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Harold Lepidus on STREET-LEGAL
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Stephan Pickering
May 24, 2016, 10:45:20 AM5/24/16
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Harold Lepidus, 2016D Bob Dylan at 75: a look back at 'Street-Legal' and the ghost of Elvis. www.Examiner.com, 23 May
Shalom & Erev tov...I read this (twice) with keen interest and appreciation.
STREET-LEGAL, for me, was far more nuanced and CHaBaD-like than the 1974/1976 compositions (many never published, but sung to the Crown Heights Chassidic family he was studying with). I found the 1978 tour qutte provocative, more so than RTR 1975 (with the exception of RENALDO & CLARA).
What I have wanted to read (and hear, if he chose to privately record them) were the confessional winter 1977 songs, angry contemplative poetics a few members of RTR heard in private. The summer 1977 songs -- most of which appeared on STREET-LEGAL -- are hinted at, as it were, in 1976.
As R. Zimmerman, he published in the summer of 1976 an eerie, Kafka-like 179 line prose/poem 'An Observation, Revisited' in Photograph 1(1):9. He wrote it in June 1976, when he visited the 'Toni' exhibition at the Susan Caldwell Gallery. He saw photographs of a vibrant woman taken over the last 2 weeks of her life, the last photograph of her in a coffin. He mentions Tom Paxton's 'Peace Will Come', a line later appearing in 'Changing of the Guards': 'Peace will come / With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire'. In the 1976 piece, he writes: 'I'm making sczribblings / I'm always making sczribblings / A minstrel collecting words / For an eventual song'. And, with his children and Faridi McFree at his side on the Minnesota farm, STREET-LEGAL exploded from his soul onto paper in the summer of 1977.
It is cogent that in the Photograph description of himself (which he wrote), one reads: 'Robert Zimmerman is a one-time kid from the mid-west. A poet and sometime musician, who has taken a sabbatical from his instruments and is writing in the seclusion of the woods'.
I shall stop here.
Let me just say that I believe this 'look back' is a marvellous introduction to the importance and beauty of STREET-LEGAL...After reading Harold's exploration of himself, as much as the album, I recommend a careful perusal of Jonathan Cott;s 16 September 1978 talk with Shabtai / Bob, where STREET-LEGAL figures significantly. After all, STREET-LEGAL says 'Sacrifice is the code of the road'. And to Jonathan he said: 'I didn't create Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan has always been here, always was. When I was a child there was Bob Dylan. And before I was born, there was Bob Dylan'. On 3 January 1974, he told me: 'Bob Dylan is a masque which I use when I have to'.
Thank you, Harold. This is more of a gift to him than the saccharine pirouttes I have read here and elsewhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
Shalom & Erev tov...I read this (twice) with keen interest and appreciation.
STREET-LEGAL, for me, was far more nuanced and CHaBaD-like than the 1974/1976 compositions (many never published, but sung to the Crown Heights Chassidic family he was studying with). I found the 1978 tour qutte provocative, more so than RTR 1975 (with the exception of RENALDO & CLARA).
What I have wanted to read (and hear, if he chose to privately record them) were the confessional winter 1977 songs, angry contemplative poetics a few members of RTR heard in private. The summer 1977 songs -- most of which appeared on STREET-LEGAL -- are hinted at, as it were, in 1976.
As R. Zimmerman, he published in the summer of 1976 an eerie, Kafka-like 179 line prose/poem 'An Observation, Revisited' in Photograph 1(1):9. He wrote it in June 1976, when he visited the 'Toni' exhibition at the Susan Caldwell Gallery. He saw photographs of a vibrant woman taken over the last 2 weeks of her life, the last photograph of her in a coffin. He mentions Tom Paxton's 'Peace Will Come', a line later appearing in 'Changing of the Guards': 'Peace will come / With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire'. In the 1976 piece, he writes: 'I'm making sczribblings / I'm always making sczribblings / A minstrel collecting words / For an eventual song'. And, with his children and Faridi McFree at his side on the Minnesota farm, STREET-LEGAL exploded from his soul onto paper in the summer of 1977.
It is cogent that in the Photograph description of himself (which he wrote), one reads: 'Robert Zimmerman is a one-time kid from the mid-west. A poet and sometime musician, who has taken a sabbatical from his instruments and is writing in the seclusion of the woods'.
I shall stop here.
Let me just say that I believe this 'look back' is a marvellous introduction to the importance and beauty of STREET-LEGAL...After reading Harold's exploration of himself, as much as the album, I recommend a careful perusal of Jonathan Cott;s 16 September 1978 talk with Shabtai / Bob, where STREET-LEGAL figures significantly. After all, STREET-LEGAL says 'Sacrifice is the code of the road'. And to Jonathan he said: 'I didn't create Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan has always been here, always was. When I was a child there was Bob Dylan. And before I was born, there was Bob Dylan'. On 3 January 1974, he told me: 'Bob Dylan is a masque which I use when I have to'.
Thank you, Harold. This is more of a gift to him than the saccharine pirouttes I have read here and elsewhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
luisb...@aol.com
May 24, 2016, 3:46:27 PM5/24/16
to
On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 10:45:20 AM UTC-4, Stephan Pickering wrote:
> Harold Lepidus, 2016D Bob Dylan at 75: a look back at 'Street-Legal' and the ghost of Elvis. www.Examiner.com, 23 May
>
>
> Shalom & Erev tov...I read this (twice) with keen interest and appreciation.
>
> STREET-LEGAL, for me, was far more nuanced and CHaBaD-like than the 1974/1976 compositions (many never published, but sung to the Crown Heights Chassidic family he was studying with). I found the 1978 tour qutte provocative, more so than RTR 1975 (with the exception of RENALDO & CLARA).
>
> What I have wanted to read (and hear, if he chose to privately record them) were the confessional winter 1977 songs, angry contemplative poetics a few members of RTR heard in private. The summer 1977 songs -- most of which appeared on STREET-LEGAL -- are hinted at, as it were, in 1976.
>
> As R. Zimmerman, he published in the summer of 1976 an eerie, Kafka-like 179 line prose/poem 'An Observation, Revisited' in Photograph 1(1):9. He wrote it in June 1976, when he visited the 'Toni' exhibition at the Susan Caldwell Gallery. He saw photographs of a vibrant woman taken over the last 2 weeks of her life, the last photograph of her in a coffin. He mentions Tom Paxton's 'Peace Will Come', a line later appearing in 'Changing of the Guards': 'Peace will come / With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire'. In the 1976 piece, he writes: 'I'm making sczribblings / I'm always making sczribblings / A minstrel collecting words / For an eventual song'. And, with his children and Faridi McFree at his side on the Minnesota farm, STREET-LEGAL exploded from his soul onto paper in the summer of 1977.
Street Legal would not exist without Jacques Levy. Desire, the album co-written with Levy, is the apogee of Dylan's songwriting but not the apogee of his songs. Street Legal is fairly brilliant. He hasn't seemed to want to reach for those heights again, at least not in the publicly released material.
> Harold Lepidus, 2016D Bob Dylan at 75: a look back at 'Street-Legal' and the ghost of Elvis. www.Examiner.com, 23 May
>
>
> Shalom & Erev tov...I read this (twice) with keen interest and appreciation.
>
> STREET-LEGAL, for me, was far more nuanced and CHaBaD-like than the 1974/1976 compositions (many never published, but sung to the Crown Heights Chassidic family he was studying with). I found the 1978 tour qutte provocative, more so than RTR 1975 (with the exception of RENALDO & CLARA).
>
> What I have wanted to read (and hear, if he chose to privately record them) were the confessional winter 1977 songs, angry contemplative poetics a few members of RTR heard in private. The summer 1977 songs -- most of which appeared on STREET-LEGAL -- are hinted at, as it were, in 1976.
>
> As R. Zimmerman, he published in the summer of 1976 an eerie, Kafka-like 179 line prose/poem 'An Observation, Revisited' in Photograph 1(1):9. He wrote it in June 1976, when he visited the 'Toni' exhibition at the Susan Caldwell Gallery. He saw photographs of a vibrant woman taken over the last 2 weeks of her life, the last photograph of her in a coffin. He mentions Tom Paxton's 'Peace Will Come', a line later appearing in 'Changing of the Guards': 'Peace will come / With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire'. In the 1976 piece, he writes: 'I'm making sczribblings / I'm always making sczribblings / A minstrel collecting words / For an eventual song'. And, with his children and Faridi McFree at his side on the Minnesota farm, STREET-LEGAL exploded from his soul onto paper in the summer of 1977.
warningm...@gmail.com
May 25, 2016, 12:23:26 AM5/25/16
to
I think you need to move on, bro. You should take all the stuff you have of Dylan and sell it, or burn it, or whatever. You should throw it all out, and move the fuck on already. It's not the 70s anymore. I know it was nice in NYC in the 70s, but this is 2016 now, and it's time for new realities, new atmospheres. You can always recollect that stuff, but you are in a stultifying position just ruminating over a bygone time period when you were young.
Will Dockery
May 25, 2016, 2:08:25 PM5/25/16
to
On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 10:45:20 AM UTC-4, Stephan Pickering wrote:
> Harold Lepidus, 2016D Bob Dylan at 75: a look back at 'Street-Legal' and the ghost of Elvis. www.Examiner.com, 23 May
>
>
> Shalom & Erev tov...I read this (twice) with keen interest and appreciation.
>
> STREET-LEGAL, for me, was far more nuanced and CHaBaD-like than the 1974/1976 compositions (many never published, but sung to the Crown Heights Chassidic family he was studying with). I found the 1978 tour qutte provocative, more so than RTR 1975 (with the exception of RENALDO & CLARA).
>
> What I have wanted to read (and hear, if he chose to privately record them) were the confessional winter 1977 songs, angry contemplative poetics a few members of RTR heard in private. The summer 1977 songs -- most of which appeared on STREET-LEGAL -- are hinted at, as it were, in 1976.
Yes, I've been curios about those songs for many years.
>
>
> Shalom & Erev tov...I read this (twice) with keen interest and appreciation.
>
> STREET-LEGAL, for me, was far more nuanced and CHaBaD-like than the 1974/1976 compositions (many never published, but sung to the Crown Heights Chassidic family he was studying with). I found the 1978 tour qutte provocative, more so than RTR 1975 (with the exception of RENALDO & CLARA).
>
> What I have wanted to read (and hear, if he chose to privately record them) were the confessional winter 1977 songs, angry contemplative poetics a few members of RTR heard in private. The summer 1977 songs -- most of which appeared on STREET-LEGAL -- are hinted at, as it were, in 1976.
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