All the Tired Horses
There is a cloudy line between noise and sound, routine and ritual.
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Posts Tagged: bob dylan
He’s Funny That Way
A week before our reception, three days married, I beckon Peter to come listen to the song I’ve chosen for our first dance.
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Swinging Modern Sounds: Observations on the Occasion of a 100th Column
The clash of opinions about music is music itself.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #97: It’s a Wonder We Can Even Feed Ourselves
What follows, then, is a sort of first-thought-best-thought discussion of MORE BLOOD, MORE TRACKS.
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An East African Girl and Her White Troubadours
I was a lonely, dreamy, occasionally silly girl.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #94: I Think I Might
This is a deep dive, therefore, into the site of brilliant, uncompromising contemporary work.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #92: Perfection
You will now find some version of the list below. It is imperfect.
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Totally and Brutally Honest: Talking with Amanda Petrusich
Music critic Amanda Petrusich discusses DO NOT SELL AT ANY PRICE.
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I Stop Somewhere Waiting for You
Your words feel like shapes, like wooden blocks to clear out of the way.
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Picking the Green Path: A Conversation with Ansley Simpson
“The green path takes far more work to even recognize—it takes bushwhacking.”
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In Defense of Sinead O’Connor
“Remember Sinead?” I asked. My mom nodded her head and shrugged.
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Sound & Vision: Ray Padgett
Allyson McCabe talks with Ray Padgett about his new book, Cover Me, and the blog that inspired it, giving us a fascinating window into the craft and business of making music.
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Hitch in the Voice
I hear a man singing for his life, desperate in a way he would never be again and had never been before.
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Elegy with Records on the Doorstep
The old music still filled pits in him like sawdust and wood glue do a nail hole. The songs didn’t say anything new over the years, but they provided home when he missed it.
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Sound & Vision: Bob Egan
Allyson McCabe talks with Bob Egan, a man widely known as one of New York’s foremost “pop culture detectives,” about why and how he does the work he does.
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #21: Not Yesterday’s Demonstrations
1972: War was waging in Vietnam and kids were coming home in boxes. Hippes and yippies went clean for Gene McCarthy, but George McGovern won the democratic nomination. Tricky Dick Nixon was the one for the Republicans and the so-called Silent Majority. I was a sixteen-year-old runaway revolutionary of peace and love, living in a commune, […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Joe Ide
Joe Ide discusses his debut novel, IQ his writing process, and why he enjoys fly fishing.
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Sound Takes: You Want it Darker
There are hard lessons about aging and dying and living on You Want It Darker that we’re not going to ever be done with until we either cure death or forget Leonard Cohen.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #78: Conceived as a Playlist
Shadowbahn […] is among the most unusual, and most extreme, in a literary career that has often been marked by its unpredictability.
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The Rumpus Interview with Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles on recording her new poetry record Aloha/irish trees, the relationship between poetry and comedy, and finding safety in social media.
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #12: What Is Safety?
Oh better far to live and die Under the brave black flag I fly Then play a sanctimonious part With a pirate head and a pirate heart!! –The Pirates of Penzance At fifteen years old, I was a runaway. It was perhaps 9:30 at night, my first night out, having hitchhiked a couple of hundred […]
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #9: Punk the Deadline!
Oh my god, I’m stuck again. A truck in the muck. A cat up a tree. An explorer in quicksand. Winnie the Pooh in the door of Rabbit’s house. Trying to birth a column and needing a Caesarean. Is there any horror worse for a writer than a deadline?
...moreDylan’s Controversial Nobel
The Nobel Prize in Literature went to Bob Dylan this year, sparking debate around the songwriter’s legacy and whether song lyrics should be considered poetry. Those in the pro camp attribute the win to the persistent singularity of Dylan’s songwriting, in combination with the depth of material he drew from. Writer Irvine Welsh, on the other hand, asks why one […]
...moreAnd the Nobel Prize in Literature Goes To…
Bob Dylan? At Electric Literature, Lincoln Michel acknowledged that no one is quite sure how to feel about the news. At Slate, Stephen Metcalf praises Bob Dylan’s genius, but argues that he’s a musician, not a poet: The objection here hinges in the definition of the word literature. You wouldn’t give the literary prize to […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Rich Cohen
Rich Cohen discusses his new book The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones, writing book proposals, and interviewing rock stars.
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Sound Takes: Good Advice
Look at the hand on the cover: it is an older hand, an experienced one. It is an empathetic hand.
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The Rumpus Interview With Jeremy Earl
Jeremy Earl discusses his latest album, City Sun Eater in the River of Light, the fruitful tension of city vs. country, finding beauty in the darkness of today’s world, and the enduring good vibes of the Grateful Dead.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #73: Prince Rogers Nelson, Guitar Player: A Symposium
I started thinking about additional, more slantwise ways we might talk about his legacy. What if I organized a bunch of guitar players?
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Out of Order
In summertime, a small group of white, middle-aged, well-educated men were obsessed with my ass.
...moreRespect for Muhammad Ali
Bob Dylan released a statement following the boxer’s death. Dylan responded to the news that the 74-year-old legend passed away by referencing the man’s self-proclaimed title, “the greatest”: If the measure of greatness is to gladden the heart of every human being on the face of the earth, then he truly was the greatest. In every way he […]
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