Tag Archives: Bob Dylan

12 songs for the new year

Posted on January 6, 2025 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit was nonplussed. “What’s with the playlist, Odd Man? New Year’s was six days ago. And most of these songs ain’t even about New Year’s.” I told him that 2025 was still new, and that it took me a … Continue reading →

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Jann Wenner’s R&R ‘masters’ are all rich white guys

Posted on September 20, 2023 by oddmanout215

Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner’s book of interviews he conducted with famous rock ‘n’ roll artists will be published next week. It’s called The Masters, and its subjects are Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Jerry Garcia, Pete Townshend, Bono … Continue reading →

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Fifteen spirituals to help you get through 2022

Posted on January 12, 2022 by oddmanout215

“They ain’t spirituals,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Elvis was a rocker. Blind Faith don’t belong on no list with James Cleveland. Matthew Sweet got ain’t got nothin’ to do with Mahalia Jackson. You got gospel mixed up with rock ‘n’ roll.” … Continue reading →

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Dylan’s JFK song is dizzy, Miss Lizzie

Posted on April 2, 2020 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit wanted to know what was the big deal about “Murder Most Foul,” the Bob Dylan song about the John F. Kennedy assassination that he wrote years ago but didn’t release until now, when the country’s mood is arguably … Continue reading →

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Patti Smith to young artists: Brush your teeth

Posted on January 1, 2019 by oddmanout215

I was under-whelmed by Patti Smith’s landmark debut album Horses (1975), mostly because her voice was a mess and because I thought punk rock, stylistically, was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing musical. But Smith wasn’t a punk … Continue reading →

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Tom Wolfe’s works will live on! Really!!!

Posted on May 16, 2018 by oddmanout215

After hearing Tom Wolfe had died, I thought of that scene in The Bonfire of the Vanities where master of the universe Sherman McCoy, under arrest, is paraded past reporters with Styrofoam peanuts clinging to his expensive suit. …They were … Continue reading →

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Pistol-packing pol doesn’t mind dying

Posted on April 12, 2018 by oddmanout215

Now the senator came down here/Showing everyone his gun… — Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” This guy isn’t a senator. He’s Rep. Ralph Norman, and he is fast on the draw. So fast that … Continue reading →

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Dylan’s reaction to the big prize was… Dylanesque

Posted on October 25, 2016 by oddmanout215

“Philip Roth just bought an acoustic guitar.” That’s what novelist Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers, posted on Facebook soon after it was announced that Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Perrotta was either taking a shot … Continue reading →

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Virginia Woolf almost does the Super Bowl

Posted on February 3, 2014 by oddmanout215

Most years, I persuade a famous novelist to write a 500-word recap of the Super Bowl — Dostoyevski and Faulkner, among others, have donned their sportswriters’ caps to appear in this space — but this year Virginia Woolf phoned at … Continue reading →

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‘Ever-so-gentle rabble-rouser’ Pete Seeger dies

Posted on January 28, 2014 by oddmanout215

I was away from the swamp, stealing potatoes at the local Super Fridge, when I heard about Pete Seeger. This will be a rough day, I thought. Swamp Rabbit is an old leftie with a soft spot for New Deal-influenced … Continue reading →

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