I know you have heard that all good artists,borrow from other artists,and that great artists steal.And I also know you probably have heard of Milton Berle saying that he,'knows a good joke when he steals one',but Bobby on his new CD,'Modern Times',takes stealing to a new level.
Maybe,I should be writing this post after I have actually purchased the CD,but this post isn't about the music(the lyrics,in part-maybe-but not the yet,as unheard of by me,music).
This post is about Bob's thievery.
The CD title is itself a rip-off of Charlie Chaplin's movie of the same name.The CD cover art,is the same 1947 photo (Taxi,New York Night,by Ted Croner)that appears on an EP by a band called Luna.It is on their 1995 'Hedgehog' release.Not only does Mr.Dylan take credit for writing a 'traditional' song called,'Rollin' and Tumblin',but,as you can see from above,that at least four of his songs have almost identical lyrical word usage as the 19th century poet,Henry Timrod.
Wowzer!Each of these things separately could be considered as borrowing unintentionally.But put together....man....it seems like Bobby boy had to be doing this on purpose.
In these days of constant sampling,is this really that bad?I think so.But could Bob Dylan's intent-simply by doing all this-be his social commentary on today's society?Or is that just a too easy of an excuse that I am willing to give to him because I enjoy his music?
Either way,I just know I am going to get the CD.And,in spite of myself,probably like it.
3 comments:
Funny,you went from Zimmers to Zimmerman
I don't think using the same (presumably famous) photo for cover art qualifies as a rip-off. Also, "Modern Times" could hardly have been original with Charlie Chaplin, but even if Dylan was explicitly referencing the movie, which I doubt (though I haven't even heard the album, so I could easily be wrong) - there's good reason you can't copyright a title. No problem there. Furthermore, if you go in and look at the so-called "sources" of the Timrod borrowings, I think you'll see pretty clearly that Dylan didn't take anything more from Timrod than a few nice turns of phrase, hardly the sort of thing that should get the man a co-writer credit. And last of all... I know there's a traditional song (more like "a bunch of more or less similar traditional songs") called "Rollin' and Tumblin'," but I don't know if there are any versions similar enough to Dylan's recorded version that you would want to say he didn't write this version. Anyway, how can you "rip off" a tradition? Isn't that sort of the point of having a tradition in the first place?
Hay,I love Dylan,too.George Harrison copied ,'He's So Fine',when he did,'My Sweet Lord',in fact John Lennon told Mick Jagger that a secret to making a good song is to steal a riff from another song.Good artist barrow-great artist steal!And the point about the traditional song is:He didn't write it-why take credit it for it?But you are correct...this could all be chance-and I hope that it is.
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