"Hard Rain" by Tim Riley
mrblues
Bought it on a whim, really, along will Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" (which I've
been meaning to read for a while). I'm a lifelong bigtime Dylan fan (have
tickets for tomorrow's early show in Atlantic City!). I've read several
other Dylan books, but this one got slammed by reviewers on Amazon, which I
didn't check out until after the purchase.
Has anyone read this? Any comments? I always enjoy other peoples
commentary/criticisms/interpretations about Dylan and his songs, so the book
sounded interesting. Just looking for feedback on Riley's book. Will let
you know what I think when I'm through. Thanks.
Peter Stone Brown
I've probably posted this before. The following is a review I wrote when
it first came out. I'm sure it applies to the updated version.
Tim Riley starts this book, (subtitled "A Dylan Commentary") with such
a rush of words -- much like his subject -- describing the layers of
meaning Dylan's voice gives to his songs that I had high hopes for it.
But the book is riddled with errors in fact, history, spelling and
hearing. Wrong facts are quite common in books on rock 'n' roll (with
the possible exception of those by Peter Guralnick). Whenever I see a
factual error, I wonder what else the author got wrong? More disturbing
is that some unsuspecting soul will read it and think it's the truth.
Hard Rain is an up-to-date analysis of Dylan's songs, albums and films
and concerts (though Riley apparently has seen few of those). He cites
Dylan's obvious influences, Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams, and
randomly assigns others such as blues singer and guitarist, Brownie
McGhee. I have no doubt that Dylan listened to Brownie McGhee but it
was his long-time partner Sonny Terry's harmonica playing that can be
detected as an influence on Dylan. Such confusion runs rampant.
Discussing Dylan's first record, he quotes the chorus of "Gospel Plow"
as "Keep your eye on the plow," when what is actually sung is "hand." I
believe Riley is confusing it with the freedom song "Keep Your Eyes on
the Prize" sung to the same melody and recorded by Pete Seeger on his We
Shall Overcome album referred to in the text. Riley hears Dylan sing
"The fiddler now speaks" on the last verse of Biograph's live version of
"Visions of Johanna" when he is clearly singing "peddler."
Riley relies on other books on Dylan which themselves are wrong. He
quotes directly from Robert Shelton's No Direction Home for the the
musician credits for Blood on the Tracks because Shelton supplies the
names of musicians not credited on the album cover when Dylan suddenly
decided to re-record half the album at the last minute. My brother
happens to play on that record and is one of the musicians listed on the
cover. Shelton got his last name (which is my last name and real hard
to spell) wrong. If Riley had bothered to check the album cover, he
might have discovered the discrepancy. Shelton is also used as a source
for the incorrect number of redone songs. The difference in the sound
of the two sessions is obvious. Most of the original recordings were
subsequently released on Biograph and Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 making the
difference even more apparent. If Riley can't tell the difference
between songs with several guitars and drums and songs with one guitar,
harmonica and a bass, why is this man a music commentator? Riley also
says The Hawks (aka the Band) back Dylan on "If You Gotta Go." A simple
check of the credits show otherwise and again the band on the track
sounds nothing like the Band.
Michael Gray's The Art of Bob Dylan is the source for the incorrect
statement that Dylan took the melody for "Don't Think Twice, It's All
Right" from Johnny Cash's "Understand Your Man" when it was the other
way around. "Understand Your Man"
wasn't even recorded until Dylan's Freewheelin' album had been out six
months.
In mentioning Woody Guthrie's involvement with the Almanac Singers a
topical song group in the '40s that also included Pete Seeger, Riley
states that Burl Ives and Richard Dyer-Bennett (an art singer who
performed classical renditions of traditional folk ballads) and
Leadbelly were members. Not true. Riley is misquoting Joe Klein's
biography Woody Guthrie: A Life, where Klein writes that the Almanac
Singers used to hold Sunday afternoon concerts in their communal loft
where Ives, Dyer-Bennett, Leadbelly and others would perform.
Riley also says that Mike Bloomfield led Dylan's band at Forest Hills,
his second "electric" appearance. He means the Newport Folk Festival.
I was at Forest Hills, Mike Bloomfield wasn't in the band. He correctly
identifies the musicians 20 pages later (great proofreading).
As annoying as these errors are, the interpretation and analysis of
what the songs are about is way off base. Significance is assigned
where none exists (and vice versa). False assumptions are presented as
fact. Discussing "I Pity the Poor Immigrant," Riley follows a bunch of
nonsense about westerns, gangsters and cowboys with, "...the song is as
much about the narrator's heavy heart as about the ethnic resentments
that lead to separate codes of justice." In real life, the lyrics are
based on and quote from The Book of Leviticus (The Blessings of
Obedience , Chapter 26, verse 19 and 20). The "I" in the song is God.
The "immigrant" represents the Jews during Exodus. Once you have that
knowledge, the song makes perfect sense, and other interpretations seem
silly.
Okay, so you have to read the Bible to know about that song, but Riley
gets more ridiculous: Analyzing "Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 and 35"
(Everybody Must Get Stoned), he says the line "They'll stone you when
you're trying to take your seat," "can be read as a reference to the
Montgomery Alabama bus boycott." What!? Discussing the unreleased,
"Get Your Rocks Off," recorded during the Basement Tapes -- a funny
nonsensical song where Dylan and The Band crack up while they're singing
-- Riley states the line "Cruising down the highway in a Greyhound bus"
"alludes to the Mississippi Freedom Riders." Uh, sometimes a cigar is
just a cigar and in the case of this song, a Greyhound Bus is a
Greyhound bus.
Riley then says "Tears of Rage" is "a soldier's curse upon his
commander... the voice of a man who followed his leader into battle, saw
his friends slaughtered for a cause he may never have fully believed in,
only to return to find his superior running for political office,
turning his back on the values that were so easily sacrificed." In
over 24 years of listening to this song, I never heard that. At its
simplest level this mysterious song could be seen as a parent's anguish
at watching a child go out in the world and become corrupted by all the
things the parent tried to warn the child against. On a broader level
the "father" is God and the "daughter" the subjects who refuse to do His
bidding. The use of recurring images such as "thief" found in that song
and several others such as "All Along the Watchtower" is ignored.
Everything about "Tears of Rage" from the performance to the music and
the lyrics suggest a spiritual context as do many of Dylan's songs from
the same period. Just because the song was written during the time of
the Vietnam War doesn't mean the song is about the Vietnam War.
Riley misses the obvious metaphor of "I Shall Be Released," which he
sees only "about a man in prison who hears another man's cries of being
framed." At its simplest level, the lyrics could be read this way, but
again the performance suggests another, deeper level and a companion
song to "Tears of Rage." Bizarrely, Riley views the jokey "Nothing Was
Delivered" as the companion to "Tears." Featuring a piano part copped
from Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill," it is more than likely about a dope
dealer held hostage until he comes up with the goods, with lines like
"The sooner you come up with it, the sooner you can leave." The chorus,
"Take care of your health and get plenty of rest" serves as a sarcastic
warning from the mob. Riley says the song "is a prophetic snub of
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon."
Riley also insists on painting "Visions of Johanna" primarily as a drug
song based on using "rain" as drug parlance for heroin. Wrong again,
it's actually a term for meth, but mentioned in one line (if indeed it
is a drug reference) it's a minor part of the song, which is basically
about being with one person when you wish you were with another.
However, Riley manages to find the narrator and Louise (the person he's
with) chemically addicted, and the setting a drug den. In 26 years of
listening, I always thought the setting was a New York apartment in New
York with lines like, "In this room the heat pipes just cough."
Like most critics, Riley skims over Dylan's later work. Admittedly,
the '80s were Dylan's most inconsistent period, but fascinating in the
range of highs and lows. He somehow comes up with the premise that
"Jokerman" (from Infidels) is about Reagan when lines like "Standing by
the water casting your bread," suggest Christ, though ultimately I
believe the song is autobiographical.
Not mentioned is Empire Burlesque's "Dark Eyes" one of Dylan's most
poetic songs ever or that the same album's "Seeing The Real You At Last"
is constructed almost entirely of lines quoted from movies.
Riley's musical ignorance is at its height when he reviews the
two-volume bootleg Blind Boy Grunt and the Hawks, a collection of
leftover songs and out takes from the Basement Tapes. On bootleg
records, songs are rarely given the correct title since (obviously) the
musicians have not been consulted and the tapes are either stolen or
copied. On the album, Dylan and the Band sing both originals and
covers. Riley correctly identifies two covers, Curtis Mayfield's
"People Get Ready" and Hank Williams' "Be Careful of the Stones That You
Throw." He doesn't know that: (1) "I Don't Hurt Anymore" is a Hank Snow
hit; (2) "Down on Me" is an old blues song recorded by Odetta made
famous by Big Brother and the Holding Company on their first album; (3)
"Hills of Mexico" is a variant of "Trail of the Buffalo," usually
associated with Woody Guthrie and a song Dylan still performs; (4) "A
Night Without Sleep" is U. Utah (Bruce) Phillips' "Rock, Salt and
Nails," recorded by several people including Flatt and Scruggs; and
finally that "One Single River" is "Song For
Canada," a plea for English and French Canadians to communicate with
each other, available on Ian and Sylvia's Early Morning Rain album.
Since Riley mentions Ian and Sylvia three times in the text, he simply
should be aware of this song. All of this points to a writer who
doesn't know the scope of his material, hasn't bothered to take the time
to find out and really has no business writing about it at all.
In the introduction -- the only part of the book that stands up except
for the historical inaccuracies mentioned earlier -- Riley correctly
states that "Dylan isn't as interested as in being understood as he is
in being felt." He should have stopped right there.
--
"Where the angels' voices whisper to the souls of previous times."
--Bob Dylan
Peter Stone Brown
e-mail: pet...@erols.com
http://store.yahoo.com/tangible-music/petstonbrowi.html
mrblues
course, but perhaps with a more critical eye. I always hesitate to
"analyze" Dylan's lyrics (at least for public dissemination), but I have to
admit I get a real kick of listening and reading others interpretations.
Michael Gray's "Song and Dance Man" really turned me on for that reason, and
I eagerly await his updated version due out next year. Again, many of the
so-called "meanings" of the songs are often elaborate musings of someone who
studies too closely every word written as if it had an unmistakable,
specific reason for being written, other than perhaps because it just
sounded good within the context of that particular stanza at that moment in
time. Still great fun and fodder for discussion. Everyone's a
dylantologist, but I guess in part that why we love the man -- his work
allows those varied levels of analysis and interpretation, and it's still
great music!
Will write back with views on book when I get through it. Later.
np: Real Live (another whim purchase recently)
Thesage288
>
> I just picked up the book "Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary" by Tim Riley.
> Bought it on a whim, really, along will Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" (which I've
> been meaning to read for a while). I'm a lifelong bigtime Dylan fan (have
> tickets for tomorrow's early show in Atlantic City!). I've read several
> other Dylan books, but this one got slammed by reviewers on Amazon, which I
> didn't check out until after the purchase.
>
> Has anyone read this? Any comments? I always enjoy other peoples
> commentary/criticisms/interpretations about Dylan and his songs, so the book
> sounded interesting. Just looking for feedback on Riley's book. Will let
> you know what I think when I'm through. Thanks.
I read the book quite awhile ago and it is definately disappointing. Poster
(peter stone brown) is dead on with most of his points so I'll just add in a
few bits and pieces that I thought were relevant.
Most important to any review of this book would have to be a mention of the
presumptous and pretentious nature in which Riley writes it. I've never read
commentary on dylan songs that were presented as so "absolute" by the author,
but as Peter Stone Brown points out, are filled with holes throughout them.
Riley lets broad statements about Dylan's motivations, character, personal
life, and artistic choices to fly freely, almost to the point where it becomes
ridiculous. As you read the book's commentary, in certain sections there are
times when you start to wonder if Riley knows more about Dylan than Dylan does.
He often wastes the reader's time with tangents about Dylan and his songs that
go nowhere and are flawed from the beginning sentence of Riley's comments on
them. There are numerous times when Riley unabashedly states that Dylan's
favorite type of song to write/sing is the metaphorical anti-protest movement
lost love songs that can be found on Another Side. He offers no justification
for this point, no development. Just the statement alone is left to stand, and
begs for questioning...
Furthermore, the glaring inaccuracies are horrible noticeable as Riley bases
entire points of his commentary around them, and the whole time the reader is
insulted the author didn't even take the time to get his facts strait. The
book is simply a waste of time (Riley's inaccurate facts, presumptous nature
take away from the points he attempts to make) and has very few redeeming
qualities.
"Really the truth is just a plain picture, man."
Chris Lee
>> Has anyone read this? Any comments?
>I've probably posted this before. The following is a review I wrote when
>it first came out. I'm sure it applies to the updated version.
>
I didn't care for the book either (though I liked Riley's earlier book on the
Beatles, Tell Me Why). I think this review is generally good. The inaccuracies
in Riley's book are pretty glaring (that "peddler/fiddler" one still amazes me.
Was he not paying attention, or were his ears full of wax or what?). But I
think it's a little too harsh on Riley's song interpretations, though. They can
be pretty wacky at times, but, as pointed out elsewhere, his problem isn't so
much that his interps are strange, it's that he's so convinced that they're
accurate (What I liked about Brown's review was that he always prefaces his
interpretations with "probably" or "more than likely"). But, couldn't every
Dylan fan be accused of that? We all have our own personal interpretations of
Bob's songs that other people probably would find bizarre or dead wrong.
Riley's view of "Nothing Was Delivered" as "a prophetic snub of Johnson and
Nixon" is odd, but it's thought-provoking. When Bush (who I never liked) lost
in '92, that song played in my head on Election Night. Isn't the whole beauty
of Dylan that a song can be interpreted as a political commentary and a saga
about drug dealing, with both of them equally plausible on certain levels?
That's why I'm not a big fan of the whole "dueling interpretations" struggles
you see on here. Basically, my view is "you go your way and I'll go mine" (had
to sneak a lyric quote in here someplace. I wonder if he really did borrow that
line from "It Doesn't Matter Anymore"?)
Christopher L.
"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand"
-Linus Van Pelt
"If you don't underestimate me, I won't underestimate you"
-Bob Dylan
http://members.aol.com/ezclee4050/spareroom/home.htm
r.i.p. Jean Shepherd, 1921-1999