WATCHING Bob Dylan at the Armadillo, the November before last, my attention wandered from time to time,
No-one's fault but mine, of course. It was just that I couldn't help but reflect that, just a few hundred feet away from where I was sitting, was one of the true giants of the age, the most influential songwriter of his time.
I remember experiencing roughly the same feeling in the winter of 1979, when I saw Paul McCartney in concert in Glasgow, even though I was sitting so high up in the gods that I had to stand on top of my seat just to catch a glimpse of his head.
But Dylan ... it's hard not to agree with the words of Professor Neil Corcoran, of St Andrews University, when Dylan accepted an honorary degree there: "Many members of my generation can't separate a sense of our own identity from his music and lyrics ... His magnificent songs will last as long as song itself does."
Dylan has been the subject of countless biographies and critical studies but, as is so often the case, he is best understood in his own words - not just in terms of his captivating memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, but also in a speech he made the other night, in Los Angeles, at the MusiCares charity, when it made him its Person of the Year.
In his half-hour-long acceptance speech he singled out some of his early detractors in the industry, as well as critics who find fault with his voice. "Critics," he said, "have been giving me a hard time since Day One. Critics say I can't sing. I croak. Sound like a frog. Why don't critics say the same thing about Tom Waits?"
He scorned critics who complain that he mangled his melodies and rendered his songs unrecognizable, and had a sardonic response to those journalists who lazily assert that he "confounds expectations". It all served to remind you of how, in the sixties, he would nimbly outwit the journalists who would crowd into his press conferences, never quite sure what to make of him.
For the most part, though, Dylan was generous in his acceptance speech towards those musicians who had turned his songs into hit records and opened up new audiences for him. He was engaging, too, on the subject of his own music - "these songs of mine, they're like mystery stories."
The full transcript of the speech is worth checking out. For me, it was another reminder that, after all this time, Dylan still has the capacity to astonish.
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