So, there’s durable, and then there’s these guys who in their 80’s come out with a new album that, if not matches their best, rivals it. Foreign Tongues leaps out of the speakers on every song with aliveness, electricity, shambling magic, dance grooves, roaring rockers and social commentary to boot, propelled by Jagger’s ageless voice and Keith and Ronnie’s guitars.

First out of the gate comes “Rough and Twisted,” blistering blues, raw and with Jagger’s great harmonica, sounding like an outtake from Blue and Lonesome. Jagger authentically singing the lyrics of a forlorn fellow dragged around through back alleys and bad situations by a woman whose promises all decay in real time.

“In the Stars” is the obvious single, with a patently Stonesy guitar riff from Keith, a killer “ooo ooo” chorus and driving verses from Jagger. The video is a gas, with the de-aged Stones surrounded by great group of dancers and musicians, brilliantly capturing the obvious, that this music sounds as young as the video looks. “Jealous Lover” is all slinky dance groove and gorgeous guitar weaving, with Jagger sliding up into falsetto ala “Emotional Rescue,” but it works better here, echoing Curtis Mayfield or Al Green. “Mr. Charm” charges out presenting a persona of some ultimate seducer. Keith’s riffing and melding with Ronnie makes for the trademark raw, careening Stones groove we’ve always loved. “Divine Intervention” harks back to Chuck Berry, then taking off from it with a great melodic chorus from Jagger, where he slides his voice up high to wonderful effect. The world might fall apart, but Mick’ll keep dancing, singing the most true of truisms, “life is a gambling game.”

“Ringing Hollow” is the Stones in acoustic country mode, and on my first few hearings, it didn’t click, but then sunk in, like vintage Stones songs do. The lyrics point a finger at America’s current chaos and decline, from an affectionate standpoint, observing the place from where the English bands learned of the blues, the music the early Stones loved and promoted.

These are the core songs of the album, and while I wouldn’t say the songs fall off from here, they have to follow six absolute knock-outs. “Hit Me in the Head” is punky, Some Girls-y. The Amy Winehouse cover, “You Know I’m No Good,” is a great cover, great Amy song, lead harmonic from Jagger doing the horn parts. “Back in Your Life” is a ballad with Jagger in a sentimental mood, burning guitar soloing by Ronnie and Jagger’s sung/spoken outro raises it up. “Some of Us,” Keith’s song on the album, grounds it all, we’re back to the common-folk heart, the rough scrabble humanity he’s always carried around, God bless him, reminding the world that “some of us are on our knees.”

Steve Jordan honors Charlie Watts, propelling the band with booming drums. Darryl Jones is a truly great bass player. Producer Andrew Wyatt, who was also at the helm for Hackney Diamonds, certainly deserves credit as a sixth member, the George Martin of the record, for both shaping the songs beautifully and letting the Stones be raw when they wanted.

I know the reach of this Muddy Water Substack is limited, but if any word could go through the jungle drums or smoke signals of the internet to reach somebody who knows somebody who knows anybody… I have a request.

Make the next album a semi-acoustic affair, like Beggar’s Banquet, roots, folk, country and blues, as we see done here in the masterful acoustic version of Chuck Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah.” Imagine it - a return to Robert Johnson, to the grit and the dirt, the percussion of strummed guitars, stomped feet, open G tuning, slides on strings and Jagger’s magnificent harmonica. Drinking to the salt of the earth, wrapping up this creative streak most beautifully.

Such is my humble request.

Now, in times past, there were huge stars, with gigantic fan reactions. Franz Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Sinatra, Martin and Lewis (yes!), Elvis, The Beatles, T Rex, Led Zep and so on to today, but there was a sharp delineation in the process that began somewhere in the 80’s. In the past, an artist grew more popular, exploded, and that was that. Fans in the seats, the artist on stage. In the 80’s, popular artists began to adopt a more iconic status, thereafter presented as such. A subtle distinction became drawn between current artists and artists of the past - new artists began mutating, believing their own iconography, acting accordingly. Humility, in other words, was no longer a desirable trait. We’re more into Roman spectacle here, Cleopatra (played by Liz Taylor) carried out by manservants on a gold chaise lounge, pyrotechnics in the background. The band onstage augmented by dancers, big screens, stage sets. Leading to some modern catastrophes, like Katy Perry’s recent tours.

Watch a Led Zeppelin video from back in the 70’s. Sure, they were playing to stadiums filled with 50,000 people, but there was just them, stacks of amps, John Bonham’s big drum set with gong, and Jimmy Page’s double neck, 6 and 12 string Gibson SG. The insignia no one knew the meaning of on Bonham’s bass drum head. That was it. So charmingly minimal. But they rocked like gods of thunder.

Fast forward to U2’s Zoo tour, with multimedia video screens broadcasting satellite feeds, pop culture commercial clips, Orwellian text, all designed to make an ironic comment about consumerism and the onslaught of the media world by showing it and embracing it. People hated the tour, but it was the product of a persistent, entrenched trend. Madonna’s Blonde Ambition (get it?) tour had a theatrical presentation with five separate acts, one with a Dick Tracy theme, because of her then recent film with Warren Beatty. Michael Jackson’s Bad tour had giant screens, massive lighting, Jennifer Batten on guitar with big platinum-blond hair, a crane to lift him over the audience, gadgets in the floor so the dancers and Michael could do the famous forward ‘lean’ on Smooth Criminal. Springsteen just had a band, but he did two and a half hour shows that had their own form of criminally overblown theatrics. Brrruuuuucccce! Clarence! On drums, the mighty Max!

It was all so… exhausting. But everything was ok, the world was being re-set with Nirvana just around the corner. Flannel shirts and dirty, ripped jeans comprised the whole show. Oh, and music.

Now, in 2026, we’re in some hazy netherland between the two extremes, what with Wet Leg and Die Spitz making maximum impact with minimum flash, and on the other side, Taylor - I don’t need to say her last name, do I? - Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo et al, Beyonce.

And then there’s the Sphere! The venue of the future, where overblown is the very reason you go. Soon, my friends, mark my words, just like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there will be Spheres popping up in every available patch of unclaimed commercial acreage near you.

The overblown, it appears, is destined to be the normal of tomorrow.

I demurred, thought a minute about how I was going to respond, then politely refused them, explaining that there were bigger Eagles fans out there who would appreciate the tickets more than me. This was true. I liked them, I said, but I’m not a super fan. The real truth was more like, putting me in an arena with 20,000 uber Eagles fanatics screaming as the band began to play each hit wasn’t my idea of a good way to spend a night. In fact, it was analogous to a teeth cleaning at the dentist. Oh, I like some of their stuff alright, Desperado is good, but I would have been an imposter, an interloper, a secret spy logging words in my head, like pretentious, overblown, middle of the road - well, that’s not a word, it’s a phrase - like predictable, polished, vanilla. Great harmonies, though, I’ll give them that. Henley’s a good drummer too, but does he even drum anymore? I wish Joe Walsh never dissolved The James Gang.

When it came to the opening notes of Hotel California, when everybody started going out of their “I can’t believe I’m hearing it live!” minds, I would have been cringing in my seat, considering walking out early to beat the crowd. Contrast that with a hypothetical show by Robyn Hitchcock, where he played Raymond Chandler Evening, with me reduced to a surrealist gushing fanblob.

Different strokes for different folks, as the sage Sly said.

In direct contrast, a friend of mine once got free corporate tickets for The Stones at Fenway, and I was there in a Boston minute. Great show. I’m not going to parse the difference between The Stones and The Eagles.

There is no moral here, except, in the immortal words of the aforementioned Robyn Hitchcock -

God finds you naked and he leaves you dying
What happens in between is up to you

So, all things considered, with the limited time we get here, my advice is, despite what the crowd does, screw that. Do what you like.

And you can take the time to relax, sure, but never take it easy. They’ll pounce on you the second you do.

In the midst of all this artificial emergence, I’ve come across a genre that’s perfect background music for me. Let me explain.

If I have background music going that’s good, like, for instance, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, I’ll end up stopping what I’m doing to listen more closely. Same thing goes with classical, Erhu, (you must chase down the amazing works of A Bing) Gregorian Chant, Charlie Parker, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Wes Montgomery, Hildegard Von Bingham, oh, the list goes on and on and I end up turning the music off until I have the time to sit and actually listen.

Until now. For I’ve found good bad music.

The kind I like best are called some variation on Psychedelic Desert Rock Trip, and consist of bass guitar, electric guitar and drums. Slow groove, over one or two chords at most, medium guitar skills exhibited, something any kid with a year of playing under his or her belt could do, descending and ascending riffs, nothing that isn’t a cliche - which is what makes it beautiful! It’s unchallenging, it’s goes on forever in the background, it rides down previous neural pathways without tweaking any excitement, as comforting as french fries and with the same amount of mental nutrition.

Ahhh!

Desert Sunset Blues

For visuals, there’s usually a guy playing guitar in a post-apocalyptic desert setting, a motel and an abandoned car, something like that.

Sit back, set your mind to mush mode, and enjoy!

Out of her house in Liverpool, at the piano, or playing guitar or uke, usually with her kitchen in the background, Jessie Monday records songs. Many are her originals, many are covers, primarily Beatles songs. She records them on a little home video camera she’s had forever. A new song every Monday. Here’s the most recent one, a song of longing and separation and independence.

“A Plane with My Name on It.”

Here’s another. I figure the best way to show how incredible she is, is to simply show these videos, rather than talking too much. She’s 21, playing some shows in London and Liverpool.

Here doing McCartney’s new “Days We Left Behind.”

The little glitches, little color bars you sometimes see on the screen are from her old home video camera, which she continues to use because it’s familiar.

A song of uncertainty in love, “All Up to Me.”

This one is destined to be a classic. “I’d Rather Be Alone.”

And finally, “Across the Universe,” John Lennon Beatles cover.

Here is a link below to her YouTube channel, which has links to all 90+ videos, with lyrics to originals, and most of the information there is about her. If you’re in London or Liverpool soon, you can catch a few live upcoming dates. She made a comment on an upcoming release. Her channel has 11K subscribers, and is steadily growing.

The remarkable thing about the internet is that you can find such rare and amazing talent at the start, on the verge of becoming more widely known.

A special time.

I’ll be writing more about her later. Please everybody let me know your thoughts and reactions.

Jessie Monday YouTube Channel

In Trump’s Truth Social posting, which he has admitted he himself posted, we see very similar robes, red over white, and an ‘in the clouds’ background.

There is a fundamentalist Christian faction that believes Trump is God’s vessel, an imperfect man through whom God works in the world to further Christian notions. The overturning of Roe v. Wade is one such example they cite. Trump may have even gotten a bit of religion himself when the bullet intended to kill him merely grazed his ear. Fundamentalists point to this as God’s hand working to protect Trump.

As one of the most inherently non-religious people on the planet, Trump nonetheless could see the value in this. If his base sees him as an instrument of God, that’s prime real estate, something Trump understands. Of course he would accept this designation, of course he would accept the part.

Trump, however, isn’t a person prone to subtilties. If he’s acting as a proxy for God on earth, how much different is that from being Jesus?

Hence the post you see above. Now Trump obviously found this online and reposted it because he liked it. How he equates magically healing someone with his statements around Easter of wiping out a civilization is a holy mystery, but he liked the notion of being a stand-in for Jesus.

The rest of the world did not.

Christians take their Jesus seriously. Many Christians have what they describe as a personal relationship with the Lord and Saviour Jesus, and wherever you stand on that phenomenon, it is a matter of faith, which in a country based on freedom of religion, America, must be respected. What Trump genuinely didn’t understand was the notion of himself as a Jesus proxy would be considered blasphemy. Which goes to show just how completely apparent it is that Trump isn’t a master strategist, the mad genius, no - he’s consistently broad brush when it comes to facts, doesn’t read the fine print, doesn’t read at all, for that matter, and that’s what gets him in trouble. Remember drinking bleach during Covid? Can you say Strait of Hormuz?

There’s a few interesting details in the above Trump as Jesus picture. One is the American symbols - eagles, the flag, the Statue of Liberty, along with a soldier and fighter planes. This means that the president’s war actions are under the protection of God, since they protect America. The much more curious element is the figure just above his head, a demonic figure signifying Satan or the anti-Christ, which was altered from the original AI picture of a plain soldier. This is significant because Jesus’ return, in fundamentalist Christian lore, the Second Coming, happens when the anti-Christ appears. So logically, this image is signaling that Trump is the Second Coming of Christ.

And this very strange picture was one toke over the line, sweet Jesus, for too many people, as far as Trump believing his own crazy hype. The outcry was instantaneous.

The real question then becomes, what kind of person entertains thoughts of being a divinity, of being Christ returned? And appears shocked and befuddled when people question it.

The kind that’s usually medicated and under treatment. Not the kind of person with access to nuclear codes.

P.S.

Like a petulant five year old, Trump always doubles down, so here he goes again just days after the first post, in a second deranged post. The Radical Left is apparently known to be fervent Christians. No Donald, it’s your MAGA base that won’t like it. A further sign here, that he does believe he’s divinely chosen, or at least believes in that idea. He says he thinks it’s quite nice.

If you have any interest in guitars, you’ve probably heard about the record- breaking auction sale of David Gilmore’s vintage 1969 black Strat, called reverentially The Black Strat, which he played on Pink Floyd's “The Dark Side Of The Moon,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Animals” and “The Wall.” Not a Pink Floyd fan myself - What!? you say - yep, sorry. Too slow and druggy for me, but… their fans are legion. And the guitar that played on Comfortably Numb has been sold at auction for… take a breath… $14.5 million dollars.

Now, if I were David Gilmore, I might have had two Black Strats that I used on all the records, one less than others, so he could keep the real The Black Strat in his guitar collection unbeknownst to the world, sell the lesser The Black Strat and still have his payday, but he couldn’t have foreseen the insanity of materialism in the 21st century. So now, an undisclosed buyer somewhere has the bragging rights to show The Black Strat to his millionaire friends, who go “eww and ahh.”

Now, all of this begs the larger question. How is this guitar, worth maybe $5000 or so in the guitar market if it wasn’t Gilmore’s, actually worth $14.5 million? What happens when you look at it? Do you transport to the recording studio when Gilmore played the Comfortably Numb solo? And if you did, wouldn’t you have had those same reveries if The Black Strat was the lesser The Black Strat, and you didn’t know it? When you touch it, do you see God? Same principle applies. There is nothing inherently so valuable in the guitar itself. Sure, it plays good, but not $14.5 million’s worth.

I’ve never been a collector, so I don’t get it. I’m on the side of the Tibetan Monks who spend months making a magnificent sand mandala, then after a couple of weeks of letting the public see it, sweep it away.

Arrrggghhh! This is what Westerners think. How could you do that?! Destroy such incredible art, so painstakingly created? But the sweeping away is the whole point. Beauty, awakenings, the joys and struggles of life, represented in the mandala, are all transient. Whoosh, they’re gone.

But if you’re the guy who owns The Black Strat, you’ve got it under wraps. Behind glass. In your personal museum. It’s not like it’s the Mona Lisa, something intrinsically beautiful. It’s a ‘69 Strat. It’s even scratched up. There’s thousands out there that look just about like it.

Did David Gilmore’s spirit enter it? Is it a genuine talisman? Does it secretly vibrate endlessly within to the songs of Pink Floyd? Touch it and see.

You’re call, not mine. What’s it really worth? What’s your opinion on it? Is the metaphysical really at work here? Or is it just super cool?

Don’t ask me. Like I said, I don’t even like Pink Floyd.

I bristle at the fact that a single errant person in a position of power can adversely affect so many people, but this always has been, in human history.

So now we have this decaying man with a fetid soul, who makes the Grinch appear nearly loveable, hovering over our nation like a foreboding cloud, raining toxicity. A nurse and a poet are murdered for no actual reason, except they were in the midst of a pack of wild dogs, unleashed by this person. Never before have so many in America disavowed the actions of their president, to the extent that there are two Americas, one with Americans, and the other with followers of this pathological narcissist. The entire world mocks him, but at the same time is cautiously wary of his power.

A biologist at Tufts university has observed that certain cells, which were ordinary cells to begin with, become outliers, uncooperative cells, who no longer work in purpose and unity to protect the healthy function of the organism. We call these cancer cells. Their purpose is to take over other cells for their own survival and growth, but the endgame, the outcome, is death of the organism, therefore, their own destruction.

This is the exact description of the person currently in power as the president of America. Everything around him begins to die, corrode, collapse, wither.

In the song License to Kill by Bob Dylan, are these lines –

…he worships at an altar of stagnant pool, and when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled…

The person described in the song was elected to be the leader of our country. But he does not represent America. For all its many many sins, shortcomings and egregious errors, America still has retained some core semblance of the values it was founded on – freedom, democracy, the pursuit of personal happiness available for all who live here. Unlike any other time in our history, that ideal is being trodden on by the madness of a single individual who seems to have within himself none of the qualities most Americans have – being decent, honest, fair, hardworking. Naturally helpful to one another.

He wields power indiscriminately, punishes those he bears grudges against, makes huckster promises to the common man then does nothing for them, instead spends all his efforts in the interests of the super-rich and himself. He lies outright, constantly, about everything, large and small, the initiator of an Orwellian post-truth world. Displays blatant racism. Cheats at golf.

Living in America now is like living in an Alice in Wonderland madhouse, Trump as the Queen, proclaiming the equivalent of ‘off with their heads’ daily, in his insane posts ranted in the wee hours of the night, when he apparently can’t face his own dreams in sleep.

We will survive this man. We can only hope that his time in office is curtailed by the rule of law, which he continually breaks for juvenile whims. If this were a Greek play, we would see omens of his downfall looming on the horizon. Something coming will surely cause it all to crash.

Then we can get back to being Americans, holding our heads up in the world, vowing never to let this happen again. We have let an unhinged wannabe dictator hold the reigns.

We are not what he is. That’s the lesson. To never allow such a person to be our president again.

So what’s the goal here, in America, in 2025, in this unprecedented time of division and change? The one word that’s currently rising above all others in the national discourse isn’t justice, or equality, or freedom - it’s affordability. This is the very word that Trump was elected on. He proclaimed that he’d be giving us, the people, more affordable food, gas, goods and services, and would be bolstering that affordability by creating sizable amounts of new, well-paying jobs here, in America.

He did none of these things. Instead, he pushed through a massive, and by all indications, illegal tax on the American people, called tariffs, which do not charge other countries, but charge American businesses extra for imports. This makes everything more expensive. The trillions Trump falsely touts that we’ve gained from the tariffs, whatever the true number is, in fact come out of American businesses. Consequently, prices everywhere, on everything, are slowly going up. At WalMart, Target, the local market, Amazon. Food costs especially. This is a direct causal economic result of Trump’s tariffs. His MAGA supporters, seeing the price total at the supermarket counter, showing more cost for the same goods, are beginning to wake up to this reality. The Trump unbelievers and opponents aren’t surprised in the least and fully expected this kind of shell game from Trump. Kamala Harris accurately predicted the entire Trump scenario that is currently playing out.

Trump’s family has increased their personal wealth by billions of dollars, through crypto-currency dealings and real estate developments in Saudi Arabia. This makes Trump’s previous protests about Hunter Biden’s consulting salary look absurd in comparison. It’s becoming obvious to even the staunchest Trumpers that he’s in it solely for himself, not for them, no matter what he told them, as mere rubes in his carny rallies.

Enter Zohran Mamdani. A Muslim, a democratic socialist, proud of both. Thirty-four years old. John Kennedy was forty-three when elected president, an Irish Catholic, which the Republicans then pointed to, with fear and suspicion. Yes, there was a recent time in American when being Irish and Catholic and a politician was highly suspect, similar to Mamdani and his Muslim faith. There was talk that Kennedy would be consulting with the pope on how to run America.

Mamdani won because he spoke directly to real New Yorkers, calling out in his acceptance speech to “Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas; Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses; Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.” He knows the true complexity and vibrant diversity of New York life, and speaks to it, doesn’t shy away from it, indeed celebrates it. For that, Mamdani received the rousing reciprocal response, a nearly nine percent win over Andrew Cuomo, scion of a New York political dynasty.

Corporate business interests and a number of NYC billionaires spent $40 million dollars opposing Mamdani in the race. Since his win, some are decrying the inevitable downfall of New York, others anticipating the new reality of working with him. Among his most noted proposals are a rent freeze, free buses, free childcare and government-run grocery stores. (New Hampshire, where I live, has had state run liquor stores since 1934, and so far, no socialist downfall has occurred.) The cost of these new programs to the wealthy of New York is a proposed additional 2% tax on millionaires.

Two percent. To work toward a more equitable and affordable life for New Yorkers. To help lessen the have and have-not divide. To help people.

It’s a myth perpetrated by the rich that Americans want hand-outs. There are always some who take advantage of government programs, but the majority of Americans work hard, believe in this country, especially recent immigrants, who came by choice, often risking much. All that people want is a fair shake, a level playing field, a game that isn’t rigged against them, a reasonable safety net for their families. Give the people these things and see how hard Americans will work for this country.

Not since the 60’s has there been a voice ring out as strongly for true American values as Mamdani’s. He’s a young man of courage and common sense. Martin Luther King declared himself a Democratic Socialist. Franklin Roosevelt, while not calling himself that, was essentially one.

What’s in a name? It’s the goal and the results that are important, and using various methods to reach them align with William James’ definition of intelligence. There are balances built into the American system, we will never become a purely socialist country. However, that doesn’t mean democratic socialist methods can’t be used to enhance the American dream. They can, and in fact, there is nothing more American, if we abide by the words of Abraham Lincoln, that we should be a “government of the people, by the people and FOR the people.”

The people, the common people, the everyday people, the majority of people, the entrepreneurial people, the real people who work every day to create what this great land is, what makes it work, what makes it go, the true foundation of America, the people - not that fraction of the elite rich whose primary goal is to exploit our freedoms for themselves, to squeeze from America every drop of wealth they can, in pursuit of what seems to be bottomless greed.

We can all see what’s been happening here. We can all see the gulf between rich and poor and how it’s been widening. We can all see the heartlessness of the Trump administration cancelling health care funds, cutting SNAP benefits and Medicaid services. This is an administration that says, “Let them eat cake,” as Trump’s sons pile up billions by using the influence of the American presidency, as Trump builds a giant ballroom in the people’s White House for one sole purpose - his insatiable hunger for opulence.

In the face of American children not having enough food to eat.

Zohran Mamdani is resonantly announcing a coming sea change, shaking the windows and rattling the walls.

Because it’s time.

That Feel

I was scrolling through YouTube videos this morning and chanced on Django Reinhart, along with Stephane Grappelli and The Hot Club of Paris band. For some reason, it’s perfect music to hear when you’re shut-in on a rainy day. It’s sure got that swing, and the combined, seemingly effortless virtuosity of Django and Stephane is a miracle for the ear to behold.

But the thing is, you could pull fifty guitar and violin students out of Berklee College of Music, give them transcribed sheets of the recorded solos, (composed/improvised by Reinhart and Grappelli) and they could play exactly the same notes. And it wouldn’t be anywhere near the same.

In my twenties, I heard a recording of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto - he only wrote one - by Jascha Heifetz, playing with the Chicago Symphony. I was blown away by it. I didn’t know much about Heifetz, just that he was a big name. The way he played the piece was astounding. Technically - but it also had this organic aspect to it, a fluidity that was to me in stark contrast to the rigidity of classical music. I heard echos of Jimi Hendrix in Heifetz’ attack and time choices that went outside the signature, playing with sliding, slightly extended notes, in between the jaw dropping violin virtuosity that Tchaikovsky wrote into the manuscript.

So I decided I wanted to hear more violinists play this incredible piece and bought a few CD’s of other orchestral versions. And son of a bitch, I was disappointed by all of them. They were like Stevie Ray doing Hendrix, decent enough, playing most of the same notes, but light years away. Flat cartoons beside the four-dimensional Heifetz.

What’s the difference? Oh, Heifetz was a genius. Hendrix was a genius. But why? Guitarists these days can play Hendrix tunes exactly, but they always miss the mark, fall short by that same amount of light years in distance. Simulacra. Once removed, a copy, unoriginal.

The difference, my young padawan, between the real and the reflection, is feel. You can’t convey feel unless you have it yourself first. And having that feel, then being able to convey it, is the very unique human thing we call genius. It doesn’t come out of endless woodshedding, knowing every technique, being able to replicate previous masters. That’s a component of it, but not the main thing. The main thing is the feel, and the only place you can find its origination is within the human heart.

I took a while waiting to post about Charlie Kirk because emotions have been running so high. Obviously. It’s polarized the country in so many ways.

First and foremost, my heart goes out to his wife and kids. No young family should ever have to face what they’re facing now. Violence of any kind is abhorrent to me, and this kind of political violence damages everyone. We all feel less safe, we all feel attacked. We have the right to speak, all of us, and that right is sacrosanct in America. We have to fight for that right, as has been seen just these last weeks, in the Trump administration’s action against Jimmy Kimmel and the rapid blowback from all sides, especially the people voting with their dollars, but also from those in both political parties, standing resolute in protecting the First Amendment against this administration’s off-the-rails assertion of dictatorial power.

Charlie Kirk, like all of us, had the right to express his views, no matter how antithetical they are to some of us. That’s the freedom we have here. The litany of dogmatic and marginalizing things Kirk said, however, point not just to his own beliefs, but to a rabid strain of fundamentalist Christian ideology. It’s similar in degree to the extremism of its Muslim counterparts. We can see the inevitable outcome in countries where all rights have been stripped, except to right to be a strict fundamentalist of that particular viewpoint.

This is the future battleground of America. Christian fundamentalist nationalism, versus the rest of us. It’s been festering. I’ve been watching it grow and mutate for some time. It’s particularly viral in the regard that it can change and adapt to social trends and work on susceptible people, playing on their sincere Christian belief. It’s not going away.

Assassination is never the answer, violence doesn’t work. Killing a spokesman doesn’t eliminate the idea. This fundamentalist trend has become rooted in American society now, strongly established, and we have to fight it wherever it rears it malignant, anti-American head. How? By exposing it for its lack of humanity, lack of heart, lack of caring and lack of the understanding that we’re all the same, that we all dropped out of the one great human tree. Our differences are what distinguish us, make us interesting, make it a vibrant and colorful human garden, with countless expanding beneficial aspects for all to share. We see incredible diversity in nature. Why should it be different for people? We have to point out how our diversity is amazing, wonderful, and enriching, and attempts at marginalization of anyone or any group lessens everyone, especially those doing the advocating. As we clearly see in them, in their reduction of people to categories, in their bigotry based upon cherry-picked passages of scripture, in their qualifying of what the human divinity is in all of us, fundamentalists themselves become strange human beings, setting themselves apart from humanity as a whole.

We ourselves have to see beyond our boundaries, our differences, become more embracing to all, and yes, even our foes. Exactly as Jesus said. Shared humanity touches the negating heart. That’s what we have to do. Become examples of what’s better. That’s the fight.

But be assured and aware, this is going to be a long battle.

This is not just one guy talking.

Bobbi Flekman: You put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man’s arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don’t find that offensive? You don’t find that sexist?

Ian Faith: This is 1982, Bobbi, c’mon!

Bobbi Flekman: That’s right, it’s 1982! Get out of the ‘60s. We don’t have this mentality anymore.

Well, here it is 2025, a new Spinal Tap movie just came out, and it’s obvious that mentality is still strongly rooted in our society, if you take a look at Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover, the original one, shown below. Due to the controversy, it has since been, as with Spinal Tap’s Smell the Glove, replaced. A case of a movie being prescient, if there ever was one. The album title is Man’s Best Friend. Seriously. I’ll let the reader judge for him or herself.

Later, in Spinal Tap, the band are grousing over musical rival Duke Fame’s provocative new album cover, which has him tied up and being whipped by women. The difference, they’re told, is that “He’s the victim.” The band pauses, takes that in, then David St. Hubbins says, “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”

And here we are with Sabrina. There’s a lot of socio-political musing over this, asking if this is some form of new feminism, of the type first heralded by Madonna decades ago, where unabashed openness as far as sexuality is offered up on a take it or leave it basis, you get it or you don’t. Can Sabrina really be a victim here where she’s the one in charge, calling all the shots, and the joke, it’s being argued, is that she’s setting the sexual agenda as far as what’s represented in the photo. She’s actually in control of the man. It could also be argued that she’s merely portraying the immortal words of Iggy Pop, I just wanna be your dog. If you’re part of the game, it’s a playacting thing, I’ll be your submissive. If that’s the case, there’s nothing wrong with that, in the non-judgmental boilerplate of Jerry Seinfeld.

But… is there in fact something wrong with it? Is the picture of submission of women being used merely as clickbait, outrageous because she can, which was always a page from Madonna’s playbook. Does the message of sexual freedom as empowering still work with the picture shown above? Addison Rae in her Diet Pepsi video is wearing just a bra and underwear, and this can be seen as freedom, again, relishing her youth and beauty and sexuality, or it could be they’re just a current iteration of pin-up girls, using the pop song as their media.

Or somewhere in between. It’s a fine line.

But what great interpretations, what mastery! No flash, just the circumstance of yet another refining, revisioning of his songs. It’s what he does, always renewing, never repeating, going on to play another joint.

All Along the Watchtower was the opener, and it’s become sublime, with gorgeous guitar, added chord changes on the third and fourth lines of each verse. It’s as if those chord changes had always been there, should have always been there, but they were hidden in the song, and Bob eventually decided to unveil them. This is the thing about his musical expansion, it’s endless, and the songs bear up to that constant change, adaptable, growing.

I Can Tell is a Bo Diddley rocking blues, and goddamn, what a crackin’ great band, biting blues guitar licks, and Dylan in his time-worn voice still aching and castigating as he sings, “I can tell, I know you don’t love me no more,” like his heart was broken yesterday.

Then, To Ramona, lilting, jaunty Tex-Mexy, still a lesson in pointed honesty, until the last revealing turn-around line, “Someday maybe, who knows, baby, I’ll come and make crying to you.”

Highway 61 is another refashioning of the classic that he’s played so many times he couldn’t possibly remember. It started loose, spooky, subdued, then locked into the rollicking blues it is, with new descending lead lines in the verse and descending chord changes on the outro, again, changes that ought to have been there always, as wedded to the song as if it’s a first version, as familiar as they are novel. It’s an astounding thing he does.

Finishing with Don’t Think Twice, played with a bowed bass and taken into a old timey jazz mode, I heard echos of Stephen Foster, rendering it tender, wistful, a lovely harmonica solo taking it out, removing the cutting edge, yes, over time we find we forgive.

Just another show in Dylan’s never ending touring life, one he’ll take to heaven’s door, a spectacular musical migration over decades, over countries over the landscape of everchanging America that point to an enduring honesty, a wellspring of hope and pain and joy and truth that never will run dry. And never be the show they expected.

I read something recently posted on the Expecting Rain forum about the alleged sexist content of the song, saying it was inappropriate then and even more so now. Although the writer genuinely loves the song, calling it magnificent, he feels compelled to point out that in this enlightened time, it’s some kind of backward, cro-magnon male response. That is, however, a large pile of horse dung. Hogspittle. A mewling objection to reality.* Are we reduced to saying only nice, soft, supportive things now? Like every person’s photo on Facebook being called beautiful or handsome with the appropriate emoji. Are we going to create an abridged Shakespeare with all the insults removed?

The premise of the argument, apparently, is that to say just like a woman is to assert that all women are the same, and that assertion is a stereotypical characterization. All women do this, all women do that. This kind of wrong reading is so profoundly dumb-headed I can’t quite absorb it. It’s been argued before, critic Marion Mead said it was a "complete catalogue of sexist slurs." If it was such a sexist song, I would ask, why did Odetta, Judy Collins and Nina Simone, obviously strong women, all cover it?

This categorization of the song misses the whole point, and doesn’t understand Dylan’s use of the phrase. Just like a woman, as he positions it in the lyrics, is in opposition to like a little girl. In other words, he’s showing the surface facade of the song’s subject, a young woman, having stepped out of her childhood and into the adult world, presenting herself to that world, with the ability to carry herself in society as grown-up, sophisticated, savvy. To say Just like a woman in this context is to say, to act the way society ordains a woman should act. The young woman in the song is playing the part of a woman in society, and that in no way connotes women as a gender, or in the singular, wherein every woman is unique.

But the societal presentation she offers is a thin veneer.

Everybody knows, baby’s got new clothes,                                                               but lately I see her ribbons and her bows,                                           
have fallen from her curls

The perfect picture has been disturbed, the cracks are starting to show. This, followed by the devastating chorus.

She takes just like a woman
Yes, she does, she makes love just like a woman
Yes, she does, and she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl 

This isn’t sneering, or a sexist put down, it’s a clear-eyed view, a T.S. Eliot forensic examination of life, it’s the truth, and there’s also a raw tenderness at work here, Dylan feels for the woman’s pain, hidden behind the artifice. It’s a classic exposition of a tragic flaw.

The whole musical tone of the song is light, filgreed, gentle, with arpeggios and organ swirls, beckoning the listener into this world of reminiscence. The music doesn’t snarl, in fact, it sounds downright tender.

The second verse shows more, in clear detail, what the problem is.

Nobody has to guess that baby can't be blessed
'Til she finally sees that she's like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine, and her pearls

She’s in a fog, taking drugs, wearing pearls, society jewelry. But is it a castigation? No, he’s saying she can’t be blessed until she steps out of her charade. This implies compassion, pointing out her mistake in creating her own impediments.

Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated, tangled. Dylan, or the narrator, explains how he came into this woman’s world.

It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse is this pain in here
I can't stay in here, ain't it clear 
that I just can't fit

It’s been said Edie Sedgwick of the Warhol Factory is the subject of the song, and that makes a certain amount of sense, in the light of Sedgwick’s known drug use and fragility, existing in the Warhol universe of artificial fame and instant fashion. One must also realize that Dylan, if you examine his process over time, might not necessarily be writing about one woman, but could be presenting amalgamations or conflations of several.

In any case, Dylan admits to his complicity in the situation, he was dying of thirst, wanting her, and he finally can’t stay any longer in this world of pain surrounding her.

Then, the time shifts to some future point where they might be introduced as friends, and he asks her not to let on that she knew him when…

I was hungry, and it was your world

Here, momentarily, they’re equalized, He’s no longer judging her, he’s the one who was asking to be with her, then, and he’s saying that in the future, he’ll have a different mask on, and he won’t want to be revealed.

The last chorus comes again, because it’s a song and it must, but this time he says she fakes just like a woman, which is a somewhat more empowered place to be, she’s in on the charade and able to carry it off. And the chorus is now one step removed in time, Dylan having told the story - she’s at a distance, and that makes for a sense of wistfulness, or even, if you’re in a magnanimous mood, tenderness.

The truth isn’t sexist. The truth is simply what is. People are imperfect in many different ways. Men, for sure, and yes, women too.

.

.

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* Note to John Nogo - Yes, I am not being objective, and yes, I contradict myself.

It’s a pretty good song in the “breathy young woman singer” mode, called “Walking Away.” A video was made, the character of Sadie is a soulful looking brunette with bangs and angst. It went viral, of course, and now there’s already a half a dozen more Sadie songs and videos on YouTube. On one of them there’s a bio, which reads like a real bio, as if Sadie is an actual person. It’s detailed and believable. It even includes Rick Beato in the story. If you came into this whole thing sideways and unaware, you could think Sadie was an actual singer who’s face had just been digitized a bit to enhance the videos.

Sadie Winters, Walking Away, YouTube link

Sadie is, in the words of Randy Newman, a real emotional girl. Women would want her as a friend, guys as a girlfriend. Sporting a PJ Harvey look, she has an irresistible vulnerability that hints at a core of strength, where she’s wise to the world, guarded, will survive her traumas and along the way she’ll never submerge her emotions.

And she’s not real, not real, not real. What I just said sounds like she’s real, doesn’t it? Nothing is real, John Lennon said. Now nothing truly is real - that is, something made from nothing is real.

Sadie is an algorithmic computational confabulation from a system of devices called AI, but I believe AI, artificial intelligence, is an incorrect phrase. It’s here, it’s what we call this thing now, but what it is actually is AC, or advanced computation. It’s not intelligent. At least for now, it isn’t. Intelligence indicates the ability to discover something. These advanced computational devices can only repeat what’s already been discovered, and play with that endlessly. There will never be a computation that creates another “Yesterday,” though there will be one able to create a facsimile of it. Facsimile means something that’s not real. An approximation of reality.

Like Sadie.

But that doesn’t matter now, because Sadie is a character in the minds of people. Like Romeo and Juliet, who also weren’t real, but who were birthed out of a creative, very intelligent human mind, not a device.

The onslaught of Sadies is about to begin. Strap in, hold tight to your own hard-won notion of reality. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Like most American brands, the image and the reality are far apart. Springsteen himself, in his Broadway show, admitted that he made the whole mythology up, because he could. As he said, “I’m that good.” Crowd applauds. But, ahh, what?! Not the embedded foot soldier in the war, but the sideline observer who then makes himself the narrator of highway songs based on others?

Springsteen never had a regular job, he was always in a band. That’s been his job all his life, and he was made for it. He first hit the scene as the neo-Dylan denizen of the Jersey boardwalk in Greetings from Asbury Park. It had powerful personal songs full of careening wordplay like “Blinded by the Light,” “For You,” “It’s Hard to be A Saint in the City,” backed by the raucous E Street Band. It was an invigorating jolt in the midst of heavy rock, the current trend. The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle continued in this vein, with an emphasis on the carnival lights boardwalk theme, played out in theatrical songs like “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).” “New York City Serenade,” with its Tom Waits-ian street-wise West Side Story vibe, showed a deeper sensibility, and announced Springsteen as a major talent to be watched. In these two first records, he’s writing in an honest perspective, the observer participant, notebook in hand, the drifter romantic, telling tales of colorful characters he’s drifting along with.

Then, as with all great American brands, it exploded. “Born to Run” came out. Springsteen became an instant icon. The album was created in excruciating studio sessions, with endless layering of instruments and mixing, Springsteen was aiming for the left field rafters, and it happened, he hit it out of the park. Newsweek and Time put him on the cover the same week, “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” was omnipresent on the radio along with “Born to Run,” and while the album was bursting with raw energy and excitement, muscular, pedal to the floor, full of verbal hyperbole, it was also overwrought and patently, well… the only honest phrase is mightily contrived. Nobody knew it at the time, of course, except perhaps Springsteen himself.

You can’t really fault him for “Born to Run.” He had his shot there in front of him, and he took it. In the music business, you might only get one shot like that. In taking it, though, he made a kind of Faustian deal. Here he was playing one of those archetypal hero guys with a hemi-powered drone screaming down the boulevard, embodying it live on stage every night. Sure, he’s a performer, and that’s always nuanced, but everybody believed the narrator of the songs was the real him. Springsteen. Bruuuuccce!!!

At the time, he didn’t have a driver’s license.

In the wake of Born to Run, Springsteen seemed to have looked into the gigantic mirror of the media and didn’t recognize himself. The next two records, Darkness at the Edge of Town and The River, had darker songs with less emphasis on cars, were more about the down-and-out, showing influences of The Grapes of Wrath and Terrence Malick’s Badlands, an influence that would show up again on Nebraska.

The core impetus of the recording of Nebraska seems to have been two-fold. In one scenario, Springsteen was making demos for the next album with the E Street Band. But, armed with an acoustic guitar, harmonica and 4 track home music recorder, he began to fall into the songs, into the landscapes, the tenuous, dark realities he was chronicling from his mind. Southern gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s desperate characters, walking through spiritually haunted stories, influenced the record, as well as the movie Badlands, with its tale of Charlie Starkweather and his girlfriend, as told in the album’s title song.

I can't say that I'm sorry
For the things that we done
At least for a little while, sir
Me and her, we had us some fun

Which was killing people along the way on their road trip. This isn’t the stuff of an American brand, this is actual America, as it is, as it has been. The details in the sparse song are brilliant, particularly the repeating word ‘sir’, cuing the listener that this is a police confession. It ends with these stunning lines.

They declared me unfit to live 
said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They want to know why I did what I did
Well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world

“Johnny 99” is a murder/court room song, and goes back in its roots to the traditional song “Delia,” covered by many people, notably Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.

Curtis said to the judge, "What might be my fine?"
Judge says, "Poor boy, you got ninety-nine."

We see the same repeated, with a bit of a joke thrown in, in Johnny 99.

The judge was Mean John Brown
He came into the courtroom and stared poor Johnny down
Well the evidence is clear, gonna let the sentence, son, fit the crime
Prison for ninety-eight and a year and we'll call it even Johnny 99

Springsteen is taking up the long tradition of the bard, the singing storyteller, here. He’s a musical journalist, not the character of the song, which is the overall shift in Nebraska from previous records. The presence of the singer as storyteller rather than the actual subject of the songs is felt throughout. The masterful “Atlantic City,” which could be called the ‘hit’ off the album, tells the story of a hard-scrabble life with the relief of an escape to Atlantic City, along with the notion of rebirth and change.

Well now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your make-up on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

“Highway Patrolman” tells the story of a Highway cop with a neer-do-well brother who the patrolman let’s escape. This is a song again in the bardic tradition, telling of his long-suffering relationship with a brother who simply is bad, but who he still loves.

In “Used Cars,” Springsteen creates a Grapes of Wrath toned story of American poverty, and how people bear up under it and somehow still survive. The story hasn’t changed, the rich stay rich and the poor abide.

The sound of Nebraska is haunting, spare, Springsteen’s voice often reverbed to a ghostly degree. The songs sound like he put a chair out in deserted field at dusk and turned the tape machine on, then played into the night, with no one but himself, and maybe the crows, to hear.

The song “Open All Night” contains the line “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” which is the title of the new movie about Springsteen, about the time period when he was making Nebraska. He was apparently struggling with his identity and purpose, interested most in salvaging his musical soul. The movie was birthed from Warren Zanes’ (of Boston’s great band, The Del Fuegos) book of the same title. The subject matter is surely worthy of a movie, and the advanced reviews are strongly positive. The project was made with Springsteen’s approval, and he’s been quoted as saying he thought Nebraska was his best album.

I heartily agree. Bruce is an American treasure, the body of work is vast and varied and it can be debated endlessly where the greatness is and where it isn’t. Americans love their heroes, and Springsteen became one.

But we don’t need heroes. They all aren’t what they seem. They’re all cracked, doubting, deficient, yearning. We are, after all, just human beings. How the least of us, the poorest, the most downtrodden are treated is the true measure of us. That’s what somebody said a long time ago.

In Nebraska, Springsteen stepped off the big stage, dropped his hero badge into the dust, drove down the road and explored the reality of these crazy, compass-less, empty pocket drifters, who roam this great big land of ours, the land some proclaim to be great but don’t actually give a shit about. He looked at the real people of this country, kept down by forces beyond their ability to change, but who abide. This is who Springsteen writes and sings about in Nebraska. No heroes here, just the real thing.

Struck me kinda funny
Funny yeah indeed
How at the end of every hard earned day
People find some reason to believe

Bob Dylan had crashed his motorcycle in July, 1966 up in Woodstock, NY, and was healing and raising his family in semi-seclusion. The frenetic drug fueled electric tours with The Band were long behind him. The Band, minus Levon Helm, had moved up there into a house dubbed Big Pink, which was just a plain old house in the woods the owner had decided to paint a terrible shade of pink. The Band lived in the house while rehearsing and writing the music that would be later recorded, with Helm, on their debut album, Music from Big Pink. Helm joined his bandmates near the end of the Basement Tapes sessions, but appears on a few of Dylan’s songs, Yazoo Street Scandal, Don’t Ya Tell Henry, and Ain’t No More Cane. Levon also plays on The Band’s songs that are on the Basement Tapes, recorded later.

Early on in all of this, Dylan started coming over and playing down in the basement with the members of The Band. Out of it came The Basement Tapes, which were never intended for public release, but the songs Dylan was bringing were far too good to be scrapped and made it to his publishing company, for other artists to cover. The tapes were saved, of course, and songs from them made their way out into the world as The Great White Wonder, the first rock bootleg. Later, in 1975, Columbia Records released The Basement Tapes, in order to make money and present the already circulating music as better, more cleaned up recordings.

The recordings themselves were a ramshackle affair, more like rehearsals for a proper record than actual recordings, and that’s why they’re so appealing. Comfortable. They’re like Van Gogh’s shoes, or a beat-up pick-up that always runs, or the leather jacket Dylan wore on Freewheelin’ and John Wesley Harding. Lived in. The songs are humorous and goofy, and in the bigger songs, profound, with lyrics unlike Dylan’s lyrics before, but suitably quirky and head scratching enough to be dissected and discussed.

Well, that big dumb blond
With her wheel in the gorge
Turtle, that friend of theirs
With his checks all forged
And his cheeks in a chunk
With his cheese in the cash
They're all gonna be there
At that million dollar bash
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
It's that million dollar bash 

Lyrics like this, full of Lewis Carrol-ish wordplay and nonsense, are all over the Basement Tapes. It’s alleged that copious amount of cannabis were being smoked. Sounds like it.

The casual plainness of Clothesline Saga is a marvelous slice of life with no heavy message beyond a snapshot glimpse of daily life in the country.

The next day everybody got up
Seeing if the clothes were dry
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed
Mama, of course, she said, “Hi”
“Have you heard the news?” he said with a grin
“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”
“Where?” “Downtown” “When?” “Last night”
“Hmm, say, that’s too bad”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” said the neighbor
“It’s just something we’re gonna have to forget”
“Yes, I guess so,” said Ma
Then she asked me if the clothes were still wet

In Please Mrs. Henry the narrator is asking something from Mrs. Henry, we don’t know exactly what, but it sounds like she’s the proprietor of a lodging house and the singer needs a room. Or he’s asking to go to her room for more obvious reasons. In any case, we get this great entreaty.

Now, don't crowd me, lady
Or I'll fill up your shoe
I'm a sweet bourbon daddy
An' tonight I am blue
I'm a thousand years old
And I'm a generous bomb
I'm t-boned and punctured
But I'm known to be calm
Please, Missus Henry, Missus Henry, please
Please, missus henry, missus henry, please
I'm down on my knees
An' I ain't got a dime 

A T-Bone is the bone from a T-Bone steak, also called Porterhouse, which, when cleaned and sharpened, can be held in the hand with the middle bone sticking out between the fingers. A perfect stabbing knife.

Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread is just fun throwaway nonsense that sounds great. No point in looking for meaning, friend, there isn’t any.

Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus
The poor little chauffeur, though, she was back in bed
On the very next day, with a nose full of pus
Yeah, heavy and a bottle of bread
Yeah, heavy and a bottle of bread
Yeah, heavy and a bottle of bread

It's a one-track town, just brown and a breeze too
Pack up the meat, sweet, we're headin' out
For Wichita in a pile of fruit
Get the loot, don't be slow, we're gonna catch a trout
Get the loot, don't be slow, we're gonna catch a trout
Get the loot, don't be slow, we're gonna catch a trout

Now, pull that drummer out from behind that bottle
Bring me my pipe, we're gonna shake it
Slap that drummer with a pie that smells
Take me down to California, baby
Take me down to California, baby
Take me down to California, baby

Then we get to the big songs, Tears of Rage, Too Much of Nothing, I Shall be Released, This Wheel’s on Fire, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, Nothing Was Delivered, Open the Door Richard, Going to Acapulco, Crash on the Levee.

I Shall be Released is arguably the biggest of the bunch, an ache of a plea, for justice, for the universal human need for freedom.

They say ev'rything can be replaced,
Yet ev'ry distance is not near.
So I remember ev'ry face
Of ev'ry man who put me here.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

They say ev'ry man needs protection,
They say ev'ry man must fall.
Yet I swear I see my reflection
Some place so high above this wall.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

Standing next to me in this lonely crowd,
Is a man who swears he's not to blame.
All day long I hear him shout so loud,
Crying out that he was framed.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

There’s no setting for this song. It could be about today, yesterday, tomorrow. An immigrant hauled away by ICE, a gunfighter locked in a western jail.

The big songs on The Basement tapes are all large in scope and truths, on a par with any of Dylan’s past catalogue, but stamped with that old weird America timelessness. Which, I think, categorizes The Basement Tapes most accurately. Timelessness. They exist outside of any modern time frame, in some lost America that once was, before industrialization really set in, before the highway system brought trucks and travelers and eventually, Wal-Marts.

These songs are the still wandering children of the Harry Smith anthology.

I’m posting the article here below.

*****

The Butterfly - God’s Creation, or Satan’s Deformity?

We can see the work of Satan wherever we look, in magazines, online, in the ungodly You Tube videos of trans women who used to be men but now look like Vegas showgirls. You might be fooled by this, thinking, “Well, they do look good!” but beware and know this is the hideous demonic mask of the devil.

When God created man and woman and He didn’t mess around with Mr. in between! Or Ms. in between. No! He made MAN and WOMAN. Period! Each different, each serving their purpose - man the provider and protector, woman obediently serving the man. This is not my word, but the word of the New Testament, As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 1 Corinthians 14:34

The apostle teaches, as it is in church, the holiest of places, so should it be in society. But this is not a Christian nation, and women speak up about just about anything they please, with their ungodly feminist tongues. And now, women who say they are women aren’t even women! They’re trans women who use to be men. The Abomination!

Trans means transformed, made into something it wasn’t. Now in God’s creation, you might think nature is safe from such bending, twisting and perverted distortion, but I recently read an article in Science America that brought a revelation that shocked me to my core! The much loved and admired butterfly is in fact a TRANS CREATURE! I never really thought about what happened to the caterpillar in the cocoon until the word of God came to me - their caterpillar body goes through a change just like a trans person, pumped full of hormones and body parts being changed like trans surgery, and out they come, a flitty, bright colored, flower loving, weak, useless butterfly, good only for their supposed beauty and for gay poets to write about, but IT’S A BEAUTY BORN OF THE DEVIL! Nature is Trans! I couldn’t believe it, but fellow believers in Christ, believe it! Amen! Butterflies are nature’s perverted insects, deformed from their pure, sturdy, green caterpillar bodies, against God’s will, by the hand of the devil, which opens up to let out these winged creatures who flit about like limp-wristed hands waving in the air, good only for ornamentation, like an interior decorator’s overpriced art.

Rise together with me, Christ believers, to rid the world of the Satanic butterfly, who’s effect is said to cause earthquakes and tsunamis. Keep caterpillars caterpillars, I say. Let’s have God fearing scientists turn the caterpillars back into what our Lord Jesus originally made them to be. Or at least keep them from making the unholy cocoon.

And if you see a butterfly, well, I don’t think I need to tell you what to do.

God bless America and our great leader, the President.

Signed,

Drew Magnuson, pastor

Church of the Blood of Christ, Crucified.

Gum Springs, Arkansas

(I detect a nod to Bob’s “Political World” video)

Finally here it happens, and the real miracle is that this song is performed by two artists in their eighties, Dylan 84, Streisand 83. Something has happened generationally, where the idea of a purposeful extended life has gone way beyond ocean cruises and shuffleboard. They are both vibrant performers, having deepened in their artistry with age.

The Very Thought of You / YouTube

The Ray Noble song finds Dylan once again in the comfortable (for him) area of crooning standards, as he did on Shadows of the Night and Triplicate. The song opens with a harmonica solo, a nod to Dylan, but this isn’t Dylan’s harmonica, it’s a harmonica doing the sax part, an intricate chromatic harmonica solo of the type Stevie Wonder would do. Dylan’s voice comes in first, soft and understated, Streisand’s answers, still the flute-like perfect instrument. Dylan’s voice has of course grown gravely and coarse, but his use of it is masterful, like the way in the line “For me, that’s everything,” he lands on the last word with emphasis, heart and conviction. Streisand’s voice is beautiful throughout, and both voices here show restraint, an intimate conversation, like two lovers over a candlelit dinner table, or whispering pillow talk. The harmonica comes in again for a solo, then the final verse leads to the last “my love,” sung together with a tenderness that feels earned and genuine.

The very thought of it working might seem odd, but it does, and marvelously.