{"id":8061,"date":"2014-03-22T18:47:51","date_gmt":"2014-03-22T18:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/22\/saturday-night-at-the-oldies-water\/"},"modified":"2014-03-22T18:47:51","modified_gmt":"2014-03-22T18:47:51","slug":"saturday-night-at-the-oldies-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/22\/saturday-night-at-the-oldies-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Night at the Oldies: Water High, Wide, Dirty, Troubled, and Moody"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Charley<\/a>Bob Dylan, High Water<\/a>.  This is a late-career Dylan gem from Love and Theft<\/em> (2001). A tribute to Charley Patton.  Demonstrates Dylan's mastery of the arcana of Americana. Our greatest and deepest singer-songwriter. Here<\/a> is some fairly good analysis by Kees de Graaf:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI got a cravin\u2019 love for blazing speed, got a hopped-up Mustang Ford, jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard. I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind, I\u2019m no pig without a wig, I hope you treat me kind, things are breakin\u2019 up out there, high water everywhere\u201d<\/em><\/strong>. When the world is under threat of being wiped out, one may expect that man will repent. But that is usually not the case. On the contrary, in the Apocalypse, the low natural tendencies of man seem to thrive like never before. The saying \u201clet\u2019s eat and drink and be merry, because tomorrow we die\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:32) rings true. This is expressed in various ways in the song. First in \u201ca cravin\u2019 love for blazing speed\u201d;<\/em><\/strong> the word \u2018craving\u2019 indicates that this love for blazing speed has something of a compulsion neurosis. The words \u201cA hopped up Mustang Ford\u201d<\/em><\/strong> in combination with \u201ccraving love\u201d <\/em><\/strong>and \u201cblazing speed\u201d <\/em><\/strong> is a brilliant pun. A Mustang Ford is said to be a \u201cspeedy <\/em><\/strong>car, but \u201cspeed\u201d is also a drug for which you may be \u201ccraving\u201d.<\/em><\/strong>  So you may be \u201ccraving<\/em><\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/strong> for the drug \u201cspeed\u201d, but you may also have a craving love for blazing \u201cspeed\u201d\u201d \u2013 that is for driving very fast. The reason why the Mustang Ford is called \u201chopped up\u201d is because it is a very \u201cspeed-y\u201d, fast car. By the way, speed (methamphetamine) is a dangerous and unpredictable drug, sometimes lethal, representing the fastest growing drug abuse threat in America today. Speed is a potent and addictive central nervous system stimulant, closely related chemically to amphetamine, but with greater central nervous system effects. \u201cHopped up\u201d means \u2018high\u2019 or \u2018stoned\u2019, the word is derived from \u201chop", a nickname for heroin and\/or opium, but it can refer to the effects of any drug. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Dylan20130710Front\"<\/a>My favorite verse:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew<\/span>
You can't open up your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view<\/span>
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway 5<\/span>
Judge says to the High Sheriff, "I want them dead or alive"<\/span>
Either one, I don't care, high water everywhere.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nosiree, Bob, you can't open up your mind to every conceivable point of view, especially when its not dark yet<\/a>, but it's getting there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Charley Patton, High Water Everywhere<\/a>.  Nice slide show.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Band, Up on Cripple Creek<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jimi Hendrix, May This Be Love.<\/a> I had forgotten the wonderful guitar solo.<\/span><\/p>\n

Karla Bonoff, The Water is Wide<\/a>.  I listened to a lot of Bonoff in the early '80s.  She does a great job with this traditional song.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, Banks of the Ohio<\/a>.  Joan Baez's version<\/a> from an obscure 1959 album, Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar theme though not water-related: Doc Watson, Tom Dooley<\/a>.  Doc and family in a BBC clip<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Standells, Dirty Water<\/a>.  Boston and the River Charles. My mecca in the '70s, the Athens of America, the Hub of the Universe, etc.  A great town to be young in.  But when it comes time to own property and pay taxes, then a right-thinking man high tails it for the West.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water<\/a>.  A beautiful song.  May it provide some solace for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.<\/span><\/p>\n

Henry Mancini, Moon River<\/a>.  This was Jack Kerouac's favorite song.  Ellis Amburn, Subterranean Kerouac <\/em>(St. Martin's 1998), p. 324:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

One night he [Kerouac, during a 1962 visit to Lowell, Mass.] left a bar called Chuck's with Huck Finneral, a reedy, behatted eccentric who carried a business card that read: "Professional killer . . . virgins fixed . . . orgies organized, dinosaurs neutered, contracts & leases broken."  Huck's philosophy of life was: "Better a wise madness than a foolish sanity."  They drove to a friend's house in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and on the way, Jack sang "Moon River," calling it his favorite song.  Composed by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, "Moon River"<\/a> was the theme song <\/a>of the popular Audrey Hepburn movie Breakfast at Tiffany's<\/em>.  Sobbed by a harmonica, later swelling with strings and chorus, the plaintive tune's gentle but epic-like lyrics describe a dreamer and roamer not unlike Kerouac.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed they do.  A restless dreamer, a lonesome traveller, a dharma seeker, a desolation angel passing through this vale of mist, a drifter on the river of samsara hoping one day to cross to the Far Shore.  Here<\/a> is another version of the tune with some beautiful images.<\/span><\/p>\n

Doc Watson, Moody River<\/a>.  A moodier version than the Pat Boone hit<\/a>. Clever YouTube comment: "It might be a little early in the day for an Am7."  But this here's Saturday night and I'm working on my second wine spodiodi. Chords minor and melancholy go good 'long about now.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Saturday Night at the Oldies: 1956<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Recent Dylan Bootleg Releases<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Dylan, High Water.  This is a late-career Dylan gem from Love and Theft (2001). A tribute to Charley Patton.  Demonstrates Dylan's mastery of the arcana of Americana. Our greatest and deepest singer-songwriter. Here is some fairly good analysis by Kees de Graaf: \u201cI got a cravin\u2019 love for blazing speed, got a hopped-up Mustang … Continue reading “Saturday Night at the Oldies: Water High, Wide, Dirty, Troubled, and Moody”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,167,202,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americana","category-dylan","category-kerouac-and-friends","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}