Taking Sides: Dylan vs. Donovan

Yeah, he's drippy and twee, but he's drippy and twee on very strong LSD. Plus, drippy and twee with Led Zeppelin as his backing band.

Plus, he has better shirts. And the best West Coast Dylanamericana by way of Glasgow accent until the Jesus and Mary Chain made a career of it.

I just like Donovan better.

Then again, it was his film.

If Donovan had made a film, he wouldn't have bothered pwning anyone, he'd have just wandered off in his own little world and talked to lillies or aspidistras or something.

Anyway, back to Donovan...

http://www.natfinkelstein.com/photos/flashpoint/images/donovan.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/features/wallpaper/images/640/donovan.jpg

Dylan's shirts don't even come close:

http://dpcc.com/lpetix/lists/richard%20and%20bob%20dylan.jpg

http://www.arikah.com/encyclopedia/images/thumb/f/f8/200px-Bob_Dylan_by_Daniel_Kramer.jpg

So ahead of his time! and not his tie, which I nearly typed.

Oh, Donovan has my current glasses and hairstyle in that pic!

This does not mean I look like Donovan, btw.

Donovan had *buckets* of tunes, he understood the essence of a catchy melody in a way that Dylan never really got. Donovan knew how to craft a pop song.

This, to me, is far worthier, than all the lyrics in the world.

Plus, he had waaaaay better shirts.

This, m'dear, is simply asking for it...

(Dom zing in 34 seconds)

This is not necessarily a dis. It's like saying that the JAMC only had two songs. They did! They were just very good songs.

Donovan is Pop, therefore he is better than Dylan.

Also, Donovan wants to be known by his real first name. Dylan by his fake surname. Therefore Donovan is friendlier.

Coming from Maryhill helps in my case. National pride etc.

I LOVE THAT SONG

Donovan is Pop, therefore he is better than Dylan.

all of this makes ZERO sense.

dylan only has one tune! you know, that tune that sounds just like "blowin' in the wind", "lay lady lay", "tangled up in blue", and "thunder on the mountain"!

TS: Teh Wallflowers vs Camp Freddy

And one of them was "Be My Baby"!

Or was it The Leader Of The Pack"...?

1. dum...dum dum tcht, dum...dum dum tcht

2. dumdum tcht dumdumdum tcht dumdumdum tcht dumdumdum tcht dum

3. repeat till bottled offstage

Good a place as any to post this gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hclcrEpui64

Nick Drake is better than both.
*flips table and ducks behind it*

Did you fall asleep in 1964 or something.

ok, so maybe Dylan started sounding like his nose was in his mouth after a while (re: dylan-cash sessions).

Turquoise is as good as any early Dylan love song...

I'm probably trying to overcompensate for Dylan's myth by underestimating him though.

he DID make a film, in which he wanders around the meditteranean in a yacht with his posh hippy friends stopping off every now and then to jam with the locals. while wearing big silly shirts obv.

(and i like norman rockwell.)

Put on Bringing It All Back Home.

Kate's Mum: This is not Dylan. This is not nearly WHINEY enough to be Dylan.
Kate: It is Dylan, it's his most famous album.
Mum: Not whingey enough. Not nasal enough. It sounds like someone else "doing" Dylan.
Kate: ::shows her the album cover::
Mum: We used to listen to this in college, you know. He was kind of a cult thing. We thought we were so sophisticated.
Kate: Yeah, I kinda feel like that about Lloyd Cole lyrics now.
Mum: Are you *sure* this is Dylan? Is Mr. Tambourine Man on it?

Pause while we eat dinner.

Kate: He sure goes on, doesn't he?
Mum: All his songs sound exactly alike. OK, I've had enough now.
Kate: Shall I put on Donovan?
Mum: Yes, this is much better

Dylan just turned into this boring rockist rootsy rock'n'roll bluesy boringness. Donovan turned into this... just completely off the wall mental psychedelic flower power pop extravaganza with bongo drums and Mickie Most production. He just became more interesting, musically.

That's now in my "My Videos" collection.

Then again, maybe I should treat Dylan the same way. Thing is, often he has some very good album tracks that are not as well know as the "hitz" - but the albums have a lot of filler, too.

Catch the wind >>> Love minus Zero, obviously.

I barely listen to either, but when, in my impressionable youth, I did, I couldn't help but feel that there was something slightly ridiculous about Donovan, like he was drinking the Kool-Aid.

Allow me to laud a Donovan song, ably covered by Luna btw, that I like and which has not been mentioned: 'Season of the Witch'.

How many deliberately obfuscatingly obtuse lyricists who are portrayed as somehow ineffably deep? I think my mum got it spot on with the Lloyd Cole comparison - the kind of thing that seems deep when you are in college. But not so deep when you stop taking drugs and/or drinking coffee and staying up all night talking about said lyrics.

(Then again, what do I know? I do not listen to lyrics.)

Not so many "Donovans"

Now, th biggest increase is the name "Preston".

I mean, not even Preston's christian name is "Preston"...

It's a lovely name. Like Zimmerman isn't. (now that may be anti-Semitism, yes. Sigh.)

oh dear god....

But, like "Tyson", it's going to get related back to Bob. Or Mike, even.

Well, that and the hook-nose talk.

I ain't much for twee so Dylan by a ridiculous margin, though I love Andy Merriweather's glam-funk-spaz version of "Sunshine Superman" and this one obscuro weird-ass freak-out acid rock version of "Season of the Witch" done by some late '60s group called the Aliens. (Actually the original "Season" is the best kind of spooky shit, too.)

I am, of course, referring to his notorious habit of re-inventing himself. His lyric stye is mostly of a time and I think his adopted moniker is a conscious reference to D. Thomas. One doesn't have to like that style but as it goes, I think Dylan can be quite good.

How many deliberately obfuscatingly obtuse lyricists who are portrayed as somehow ineffably deep?

Again, if your looking for straightforward lytics, you ain't gonna be too happy with Bobby Z, and 'deliberately' and 'obfuscatingly' are adverbs that I doubt you can back up. He's not trying to make 'sense', he's trying to associate different words evocatively. Metaphors don't make 'sense' either but poetry wouldn't be nearly as rich without them.

As to this calumny on my good friend, Mr. Cole, I'm not sure how 'deep' I ever thought his lyrics, though I still find them quite clever.

Anyway, as I always say, quoting Emerson, 'Arguments convince no-one.' People like or dislike as they will.

How many times have I swooned at the opening bars of "Season of the Witch", the bass going down like something warm to drink, the whole machinery starting up... and somehow the execution of it ends up thin, the attempt to realize that promise of apocalypse and foreboding weedily unconvincing. It's naff to say it, but you want Jim Morrison for that song.

Likewise, Ricky Lee Jones' version of "Sunshine Superman" folds Donovan's into a neat square, puts it into a trunk wrapped with locks and chains, and drops it off a ship straight down to the bottom of a very deep part of the ocean.

As I've said hundreds of times, generally I don't actually listen to lyrics at all. There are a few writers whose lines have engaged me to the point where I actually notice them, but generally I'm not "about" lyrics.

90% of the critical/canonical adulation of Dylan is about his genius wordsmithery. I can't really comment on that. It's one thing to examine lyrics as poetry, and on that there's only taste and experience to debate. (I know that sacred cow taking-down is dull and tedious, but hey, I don't care for Picasso either.) But music is about more than lyrics, and all I can say is that for the most part, his *music* does not engage me.

It's on this comp:

http://www.turnmeondeadman.net/ADM/GPCCovers/AFistfulOfFuzz.jpg

i think this is a misconception, if a common one. actual dylan lovers might love the words, but not at the exclusion of the tunes, the arrangements and playing, and -- crucially -- the singing. i think the singing is really where you're on or off the bus. either you think he's one of the great popular vocalists of the last century or you don't. saying "he wrote some good songs" or whatever is basically missing the point. but this is, of course, about the hoariest canon debate in the hoary history of hoary canons. next: BEATLES OR STONES?

In my opinion, as a Dylan fan, the words are the LEAST important part of it. His lyrics have always seemed rather dadaist and incidental at their most playful. I guess some kind somewhere wants to know WHO EXACTLY are these lumberjacks who get their facts etc., but I was more about the arrangements, the vocal performances, the songs, etc.

(It doesn't even make sense to compare him to other artists.
Other geniuses, maybe)

Gene are better than The Smiths though, and Rush are better than Led Zeppelin. :)