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I've been interested in Nina Simone's music lately after reading this article about this interesting artist: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/03/10/fierce-courage-nina-simone/ Trained to be a classical pianist, she was refused entry to conservatory in the segregated USA. When she was making money singing the blues, she interspersed Bach and Beethoven in popular tunes. What she was really good at was being really honest about the rotten state of the country. Take this part from her song Missisipi Goddamn: Oh but this whole country is full of lies You're all gonna die and die like flies I don't trust you any more ... ... You don't have to live next to me Just give me my equality Everybody knows about Mississippi Everybody knows about Alabama Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam Still rings true... My interest her gotten a new level after listening to her Dylan covers, which she takes to a whole different level...

Perfect song for a rainy day: Can't get enough of that thin mercury sound: Dylan: The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That's my particular sound." Rosenbaum: Was that wild mercury sound in "I Want You"? Dylan: Yeah, it was in "I Want You." It was in a lot of that stuff. It was in the album before that, too. Rosenbaum: "Highway 61 Revisited"? Dylan: Yeah. Also in "Bringing It All Back Home." That's the sound I've always heard... Source: 66 Playboy Interview (link: http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/play78.htm )

The song that kicked open Bruce Springsteen's mind (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu66l3QI_U ) finally has an official video (link: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/11/bob-dylan-rolling-stone-video/ ). And what a video it is! Created by the digital Agency Interlude this is an interactive TV with 16 channels, with all the people on the screen are singing Like a Rolling stone. Having an award winning film director as a son can come handy sometimes (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Dylan ). I love the fact that one of the channels is History Channel with Pawn Stars on it. If you want to share my joy do watch this video (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32NWr5RKDRg ) Dylan was many things over the years. Among the many faces he had, the one I associate the most is his Existentialist era (i.m.h.o.). After Visions of Johanna, like a Rolling Stone is his most iconic from this era. A world where everyone is singing Like a Rolling Stone reminded me of another ...

I am aware of the danger, that my blog will look like a Dylan fundamentalist website, to someone who's only read the last 2 months posts. Maybe I am a Dylan fundamentalist, but as anyone who's listened to Dylan, or read good poetry, his songs act more as a medium in which one can find not the answers, but other questions that put the original question in a broader perspective. I had written about a peculiar Dylan song, which did not make it to any "studio" albums, called "The Series of Dreams" earlier [ link to the earlier post ]. To this day I am not sure, what kind of dreams Dylan is referring to. The key question is, how does one know that one is not dreaming? I am not trying to go down the Matrix path. How do we know that our perception is different when we are dreaming? Maybe, a series of dreams are not just series of dreams, but a metaphor for life itself? Or even one step further, life IS a series of dreams? Or what do our dreams say of our experi...

Let us celebrate our modern p(r)o(ph)ets 70th birthday with the songs of two of his admirers, David Bowie and Syd Barrett. Though Syd Barret might have pulled a Dylan on Dylan. You gave your heart to every bedsit room At least a picture on my wall And you sat behind a million pair of eyes And told them how they saw Then we lost your train of thought The paintings are all your own While troubles are rising We'd rather be scared Together than alone I'm a poet, Don't you know it? And the wind you can blow it. Cause I am Mr. Dylan, the King, And I am free as a bird on the wing.

Dylan is a child of the north. He was born in the northernmost end of the Highway 61, Duluth Minnesota. Raised in Hibing, Minesota, he attended University of Minnesota for a few semesters. He went to join the Village in the Big City, and the rest is history. Yet, he has a thing for the American South(West). Romance In Durango, Senor, Stuck in Mobile with Memphis Blues, and If You Ever Go to Houston from his most recent album all carry a certain feeling of a hot and moist mystery with them. But in all of his Southern songs, Brownsville Girl is the most perplexing and addictive. It is a 11 minute southern saga, a real jewel out of what some call the worst album in Dylan's discography. It is a mix of three different stories: a Gregory Peck western, the story of the narrator's old love affair with a modern day Bonnie, a.k.a the Brownsville Girl, and the road story of the narrator and his current love. The stories mix seamlessly in this lovely song, in which characters of the ...

Bob Dylan has this great radio show called Theme Time Radio Hour. Every week he chooses a theme,such as Coffee, Devil, Trains, and plays a wide collection of songs about the theme. Interested can download almost all the episodes from the following website ( link to the website ). I was listening to the Weather episode the other day. He played De Niro's famous "Someday a real rain will come and wash away this scum" sample from Taxi Driver. Apparently Dylan likes this movie. So I googled De Niro and Dylan, and here is what I found: Brad Elderman ( link to his website ) took this photo in 1976 in a New York City backstage, where Dylan called the young and new actor to meet him in person. Apparently he tried a lot to get it back. I am happy he didn't get his way. Then I came across a similar picture in the Galatasaray blog I follow Kalendar Libero( link to the blog ): When Queen met the God. This picture of Maradona with Queen is from Queen's epic 81 South Am...

I guess I won't be wrong if I say that Bob Dylan's artistic output is perhaps one of the largest in the contemporary music history. Thus one shouldn't be surprised to find interesting Dylan selections such as "Favorite Dylan Songs Starting with C" in the Internet. His website ( link to the website ), which has an incredible list of his songs, might give you an idea of about the sheer volume of his output. So from time to time I discover new favorites out of this collection. The song Series of Dreams is a voyage through well you know what, in which Dylan has no intention of telling anything specific, but just wants to paint the walls of a long and winding cave with the images. This beautiful song did not make it to any albums. I first heard it on his Greatest Hits collection a month or so ago, and was struck by it. Recently I came across an alternate version in his latest Bootleg Series Releases Tell Tale Signs. I have to say the alternate version is even be...

12 Haziran 1963 günü arabasindan inip evine dogru yurumek isteyen Amerikali Ayrimcilik karsiti aktivist Medgar Evers tam kafasinin arkasindan vurulur. Missisipi'nin ilk siyah hukuk ogrencisi Evers'i Ku Klux Klan üyesi Byron De La Beckwith vurmustur. Beckwith birkac gün sonra yakalanir. Ancak tamamen beyazlardan olusan juri bir karara varamaz. Beckwith'in ceza almasi tam 31 yil ve 3 mahkeme süreci sürer. 22 yasindaki Bob Dylan ayni yil "Only a pawn in their game" - "Oyunlarinda sadece bir piyon" adli sarkiyi yazar. Hrant Dink'in katlinin yildönümünda bu sarkiyi günümüz Türkiye'sine uyarlamak istiyorum. Dusuncelerimi daha güzen anlatan bir yazi bulamadim. "Oyunlarinda Bir Piyon Bir mermi doktu Hrant Dink'in kanini, kalabaligin arasindan gelen, Bir parmak cekti tetigi, kendi adina, Bir kabza saklandi kalabaligin arasina, Bir el cakti kivilcimi, Bir Adam'in beynine dogru, Iki goz aldi nisani, Ama suclayamaz kimse onu, Cunku oyunlarinda,...

Reminds me of my love and that lovely Dylan song: On a night like this I can't get any sleep, The air is so cold outside And the snow's so deep. Build a fire, throw on logs And listen to it hiss And let it burn, burn, burn, burn On a night like this. Let the four winds blow Around this old cabin door, If I'm not too far off I think we did this once before. There's more frost on the window glass With each new tender kiss, But it sure feels right On a night like this.

The Rolling Stones review read "What is this shit?" after Dylan released a hard to understand and listen to album in 1970 titled "Self Portrait." After 2 successful -perhaps the most successful in Rock History- Trilogies he was bored of the attention and the meaning people were putting to his songs. The album was a joke more than anything. After what might be called his new millenium trilogy - Time Out Of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Time- and a very "pop" Together Through Life, Dylan pulled another Self Portrait at us. His new album is called Christmas at Heart and features the voice of generations sing songs of generations, the Christmas songs. All the artists' royalties are going to World Food Programme, helping the organization that feeds hungry children around the globe. My personal favorite from the album is the first single, with this delightful video which has Dylan in a wig, dancing, drinking and singing:

I have to say I may have watched the movie with a little bit bias. Intro scene with the original "Times Are A'Changing"? Acoustic, and without cutting it? I am sure all the the movie had a head start with all the Dylan fans. The movie is worth watching even just for the soundtrack. The list speaks for itself: Simon and Garfunkel, Philip Glass, and Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, and a Bob Dylan (an original and a cover). The story is from the cult comic series Watchmen, by Alan Moore, who also wrote V for Vendetta. The director is Zack Snyder, who is the director of 300, which I loved. His style matches even more to the alternative history setting of 1980s. The tone and the depth of the issues it discusses was very satisfying. I've watched the theatrical version, but loved it so much, that I wanna watch the director's cut as well. !!!SPOILER ALERT!!! Here is a taste of my favorite character in the movie, the Rorschach: Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he...

I've been listening to the 4AD records super-group This Mortal Coil lately. This legendary label had names like Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance back then. Their 1991 Album Blood has a daunting cover of The Byrds song " I Come and Stand at Every Door. " The lyrics are the Pete Seeger -Pete Seeger is the country musician who wanted to cut the cables with an ax when Dylan went electric in the Newport Festival- translation of the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet's poem on Hiroshima, " The Little Girl ." Here is the This Mortal Coil Cover in Youtube: (ktunnel: This Mortal Coil - I Come & Stand at Every Door) This song reminded me the genius of Dylan once again. I mean who can tell the horror of an atom bomb in such a concise and mysterious manner: Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying. Here is a great video...

My favorite female celebrities are Katee Sackhoff, who plays Kara Thrace in Battlestar Galactica, and Charyln Marshall a.k.a Cat Power , the American singer. I'd love to sit and get nerdy with Katee and talk about Dylan for hours with Charyln. Here is a song Cat Power wrote for Bob Dylan, from her latest album, the Jukebox:

Spent the Monday home. Devoted the the whole day (well almost the whole, I woke up at 2pm) to spring clean-up. I did not know my apartment could house so much garbage without me knowing. Anyway I found some time to surf the web for interesting music news. I wanna share two... Queen is my first musical obsession, to whom I owe a great deal for the appreciation for multi-layered polyphonic music I grew by listening to them, and helped me appreciating music across the spectrum. Dubbed the first "Stadium Rock"ers, their stage performances had always been great. More than their show on the stage, thanks to flamboyance of Freddie Mercury, they distinguished themselves by getting through to the guy sitting on the last row. People could relate to Queen, composed of the only true male rock diva, the scientist turned guitarist Brian May, the true rocker Roger Taylor and the shy guy on the street John Deacon who plays most of his sets facing Roger Taylor... Their brilliance on stage pea...