Blonde on Blog
My Five Favorite Dylan Wannabe Songs, the chintzier-sounding the better. I could listen to these songs all night, truly:
"A Public Execution" (1965) - Mouse. This is to Bob Dylan what the Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction” is to the Yardbirds or what Kingdom Come’s “Get It On” is to Led Zeppelin. Such a blatant rip-off that it becomes greater which each listen. The name of Mouse’s band? The Traps, of course.
"The Great Airplane Strike" (1966) - Paul Revere and the Raiders. The fuzzy bombing riff on this tune has been ripped off by both the Dead Kennedys and some Brazilian band that I've heard on Radio K. Maybe I should just drink more and more and commence to incessantly tell all y'all to go out and buy their Greatest Hits. You'll like it more than your Velvet Underground and thank me for it later.
"Backsliding Fearlessly" (1969) - Mott the Hoople. John Lennon’s “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” crossed with Blonde on Blonde and – I imagine – numerous pints of ale prior to recording. This is the fourth song on their debut album, the previous three were covers. It’s my duty as an oldster to say it: They don’t make ‘em like this any more.
"Industrial Disease" (1982) - Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler had previously shown that he vocally resembled Dylan, but here he totally captures the important parts of Dylan’s mid-sixties sound: the vocal sneer, the keyboards, the beat. His guitar heroics are simply in the way he makes the rhythm guitar croak. And the crazy surreal lyrics: it all ends with a protest singer and two Jesuses (“one of ‘em must be wrong.”)
"One Step Forward" (1996) - Railroad Jerk. Like all great fast Dylan songs (all of the above approximate fast Dylan except the Mott tune), this keeps throwing weird-huh? lyrics out there and you never get sick of it and then it’s over and you're left wanting more. Though one line rings clear: “Your indie credibility is going way down the drain / You went one step forward and two back from where you came.”
I came up with this list after hearing the new Lucinda Williams song, “Sweet Side”, which while being Dylan Wannabe is mediocre Dylan Wannabe. The rest of the album is likely better, and all the Deep Songwriter fans out there will tell me all about it, over and over. In the mean time, I can get my kicks reading the allmusic.com review of the album, which states that: (this) is a work of art in the Henry James sense; it is "that which can never be repeated."
Well, hell. And here I was gonna go out and buy that fun new Electric Six album because I’ve been told repeatedly that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the album that broke the mold on work of art albums!