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Usually I prefer to hear Bob Dylan sing his own songs in his own idiosyncratic voice. Recently, though, I’ve collected a few covers of his work that really got me to experience songs I already loved in new and interesting ways. These songs are by artists working in very different genres. They do all share with Bob Dylan an expansive knowledge of American music and a confidence in combining styles that wouldn’t always overlap, but that express their particular experiences of America.

I was going to try to link to these somehow, but in this case you can just look them up for yourself if you’re interested.

The Dixie Chicks, “Mississippi,” Top of the World Tour (Live)
This furious bluegrass-rock rendition of “Mississippi” weaves layers of defiance and skill and musical mixing into a compact message and summary of the group’s complex history. Apparently Bob Dylan wrote this for his album Time Out of Mind, but left it off and gave it to Sheryl Crow for her album The Globe Sessions. Then Dylan did use it on his album Love & Theft, in a rendition filled with regret and endurance, which I’ve loved since I first heard it. The Dixie Chicks’ version follows Crow’s arrangement closely, but this live performance surges with energy, and there’s that amazing little hoedown of banjo, fiddle and electric guitar near the end.

Taj Mahal & the Hula Blues, “All Along the Watchtower,” Hanapepe Dream
Hawaiian Blues, yes. Dylan’s own version and Jimi Hendrix’s famous cover howl with urgency. Taj Mahal has taken that tone inherent to the song and combined it with the resignation of the blues and the ancient saunter of island music. When he sings, “this is not our fate,” you do feel like he’s found some other path, but also like he could hold out up on that watchtower for quite a while if he needed to.

The Ramones, “My Back Pages,” Acid Eaters
Given that the Ramones managed to innovate by trying to take rock and roll back to the brilliant simplicity they loved, it makes sense for them to sing, “Ah, but I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.” I probably like this punk cover better for its contrast with the Byrds’ chiming, celebratory rendition of this song. I downloaded both versions on my birthday last year.

Walk Hard
Also, I just got around to watching Walk Hard. The movie itself was mostly disappointing: good concept, good people, dull execution. The joke songs, though, were excellent, and the Dylan parody is brilliant:

Q: What do you get if you play a country music song backward?

A: You get your truck back, you get your house back, and you get your wife back.

I saw this for the first time recently. Well, no, that’s not true. I saw David Hockney’s composite picture for the first time about seven years ago, although I feel like it might have been at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art rather than the Getty Museum. I was fascinated by it.

I saw the actual Pearblossom Highway recently. It looks like that artwork, but softer, without the harsh edges of the photos, but the boundaries of distant mountains, and rose-colored horizons.

I’m in my apartment listening to my neighbors cheer for the final seconds of the Lakers-Celtics championship game, which I just started watching. OK, another game to follow.

I was watching the video of the documentary Bluegrass Journey. In the first few minutes, there were Dana and Lauren of the erstwhile Malibu Storm. I know them! Hi! Then the Del McCoury Band played “Love is a Long Road,” from Tom Petty’s album Full Moon Fever. I know that song! I had heard some of the other songs, too, but it was funny that one of the first in the movie was one I know from a rock record.

The documentary doesn’t show you much about the history of bluegrass, although it does allude to the music’s diverse influences. What it does is illustrate the experience of traveling to bluegrass festivals. I had heard before, often from Dana, that everyone feels very connected through them. That definitely came through in the scenes in the movie, in the music selections, and in my own experience watching it.

Lettuce wraps with spiced ground turkey

Shrimp, lotus root, mushrooms and bell peppers stir-fried in black bean sauce

Rice

Steamed baby bok choy with soy-black vinegar-ginger sauce

Champagne

We were going to make brownies, but got too full.

I’d detail the recipes, but they were improvised and not measured. Good, though, particularly due to some very fresh ginger purchased at the Korean store.

Lotus root photo by taberukoto

Thanks to Amber for introducing me to the music of the Gotan Project, which is somehow reminiscent of the soundtrack to an awesome French movie you haven’t actually seen yet.

Today I walked up Lincoln Boulevard, which is under construction. I needed to cross at 84th Street, but couldn’t reach the button that makes the “walk” sign flash, because there was a trench in front of it. The ditchdigger looked up. He wore a reflective vest, a floppy camouflage hat, and a beatific grin. He reminded me of the gravedigger in Hamlet. He gestured, I nodded, and he rotated his shovel, lifted it high out of the ditch, and pressed the button with the tip of the handle. And from down in the depths, my way was made clear.

Photo by nickjeffery

A few months ago, I entered a phase in which the only kinds of music I really wanted to hear were classical and bluegrass.

If you are in such a phase, or even if you are not, your new hero is Edgar Meyer. I’ve been listening to Appalachian Journey over and over, and exploring related classical-bluegrass hybrids. Listening to this stuff is like watching a ballroom full of people in tuxedoes and silk dresses suddenly break out square dancing: exuberant, democratic, and fantastic.

I was inspired by seeing a rerun of Charlie Rose interviewing the physicist Lisa Randall to buy and read her book Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions.

Her innovation, if I understand it correctly, is the idea that there could be not only extra dimensions, but extra dimensions that are infinite in size, which we have not previously perceived because we are not physiologically designed to do so. This is the idea that strikes me as so sweeping, yet so simple, that it feels like it might turn out to be right. It’s like when people started to accept that the earth goes around the sun and not the other way around, despite how it looks to us here on earth.

Apparently the Large Hadron Collider will enable experiments that can help support or disprove the theory. I like to have something to look forward to. Now that the final Harry Potter book is available, I’ll start looking forward to the advent of the Large Hadron Collider. Odds are it won’t destroy the universe.

I’ve started tracking the statistics and search strings for this site.

For whoever was looking for the slow loris/grant money article, I’ve put that back up: Slow Loris.

Photo by Wallyg via flickr.