It’s funny how you can hear a song but never really listen to it and then, one day, bam! it kicks you in the ass. I have always admired Bob Dylan, but I have never really owned any of his albums. I have always praised him as a songwriter, and even though I have dated and befriended people who are huge fans of his, the radio was as close as I ever got to him. I never lay awake at night listening to his tunes and studying his lyrics like I did with R.E.M., I never fell in and out of love with his albums as a soundtrack like I did with Leonard Cohen,hell, I never even drunkenly shouted along to his lyrics at a party like I did with the Beatles. He was always just the guy who wrote good songs that other people listened to and I heard ocassionally. And then, a movie came along and put something visual to one of his songs and that song got stuck in my craw. I remember shortly after seeing “I’m Not There” talking to one of my dylanologist friends about how great the song “Mr Jones” was. She was very nice to me and didn’t crucify me for getting the name of the song wrong, that song is actually called “Ballad of a Thin Man”.
I have to say that although the movie wasn’t that great, in that one moment I felt as though Bob Dylan had come up to me and punched me in the face, and the next day I wanted him to do it again. Here’s what the original flavor tastes like:
Gnarls Barkley is back! How do you top the amazingness that was Crazy? You don’t. You don’t even try. You just put your head down and put out some solid tunage and move forward with your life and that’s exactly what the boys have done.