Monday, September 29, 2003
Dylan says Goodbye to Johnny Cash
what i'm listening to Right Now: Bob Dylan, Live at Town Hall Apr 12, 1963 - New Orleans Rag (bootleg)
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Well sweet marie!!! I got my power back, FINALLY!! It was out for over a week!!!
I got lots to do to clean up and a million emails waiting for me, and all the other stuff that happens when your power has been off for 9 days (Fridge is completely empty).
Anyone who reads this knows that I dig Bob Dylan, and for about five weeks straight I've been obsessed with listening to these bootlegs that someone gave me. Well since I finally got my internet back, I went over to BobDylan.com to find out with the next Bootleg Series album (the Halloween show at the Philharmonic in 1964). I didn't find out, but I did read this, and I thought it was very touching (PS, on this Johnny Cash tribute album from this live tribute show, Dylan prefaces his performance by saying ""i just wanna say hi johnny....and i'm sorry we can't be there but....that's just the way it is. i wanna play you one of your songs about trains. i used to play this song before i ever wrote a song and i also wanna thank you for standing up for me way back when.":
Bob Dylan's Statement on Johnny Cash
I was asked to give a statement on Johnny's passing and thought about writing a piece instead called "Cash Is King," because that is the way I really feel. In plain terms, Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by him -- the greatest of the greats then and now. I first met him in '62 or '63 and saw him a lot in those years. Not so much recently, but in some kind of way he was with me more than people I see every day.
There wasn't much music media in the early Sixties, and Sing Out! was the magazine covering all things folk in character. The editors had published a letter chastising me for the direction my music was going. Johnny wrote the magazine back an open letter telling the editors to shut up and let me sing, that I knew what I was doing. This was before I had ever met him, and the letter meant the world to me. I've kept the magazine to this day.
Of course, I knew of him before he ever heard of me. In '55 or '56, "I Walk the Line" played all summer on the radio, and it was different than anything else you had ever heard. The record sounded like a voice from the middle of the earth. It was so powerful and moving. It was profound, and so was the tone of it, every line; deep and rich, awesome and mysterious all at once. "I Walk the Line" had a monumental presence and a certain type of majesty that was humbling. Even a simple line like "I find it very, very easy to be true" can take your measure. We can remember that and see how far we fall short of it.
Johnny wrote thousands of lines like that. Truly he is what the land and country is all about, the heart and soul of it personified and what it means to be here; and he said it all in plain English. I think we can have recollections of him, but we can't define him any more than we can define a fountain of truth, light and beauty. If we want to know what it means to be mortal, we need look no further than the Man in Black. Blessed with a profound imagination, he used the gift to express all the various lost causes of the human soul. This is a miraculous and humbling thing. Listen to him, and he always brings you to your senses. He rises high above all, and he'll never die or be forgotten, even by persons not born yet -- especially those persons -- and that is forever.
---------------------------------------
Well sweet marie!!! I got my power back, FINALLY!! It was out for over a week!!!
I got lots to do to clean up and a million emails waiting for me, and all the other stuff that happens when your power has been off for 9 days (Fridge is completely empty).
Anyone who reads this knows that I dig Bob Dylan, and for about five weeks straight I've been obsessed with listening to these bootlegs that someone gave me. Well since I finally got my internet back, I went over to BobDylan.com to find out with the next Bootleg Series album (the Halloween show at the Philharmonic in 1964). I didn't find out, but I did read this, and I thought it was very touching (PS, on this Johnny Cash tribute album from this live tribute show, Dylan prefaces his performance by saying ""i just wanna say hi johnny....and i'm sorry we can't be there but....that's just the way it is. i wanna play you one of your songs about trains. i used to play this song before i ever wrote a song and i also wanna thank you for standing up for me way back when.":
Bob Dylan's Statement on Johnny Cash
I was asked to give a statement on Johnny's passing and thought about writing a piece instead called "Cash Is King," because that is the way I really feel. In plain terms, Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by him -- the greatest of the greats then and now. I first met him in '62 or '63 and saw him a lot in those years. Not so much recently, but in some kind of way he was with me more than people I see every day.
There wasn't much music media in the early Sixties, and Sing Out! was the magazine covering all things folk in character. The editors had published a letter chastising me for the direction my music was going. Johnny wrote the magazine back an open letter telling the editors to shut up and let me sing, that I knew what I was doing. This was before I had ever met him, and the letter meant the world to me. I've kept the magazine to this day.
Of course, I knew of him before he ever heard of me. In '55 or '56, "I Walk the Line" played all summer on the radio, and it was different than anything else you had ever heard. The record sounded like a voice from the middle of the earth. It was so powerful and moving. It was profound, and so was the tone of it, every line; deep and rich, awesome and mysterious all at once. "I Walk the Line" had a monumental presence and a certain type of majesty that was humbling. Even a simple line like "I find it very, very easy to be true" can take your measure. We can remember that and see how far we fall short of it.
Johnny wrote thousands of lines like that. Truly he is what the land and country is all about, the heart and soul of it personified and what it means to be here; and he said it all in plain English. I think we can have recollections of him, but we can't define him any more than we can define a fountain of truth, light and beauty. If we want to know what it means to be mortal, we need look no further than the Man in Black. Blessed with a profound imagination, he used the gift to express all the various lost causes of the human soul. This is a miraculous and humbling thing. Listen to him, and he always brings you to your senses. He rises high above all, and he'll never die or be forgotten, even by persons not born yet -- especially those persons -- and that is forever.
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