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Rating:
Thoughts after listening.
Why did Dylan never truly want to contribute to the immortality of the generational film "Easy Rider"? Was it to avoid witnessing a temporary overshadowing of his own celebrity, eclipsed by the shiny chrome of the motorcycles? Simply to allow the film to shine on its own? To let "Easy Rider" be not the film with Bob Dylan's song, but rather the movie "of the bikes," "with Captain America," "of the hippies," "the one with the song 'Born To Be Wild,' that they sang... Who sang it? Well, surely not Bob Dylan..."
It is said that Dylan didn't like the ending of that film, just as I didn't. I would have preferred an ending, so to speak, "metaphysical," with the two modern wandering knights that yes, appeared, but in truth do not exist, never existed, and will not exist, embodying the image of a generation that seemed to be, but at the end of the summer of love was no longer. And if you are not something forever, for me (and for Dylan?) it's as if you never were.
There are those who say he preferred to step aside in that case to favor his friend Roger McGuinn, who had been abandoned by the public for some time, not understood by the critics of the time, and even abandoned by his inspiration in the previous "Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde," as well as dumped by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman. Was Bob supposed to write the ballad for the film? Instead, he sketches the first notes, "instructs" his friend-disciple properly but confidentially, and tells the production, "don't worry if I only have the beginning of the song. Give it to Roger McGuinn: he will know what to do with it."
The production must have said, "Roger McGuinn? And who is he?"... "Ah, the one from the Byrds." "But isn't that David Crosby?"... "Ah, I get it, the one with the tambourine!"... "No? You say that was Clark?" "Ahhh, yes, now I get it, the one with the strange Rickenbacker! But can you imagine a movie with an unreleased Dylan song, and not by this 'McGuinness'? A guaranteed success!"
In short, the idea that emerges is of a Dylan halfway between a cocky star and a benefactor of valid but disgraced artists. Specifically, McGuinn and his Byrds regained commercial success and visibility.
As can be seen from the title of the album, which is not the movie's soundtrack but a whole Byrds record, what Dylan discarded, McGuinn seized with both hands, diving right in to the extent that this album is called what it is.
Roger must be credited with another achievement: arranging a traditional medieval piece, giving it a drama that only rock can hope to achieve. And this was a year before Led Zeppelin's "Gallow Pole".
In addition to the new rhetorical-American figure of the easy rider, this album, anything but monothematic, also calls upon the stereotypes of country antiheroes, namely the lonesome traveller of "There Must Be Someone (I Can Turn To)" and the deportee of "Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)." For the later Byrds, there is no difference between contemporary and past iconography, there is no winner between old and young if both are losers, there is no generational gap, nor geographical boundary between country and rock. "Americana," it is called.
Country rock travels well in the original songs, born to be so; when it comes to covers, rock is a good idea only for "Oil In My Lamp," "Tulsa County," and of course in the other Dylan piece, this one entirely his and already published, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," already covered by the Byrds in '65.
In "Jesus Is Just Alright," a cover of Arthur Reynolds, country was already mixed with spiritual. What McGuinn does is transform country into country rock, to mix it with the black chorus.
"Gunga Din" is spectacular, with all those arpeggios... It's signed by Parsons, but this isn't Gram; it's the new drummer Gene. One deduces that even the last of the session men of the time would have been able, with a little more consistency and dedication, to make music that a good part of today's musicians can't help but recognize their own inferiority to and decide to die struck by lightning in the rehearsal room, with consequent fire and destruction of said room.
The only real flaw of the album—aside from its title—is simply entrusting the dream of Cosmic American Music to the concluding—also a cover—"Armstrong, Aldrin And Collins," a track that fades out immediately... Since this is already the longest Byrds album up to that point, why make the track only a minute long?
If this album works better than the previous one, it is also thanks to the songwriting, which, covers aside, is the result of the formers' hands and not McGuinn's. They have decidedly more cohesion and surpass their own standards.
But how can one still trust the formers if they have previously failed, and not more than a few months ago? And the beauty is that it worked.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Ballad of Easy Rider (02:05)
Written by Roger McGuinn
The river flows
It flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes
That's where I want to be
Flow river flow
Let your waters wash down
Take me from this road
To some other town
All he wanted
Was to be free
And that's the way
It turned out to be
Flow river flow
Let your waters wash down
Take me from this road
To some other town
Flow river flow
Past the shaded tree
Go river, go
Go to the sea
Flow to the sea
The river flows
It flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes
That's where I want to be
Flow river flow
Let your waters wash down
Take me from this road
To some other town
02 Fido (02:42)
Fido stayed all night, he would not go home
I asked him to leave, I said I do not have that bone
I was feelin' lonesome sittin' by the phone
Wide awake stayin' up late wishin' I was home
You were on the outside talking to some chick
I was on the inside feelin' mighty sick
Sleep is what I wanted, you know what I got
Wide awake...
Dogs have it made, lyin' round in the shade
Never have to worry about get there on time
I can't help but wonder what was on your mind
Ridin' round in the pouring rain, havin a heck of time
Livin' may be easy, dyin' may be hard
But I'm wide awake stayin' up late, sendin' my regards
03 Oil in My Lamp (03:16)
Give me oil in my lamp
Keep me burning burning burnin
Give me oil in my lamp as I pray
Give me oil in my lamp
Keep me burnin', burnin', burnin'
Keep me burnin' till I burn away
Sing oh sinner, sing oh sinner
Sing oh sinner to the king
Sing oh sinner, sing oh sinner
Sing oh sinner to the king
06 Jesus Is Just Alright (02:12)
Written by Arthur Reynolds
Jesus is just all right with me
Jesus is just all right, Oh yeah
Jesus is just all right with me
Jesus is just all right
I don't care what they may know
I don't care where they may go
I don't care what they may know
Jesus is just all right, oh yeah
Jesus is just all right
I don't care what they may say
I don't care what they may do
I don't care what they may say
Jesus is just all right, oh yeah
Jesus is just all right
Do, do, do, etc.
Jesus is just all right with me
Jesus is just all right, Oh yeah
Jesus is just all right with me
Jesus is just all right
Jesus is just all right with me
Jesus is just all right, Oh yeah
Jesus is just all right with me
Jesus is just all right
07 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (04:56)
(Dylan)
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
09 Gunga Din (03:05)
Written by Gene Parsons
I'm writing this here letter from aboard a DC8
Heading into Angel Town, I hope it's not too late
It rained in New York City
Mister Rock 'n' Roll couldn't stay
The crowd was mad and we were had
Chasing the sun back to L.A.
Have breakfest with me mamma
I hope they'll let us in
Got a leather jacket on
I know that it's a sin
Gunga Din
Sitting backwards on this airplane, is bound to make me sick
Spend your life on a DC8, never get to bed
Settle down (settle down)
Now we're over Kansas, where the clouds are floating by
The whole wide world looks back at me
Just like a mushroom pie I wonder why
Have breakfest with me mamma
I hope they'll let us in
Got a leather jacket on
I know that it's a sin
Gunga Din
10 Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) (03:49)
The crops are all in
And the peaches are rotting
The oranges piled up
In their creosote dumps
You're flying 'em back
To the Mexican border
To spend all their money
To wade back again
{Chorus}:
Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus y Maria
You won't have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be "deportees"
Some of us are illegal
And others not wanted
Our work contract's up
And we have to move on
600 miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws
Like rustlers, like thieves
{Chorus}
The skyplane caught fire
Over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of lightning
Shook all our hills
Who are all these friends
Who are scattered like dried leaves
The radio said
They were just "deportees"
{Chorus}
{Repeat}
11 Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins (01:40)
Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were launched away in space
Millions of hearts were lifted, proud of the human race
Space control at Houston, radio command
The team below that gave the go they had God's helping hand
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