Dylan does Christmas, badly
David Blackburn 5:59pm
I love Bob Dylan. He is, quite simply, the greatest lyricist of the 20th Century, and recent efforts such as Modern Times and the eighth instalment of his Bootleg Series prove that he’s still got it and remains committed to re-inventing himself musically.
Even a genius can over do re-invention and end up looking loopy rather than outré and edgy. Dylan’s latest offering, Christmas In The Heart, has received mixed to bad reviews. The snippet I heard on the Today programme didn’t exactly inspire confidence – grizzled crooning to Hark the Herald Angel Sing was the stand out track in its awfulness. Dylan’s made a video to accompany the headline track, Christmas Song. To my knowledge, the last Dylan video was Things Have Changed, which is, I hope you’ll agree, a knock out video for a knock out track.
Christmas Song falls some way short of this; it’s so bad in fact some unknown party has disabled the embedding link. Dylan, donning Santa hat and dubious grey hair extensions, leers his way through the dreadful song. Still, he looks like he’s having a lot of fun.
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Mark
November 19th, 2009 8:43pm Report this commentLighten up! Christmas In The Heart is a wonderful record. The single is Must Be Santa not the Chistmas Song and Dylan appeared in the video for Cross The Green Mountain a few years after Things Have Changed-agree with you though THC is a wonderful songs and a great video.
THX1138
November 19th, 2009 9:49pm Report this commentDavid -We're going to fall out again. I've had it a few weeks now and Christmas in The Heart is a gem. From the demonically jaunty Here Comes Santa Claus to the Tex-Mex blowout of Must Be Santa you'll growling along with Bob before you know it . Give me Bob over Bing while I'm peeling the sprouts on Christmas morning.
Beer Moth
November 19th, 2009 11:32pm Report this comment"the greatest lyricist of the 20th Century"
David. Take some deep breaths. Think what that period did and who moved in it.
Dylan gave us some great stuff but please calm down.
Alexandrovich
November 20th, 2009 1:13am Report this commentMr. Blackburn, I can assure you that I've forgotten more about Bob Dylan than you'll ever know: "Do you think an article on Dylan will go down well darling? I would imagine the readership like him."
"...of the 20th century." You have never studied popular music of that one hundred years.
THX1138
November 20th, 2009 8:17am Report this commentBeer Breath I'm in 100% agreement David on this. Dylan is "the greatest lyricist of the 20th Century" and he's not starting of the 21st Century badly either. "While I'm listening to the steel rails hum" what an evocative lyric from "Working Man Blues" off Modern Times which in IMHO stands up there with some of his best work.
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