It's weird that the guy waited forty years to take down Tom T. Hall, of all people, but this whole thing is really worth reading in its entirety. Thanks to whoever transcribed this for the L.A. Times, you are a saint.
The speech was given at a big fancy Grammys-related event where other musicians played songs by him, which led Dylan in his ha;f-hour speech to at first discuss other artists who'd covered his songs, and also who had spoken ill of his work and singing style.
Clearly, he never forgot or forgave folks who dissed his work early on. This elephant don't forget!
At first there were bits of it posted to everyone's Facebooks at the start of Saturday — Can you believe he dissed Leiber and Stoller so hard? Oh man he said nice stuff about Hendrix, but forgot the Staples had recorded his songs way earlier, etc.
The entire rant is a bumpy ride filled with erudite knowledge and strange opinions. It was pretty amazing, especially the digression where he gave shout-outs to classic hillbilly artists. Those names do not get spoken of nearly enough, especially up on fancy stages like that.
As the event centered around Dylan covers, I've peppered a few of my own favorites here. Too bad it was James Taylor up there on the stage reverentially moaning through one of his deep songs, and not Half Japanese bashing it out, but whatever.
I owned the Mr. French does Dylan record as a teen — got it for a laugh, and put this song on many mix tapes. Over time, I came to really like it — whether that's vinyl Stockholm syndrome or not, I don't care.
What are your own favorite Dylan covers? The weirder, the prettier, the more unexpected, the better.
Metro Times music editor Mike McGonigal has written about music since 1984, when he started the fanzine Chemical Imbalance at age sixteen with money saved from mowing lawns in Florida. He's since written for Spin, Pitchfork, the Village VOICE and Artforum. He's been a museum guard, a financial reporter, a bicycle...
