"The key to all good music criticism – to any criticism, I think – is to drop any pretense to being objective." And the key to reading music criticism is to embrace an author's biases, as long as they aren't obscuring the music or excessively hostile to common sense.
Thanks for this. Abe is 12 now and out of the blue "American Pie" has been resonating with him more than any other song. He's been singing along to it on his phone just about every day for the past two weeks. Just yesterday he was replaying the line "play that rhythm and blues" to try to get the high note at the end of "blues" and into the next verse." Maybe it does have something to do with his age. If anything, it's good brain-training to remember all of the words to it. It's long.
Nice piece, Steve. Maybe you all don't have this problem, but while the historical references for Don McLean's "American Pie"'s symbolic landscape went straight over my head at 10-11 yo, like Steve says, it was a total gateway drug for Dylan's landscapes just a few years later. True, I can't listen to "American Pie" anymore. I've got bother listening to MJ & Prince, too, both of whom I used to love. But by reason of my shallowness, I'm sure, Dylan remains in my ears all the time!
"The key to all good music criticism – to any criticism, I think – is to drop any pretense to being objective." And the key to reading music criticism is to embrace an author's biases, as long as they aren't obscuring the music or excessively hostile to common sense.
Thanks for this. Abe is 12 now and out of the blue "American Pie" has been resonating with him more than any other song. He's been singing along to it on his phone just about every day for the past two weeks. Just yesterday he was replaying the line "play that rhythm and blues" to try to get the high note at the end of "blues" and into the next verse." Maybe it does have something to do with his age. If anything, it's good brain-training to remember all of the words to it. It's long.
Nice piece, Steve. Maybe you all don't have this problem, but while the historical references for Don McLean's "American Pie"'s symbolic landscape went straight over my head at 10-11 yo, like Steve says, it was a total gateway drug for Dylan's landscapes just a few years later. True, I can't listen to "American Pie" anymore. I've got bother listening to MJ & Prince, too, both of whom I used to love. But by reason of my shallowness, I'm sure, Dylan remains in my ears all the time!