I believe it was Jakob, son of The Great Profit that once said, “There’s got to be something better than in the middle.”
And p.s. if anyone writes me and tells me I’ve gone and misspelled prophet I will lose my faith in humanity... and trust me, it’s hanging on by a thread right now. So just don’t.
Now, don’t go and email me all you dyl-sciples out there, I love Dylan The Elder as much as the next guy, both of them, seriously. Listen to both nearly every day. I’m just saying...Kapitalism is King, man. It’s all about the profit in the modern world and the prophets are bought and sold (and made). Sorry, just the messenger here, put your gun down.
I for one don’t agree with the folkies that say Dylan sold out when he plugged in his guitar (That’s like saying Bono sold out when he...never mind) but let’s talk about that Victoria’s Secret commercial for a minute. Is it just me or does he look, ever so slightly, like an angry Alzheimer’s patient that wandered onto a porn set? A stylish one granted, but still. Just me? No? Probably should fire the PR guys that told him “yeah bob, this’ll be cool.”
Check it out:
All right... enough dogging poor, helpless Bob. My point here is this: Am I the only one that prefers Jakob’s lyrics to Bob’s? I can make a case for this POV - Here it is: Check out Jakob’s new CD, the lyrics seem more honest to me. He doesn’t hide behind them with (sometimes, maybe just a bit) forced obscurity. He puts the thoughts out there cold and kind of fearless and they succeed or fail with no apology, no side-step shuffle like his pop does (if only occasionally). I for one respect that.
But then, as my friend Robert pointed out the other day (maybe a bit sarcastically?) as he winced through a Dylan song that was playing in Starbucks, (he tends to wince a lot in Starbucks whether Dylan is playing or not) "whatever the man may lack in lyric writing he certainly makes up for in harp playing." So... there's that.
Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm all about the lyric. To me, Elton John was little more than the star-spangled vessel that delivered to us Bernie Taupin's lyrics. Some people stubbornly insist on calling them Elton John songs... don't get me started on that one.
This is one of my favorite songs from Jakob Dylan’s new CD. At the end of this clip he actually talks about his writing process a bit:
