. And keep them chimes of freedom flashing.

Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each an' every underdog soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsakened
Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute
For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chained an' cheated by pursuit
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flared
An' the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

I know this is not the greatest thing ever. Objectively, I know this. But neither the heart nor the soul always listens to objectivity.

I mean, I shouldn't love this so deeply. It seems the kind of rather facilely hep take that usually repulses me. But that voice, that kind of nerdy, insanely white voice that was such a massively formative influence on me growing up, covering what is often my favorite Bob Dylan song ever...I just...

Election Day Bob Dylan Listenings

As I have written in this space before, Election Day brings my music listenings squarely to the doorstep of Bob Dylan. Just because, I guess. Or perhaps because no one American has so consistently written and sang about the American Experience as well or as articulately as Mr. Zimmerman has. And no American Experience is more American than the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Election Day should be the great equalizer for all of us. I know it's a very naive thing to say that it is in fact that, but it should be. One person, one vote. Every gets their shot, one shot, each year to make their voices and opinions heard. One person, one vote. Hundreds of millions of Americans voicing their beliefs on their own, yet no one is alone. At least no one should be. We do it alone, but together. As Americans.

That's why I still love Election Day and still look forward to casting my vote this day every year, just as I have for the last 31 years. And that this year my 18-year-old son gets to vote with me for the first time? Even better.

So with that "alone together" theme, I give you this year's choice of Bob Dylan albums and songs. In my very humble and perhaps misguided opinion, it is one of his three greatest records ever, yet one seldom thought of among his giants. John Wesley Harding.

It was revolutionary for its time 50 years ago when it was released and remains so now. After Dylan's electric hulabaloo. After Blonde on Blonde. After Don't Look Back and the "Dylanization" of the music world. After the motorcycle crash and his self-imposed exile. And he came back with a quiet, folkier yet razor's edge sharp album in JWH that was startling in its artistic and lyrical simplicity. It spoke so loudly of the tumultuous times that 1967 brought and 1968 was about to bring (the album was released just after Christmas), yet did it in measured, at times hushed tones. It remains sui generis in his catalog or anyone else's. A true, endearing work of art by an all-time master.

And today's song is one of the quieter, more solemn tunes from that quieter, more solemn album. "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine." Sung to the same tune as the epic worker's folk tune, "Joe Hill," there's a line in "St. Augustine" that really hit me as I listened to it today, thinking about Election Day and all it connotes for us:

"No martyr is among you
Whom you can call your own.
So go on your way accordingly,
But know you're not alone."

Amen. Through it all we're still here. And today we still vote. So go do it. And know you're not alone.

Don't Think Twice (It's All Right)

So a good pal sent me this earlier today

and how delightful was that? Sure, Anne Murray's not exactly a heavy-hitter, artistically, but as a pop-loving child of the 70s, I've always had a serious soft spot for her, especially after reading about her learning the hardest of ways why you never want to try to follow Bruce Springsteen on stage, especially not in New York City.

(This was during the brief period after Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez had left the band, when the fantastic Ernest "Boom" Carter was on drums. Springsteen was on fire, of course, and a quarter of the audience left as soon as his set was done; not only was Murray booed when she started her set, by the time her set was over, only a quarter of the crowd was left. Not coincidentally, that was the last time any artist ever even considered letting Bruce Springsteen open for him/her.)

Was that extra little walkdown filigree added to title line really necessary? I don't think so, but hey, quibbles. A more serious annoyance is the fact that they reverse the order of the first two lines, but then, absolutely everybody (except Dylan himself) does that, probably because that's how the lyrics were officially registered. Still, have none of them ever paid attention to (almost) any of Dylan's own recordings? Vexing.

[Yes, I know, in the very early days he would sometimes since it in the printed order, which is undoubtedly why the lyrics were printed in that order. I do not accept this excuse. Rejected!]

I found it an interesting choice for Dylan cover. 'cuz, sure, it's one of Dylan's very greatest songs—and when you consider the rest of us oeuvre, that's a mouthful, and especially staggering considering he was about 21 when he wrote it—but it was never a single for him, much less a hit. Nor was it a big hit for anyone else, unlike so many of his other songs, which were commercial and artistic successes, of course, for the likes of the Byrds and Jimi Hendrix and so on.

Only it turns out it was a successful single, first for Peter, Paul & Mary (who I try to avoid like the plague, hence my semi-deliberate ignorance), going to #9 in 1963. And then even more amazingly, going to #12 two years later and selling over a million copies. Oddly, that later cover seems little more than a footnote now.

Or maybe not so odd, once you hear the damn thing.

As a pop-loving child of the 70s, I have a soft spot for Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. But this...this is not good. Abomination is probably too strong a word. Probably. But maybe not. Yes, it was apparently recorded as a joke. It's not a good one.

Election Day - How does it feel?

It's Election Day. I love Election Day as much as any day on the calendar. And as loyal readers here at Reason to Believe know, Election Day for me is all about Bob Dylan. 

On Election Days that I looked forward to and even on those I kinda dreaded, I still loved going to the polls, expressing my opinion on my terms as only I can. My people don't always win, but I always feel like I've done something big when I vote. Going all the way back 30 years when I voted for the first time.

For many many reasons I am thrilled for Election Day 2016 to be here and for the campaign soon to be over; most of those reasons having to do with a certain sentient rotting pumpkin running for President for one of the major parties. And in 12 hours it will in fact be over. And I think our great nation will be a little greater as a result.

This day as I head into work I'll be be blaring Mr. Zimmerman on the way once more, And I'll go right to the source, as they say. No fooling around, no wasting time. I'll go right to one of his greatest albums ever and start with the very first track on that record, objectively and pretty much inarguably the greatest song he ever wrote.


Because it really does speak to just so much of what we've been watching for the past year and more. The insufferable feeling invincible. The underprivileged being duped and lied to. And the tenets of decency and integrity being torn to pieces before our eyes.

Here's hoping it all ends tonight. I'll take comfort in words Bob wrote rather presciently 51 years ago, words that really could have been written for today:

Ain't it hard when you discover that,
He really wasn't wear it's at,
After he took from you everything he could steal.

Right on. Go vote and take back every ounce that's been robbed from us this year.

And as the credits roll on this election season, let's take one more look at one of the truly great defiant moments in rock-n-roll history. At the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966, when Bob Dylan brushed off the detractors and jeers with a smile and a sneer, turned to his band and just as they began a blistering "Like a Rolling Stone," told them, "Play it fucking loud!"

And they did.

's

Go play today, voters. And when you play, play it fucking loud.

The Sound of Silence

Despite how thoroughly you know, sometimes it can still sneak up on you, just how damn great Bob Dylan is. The gravitas his gravelly baritone adds here, the growling harmonica, the reminder of what a surprisingly fine duet partner he can be...this may be my favorite version of this great tune, in no small part because Dylan's ragged glory is exactly what the pristine fastidiousness of Paul Simon could use a bit more of.

[h/t: the great AllDylan.]

Like a Rolling Stone

As I've written, I'm pretty lukewarm on David Bowie the cover artist, even as I remain fairly insane about David Bowie the artist.

But this is a pretty stellar version of a Bob Dylan song which hasn't had a whole lot of great versions by anyone other than the man himself. (Although, yes, there have been some.) It's hard not to think that Bowie's stint in the not very good but very rejuvenating Tin Machine had more than a little to do with how he tears into this, but it's also notable that he does a much better job with it than that band did with the Dylan cover "Maggie's Farm." How much of it is due to this being a much better song ("Maggie's Farm" is, to my ears, one of Dylan's three most overrated songs ever), and how much of it's due to how much better or at least simpatico (read: better) a match Mick Ronson was for The Thin White Duke than Reeves Gabrels remains open to debate.

Like a Rolling Stone

So I guess this has been a thing for ten years and I'm just now coming across it. In an effort to make up for lost time, I've listened to it on repeat for 5 hours now. And it's not getting old.

This is probably the finest cover of this great song I've ever heard—although that's actually kinda damning with faint praise, since I've heard a few good covers (Jimi Hendrix, Green Day), a couple okay (the Rolling Stones' version actually was better than I'd expected if still not exactly transcendent) and a bunch of terrible (John Mayer, sure, but David Gilmour?! What were you thinkin', man?), but few if any great. (Maybe Hendrix simply set the bar too high with "All Along the Watchtower," but I find his "Like a Rolling Stone" good—of course it is, it's Jimi—but far from great).

But the Drive-By Truckers make this their own without changing a damn thing. The finest southern rock band since the heyday of the Allman Bros and Lynyrd Skynrd, one listen makes it clear that they've heard the original hundreds of times. And like Dylan, they're fluent in rock, country and blues, as well as alternative. And the fact that each verse is sung by a different band member is sheer gold, bringing to mind the glory days of The Band, not inappropriately. Having the finest singer-songwriter of the past decade, Jason Isbell, taking a verse certainly doesn't hurt, but so good are the others that his doesn't even (especially) stand out (much); Patterson Hood's Henleyesque voice fits perfectly, and the addition of Shonna Tucker is always a welcome one, while Mike Cooley's country punk caps things off perfectly. And when they all shout the final chorus, it brings it all home in a way the song hasn't often since being played fuckin' loud at the semi-apocryphal Royal Albert Hall gig.

So how does it feel? Pretty sweet, actually.

(Also, the pumpfake of the snare shot at the beginning's pretty damn funny.)

Like a Rolling Stone

"Judas!"

"I don't believe you.
"You're a liar.
"Play fuckin' loud." 

Well. There 'tis.

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

This works way better than it has any right to. I wish it weren't quite so produced—I'd love it if it were just Jon Anderson and Steve Howe, one take, no overdubs—but maybe that'd be way too sparse for a song of this epic length. Still, lovely.

Stuck Inside of a Lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus Blues Again

"This is nothing terrible, it's bad enough, but it's not terrible—wow, that's deep, man."

On the John Lennon Anthology box, this is titled "Satire 2." But I much prefer its unofficial title, taken from Lennon's lyrics: "Stuck Inside of a Lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus Blues Again."

Hearing one genius savage another genius like this is, frankly, delightful. (And going out of his way to make sure his old bandmate George got hit with some collateral damage in the bargain.) I also love that Lennon's Dylan impression isn't nearly as close as nearly anyone else's in the entire world, timbre-wise, although his cadence is awfully good—but his lyrical broadside is pretty damn spot-on, even if it's more one of Dylan's earlier talking blues he's parodying and not the Blonde on Blonde classic.

The official Soviet newspaper said that temple members have protested the mindless arms race and the filthy war in Vietnam and were persecuted and finally forced to seek refuge in another country—wow, sounds like a ballad to me 

Oh man, Bangkok, Thailand, has launched an air/sea-search for a fishing boat carrying some four hundred Vietnamese refugees, the boat was towed back out to sea after arriving in Thailand, sources said because of a breakdown in communication 

Oh Lord, the boat was towed into Thai waters by a German freighter and the Thai navy, unaware that the refugees had been guaranteed a resettlement in West Germany, took the boat out to sea after providing all passengers with provision—wow, that's deep man 

The Chinese newspapers have made the first reference to the country's curtain wall poster campaign according to vice-premier Deng Xiao-Ping, and saying that the country's stable and its leaders are confident and been planting modernization programs—oh, this should get me in the Village Voice 

Deng gave his blessings to the campaign but he commented not all the opinions of the masses are carefully thought out nor can we demand that they all be correct, adding this is nothing terrible, it's bad enough, but it's not terrible 

Former president Richard Nixon, on his second trip outside the United States since his resignation, was a smiling handshaking politician again, greeting crowds outside his hotel and trying a little French, he sure as hell didn't try it on Pat Nixon 

Mr. Nixon is in Paris to sight-see and be interviewed on French television, before going on to deliver a speech in England, he'll participate in the French call-in program and said he will answer questions in Welsh—that's pretty big, Mr. N 

Oh, I'm so cynical I could just keep on doing this forever because, you know, they ain't gonna be looking in my golden bunions in a hundred years from now, they're gonna be selling my socks like Judy Garland, and I hope they get a good price, I mean, what with the inflation and the price of rice, but man, I shouldn't worry, I own all my own songs and I wrote them myself too 

I got twenty-four children, fourteen wives, three mistresses, fifty-nine accountants, one-hundred and-five lawyers, two million fans, a posting system that never fails to land me in jail, and look through my mail, perhaps have a garage sale, and you know, go save the whale, and eh, you know, get a boat and go for a sail, and, and, oh, oh, oh, how do you get out of this hell, I'm stuck inside of a lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus blues again—sometimes I wish I was just George Harrison, you know, got all the answers, oh my God, oh my God

Also, check out his spoken intro: in true Lennon fashion, he seems to be transmogrifying the former Robert Zimmerman's surname from "Dylan" to "Diddle."

God help and breed you all.

Not Dark Yet (An Election Day Bob Dylan Fix)

"It's not dark yet. But it's gettin' there."

As I have indicated before here at Reason to Believe, Election Day brings me invariably to Bob Dylan. Not sure why. Maybe it's because he sees things that most of the rest of us never see. Maybe it's because he can make cynicism so irresistible. Or maybe it's just because he's been making music for more than 50 years and that is indeed one of the truly enduring things about the Republic over the last half-century.

I remember when Krispy Kreme came to New England a decade ago and everyone went gaga over it. I mean, hell, me too. Warm glazed donuts? Yes please. Why should only the south have something that you can only otherwise get by sticking a cold glazed donut in the microwave. (Yeah, I know—Krispy Kremes were orgasmic. I get it.) Cars lined up by the dozens to get inside the restaurant to buy 'em. There were two kinds of donuts once they arrived: Krispy Kremes and get the hell out of my face with that weak nonsense you're calling a donut. Krspy! Kremes! Forever! That was us.

But then suddenly one day a few years ago...poof. Krispy Kreme was gone in these parts. As if it had never been here. And time moved on. And now I just realized I have taken something of a digression off this Election Day topic.

The point, I guess, is unlike Krispy Kremes, Bob Dylan endures. He's endured Goldwater and Nixon, Afghanistan and Iran-Contra. He's gone from mockingly calling himself a "song and dance man" to hawking Chryslers on TV. But he keeps making music. All these 50+ years down the road and he's still making damn music. And there's something decidedly American about that, isn't there?

So Happy Election Day and go and do your civic duty today. And to make it worth your while, here's one of the best songs he's written in the last 25 years (from his exceptional 1997 album Time Out Of Mind), yet one that given how prolific he is probably wouldn't make it even into his all-time Top 50.

But still. This is a great song. Listen to it. Then go vote. Then listen to it again. Because this is Election Day. And Bob Dylan, like democracy, is still here. Even if Krispy Kremes aren't.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Someday

There would have been a time.

All Along the Watchtower

Welcome to another installment of "All Along the Watchtower" Watch, wherein we listen to various versions of, well, "All Along the Watchtower."

Here's one I've always liked. Although the great Stereogum thinks it's failure, I'll be so bold as to disagree. Andy Partridge sounds remarkably like Bono doing a half-assed Bob Dylan impersonation, and considering this was released two years before U2's first LP was even recorded, that's not only all the more impressive, it makes one wonder if XTC wasn't perhaps a bigger influence on U2 than is commonly acknowledged. (I don't actually think so.)

Admittedly, the scat singing at the end doesn't really work, and the harmonica seems an odd choice for a sort of punkish take on the classic, albeit more in the angular Wire school of intellectual punk, with perhaps some ska influences mixed in there as well. Still, a worthy addition to the canon.

Favorite Song Friday: Tight Connection to My Heart

As a Bob Dylan fan, I'm not supposed to like this song. That's my understanding of the conventional wisdom, at least. It's smack dab in the middle of Bob Dylan's least beloved—and, objectively, least plain good—period, a span which did have some high points (hello, Infidels!) but an awfully lotta dross, whether it was his religious albums or sub-par live records or what have you—and there was more than a little what-have-you. And it's off Empire Burlesque, an album which is never, ever going to break into any Dylan fan's Top 10 and, really, shouldn't ever even come close, my personal fondness for it aside.

What's more, the earlier version of this song, cut for the aforementioned Infidels, and known as "Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart," is often thought to be superior, with the much more produced and rewritten "Tight Connection" considered overproduced and, well, kinda jive. What's more, the lyrics to "Tight Connection" have been criticized as being overly dependent upon quotes from film noir movies.

I don't buy any of it. Certainly Dylan's made more than a few production mistakes in his time (although considering he's released 35 studio albums, how could he not?). But I remained unswayed by the critiques, finding the song's lyrics more evocative and powerful than most of his material from the time. (I mean, a mere six years after Slow Train Coming, his lead single off his new album contains the line "I never could drink that blood and to call it wine"?) Most of all, of course, is that underneath everything is one of his catchiest ever melodies, with tasty guitar from Mick Taylor and anchored by the nearly peerless rhythm section of Sly and Robbie.

And yet, perhaps even more than that, the song contains some of my favorite singing of any Dylan on record. An oddly overlooked element of Dylan's genius is that he is an outstanding musician. His lyrics get the lion's share of the attention, and understandably, but he's an eminently capable keyboardist, a good harpist and an excellent guitarist. And as anyone who'd listened to hundreds of hours of his live performances (pre-2000s, at least) could tell you, his sense of pitch is far better than most would expect, given his notoriously unconventional timbre. Yes, he's one of the premier practitioners of sprechstimme, in which the individual notes of a melody are only lightly touched upon in a semi-speaking manner—but an opera singer will admit it's a far harder technique to pull off than you'd expect, given how prevalent it is in rock and hip-hop.

On "Tight Connection," he veers back and forth between straightforward singing and a type of acting, where his tone will become mildly skeptical or dangerously seductive or slightly baffled. The really outstanding feature of his singing, though, is how he plays with the beat, often hanging back, like a good soul or funk drummer, then occasionally rushing the beat ever so slightly before hanging back again, and then suddenly hit right on the beat (or even a series of heavily syncopated notes), to emphasize that wherever he's placing the notes are entirely by design and not just haphazard luck (or from half-assing it).

I wish there were a video up on YouTube that wasn't, well, the official video, since I don't think the Miami Vice look ol' Bob was then sporting does the song any favors, although the Springsteenesque look he's also rockin' in places, what with the blonde Tele and leather jacket and baseball cap's pretty amusing. (And, yes, I know Dylan was well known for his leather half a decade before Springsteen even landed a record deal.) And the middle female in the karaoke band is staggeringly attractive—and of course she's the one that somehow seems to sorta kinda morph into Dylan at the end? Like I said, the video's not the best way to experience the song, but needs must when the devil drives, as Dylan never said.

(For the sake of comparison, here's the original version. It's good, no question, and its singing does seem more nakedly impassioned, but more than anything the song in this form seems to be the answer to the question no one asked, which was "hey, what if Bob Dylan tried rewriting 'Sweet Jane'?")