Dylan gonna be Dylan. But in his memoir he reminds us why he’s Dylan. “I’d come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about […]
Chronicles Part 1: Bob Dylan being Bob Dylan
Don’t Pass Me By… because everybody loves Ringo….
“Don’t Pass Me By” is a rollicking faux country blues honk and the fiddle part is as crazy as Ringo says. It’s charming, funny, and totally Ringo. For a first effort, it’s […]
Freedom of the press means little if audiences are trapped in bubbles
A free press won’t amount to squat as long as it has audiences who hear only what they want to hear, read only what their Facebook-sculpted algorithms tell them to read, and […]
Random thoughts about the record album – part 2: the Beatles up the ante…
“Full grown men, full of emotion and on top of the world. Meet the Beatles.” – Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone (Part 1 here) When Bob Dylan met the Beatles in late August […]
Cry Baby Cry…darkness in the nursery
“Cry Baby Cry” is exactly what we would expect a nursery rhyme to be: a charming sing-a-long with a dark message at its core. “…I think I got them from an advert […]
My mentor, the pedophile [UPDATED]
What do we do when those who meant so much to us are found guilty of the worst of crimes? There, but for the grace of God, go I… Part 1 of a […]
Random thoughts about record albums – part 1: Dylan’s LP idea…
…and how the invention of vinyl changed music forever. “I agonized about making a record, but I wouldn’t have wanted to make singles, 45’s – the kind of songs they played on […]
In My Life: Lennon remembers…
There’s something Shakespearean about Lennon’s meditation on life and meaning. “I think ‘In My Life’ was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life, and it was […]
S&R at 10: Still thinking, ’cause it ain’t illegal, and we want to keep it that way
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. — George Santayana, 1863-1952 We’re not fanatics here at Scholars & Rogues. As our founder, Sam Smith, writes today on our […]
Carole, Joni, and Carly: sometimes it’s hard to be a woman…
“A young woman in the spring and summer of 1967 was walking toward a door just as that door was springing open. A stage was set for her adulthood that was so […]
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