looking forward by looking back

There's an excellent article in the new Mojo about the evolution of The Beatles' White Album, and on my way to work one morning, I listened to the acoustic demos that John, Paul and George made in preparation for that project. They had just come back from India, they each had a batch of songs, and they ran through them, putting them on tape, at George's house. A band, with three songwriters, running down about two dozen new tunes.

It wasn't yet "the White Album." There was some thought that it might be "A Doll's House." Some songs they demo'd didn't make it to the double album (Harrison's "Not Guilty" and McCartney's "Junk," for example). We listen to them in their simplest state, and maybe we play these early tentative versions because that's the only way we can hear these songs in a different context, and not take them for granted.

Bootlegs, outtakes, and live versions are how we hear the ultra-familiar as new. Some performers don't bother much with recontextualization; people go to Stones shows, or McCartney shows, to hear the songs pretty much the way they've always sounded. They can sing along.

Some people tried to sing along with Bob Dylan the other night at Prospect Park, when he did "Like A Rolling Stone." Nice try, folks. Dylan doesn't make it that easy. First of all, you have to figure out what song he's playing, and then once you've caught up lyrically, he plays havoc with tempo and phrasing, until it's not really "Like A Rolling Stone," but more "like" "Like A Rolling Stone." And don't even think about chiming in on 'Blowin' In The Wind': my plus-one at the show didn't believe me when I told her that's what Dylan was playing (by the second verse, she was up to speed). Sometimes this is frustrating, more often it's thrilling.

On "Summer Days," which Dylan plays practically every night, he sings:

'She says, "You can't repeat the past." I say, "You can't? What do you mean, you can't? Of course you can"'

Of course you can. But how much more fulfilling to reinvent it.