You know, Simon & Garfunkel's (well, I'm pretty sure it's purely Paul Simon's creation actually!) "A Simple Desultory Philippic" really surprises me. I always knew that Paul Simon was an exceedingly interesting lyricist, but I always pictured him as a soft person, never the kind to write something like this, (what seems to be) a somewhat harsh Dylan parody (see here for someone else who thinks so!). If one believes that it is in fact a parody, then what's strange to me is how they covered "The Times They Are A Changin'" on Wednesday Morning, 3AM with perfect sincerity - I'm trying to think whether something Dylan did in between the two abums is what ticked Simon off. Mayhaps he didn't like his new direction with Bringing It All Back Home, although I don't know why that would warrant such a reaction.

I remember reading an interview with Simon where he laughed off the rumour that "The Boxer" was about Dylan (it's one of the many interviews on this neat little page). It's quite a quirky rumour, actually, for it claims that the "Lai lai lai" chorus is in fact "Lie lie lie", referring to the fact that Dylan's not Bobby's real name. You sort of wish that this were true, 'twould take one whacked out lyricist to come up with that...anyhow, in the interview, I remember Simon saying that he wouldn't write a song about Dylan because he didn't know anything about his personal life. I'd like to believe him, really, but you listen to "Phillipic" and tell me what else it could be about! I suppose it's quite possible that it's more an attack on the kind of snob who sneers whenever he talks to someone who "...when you say Dylan / He thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas / (Whoever he was)". But, the Dylan parody, whether it's meant to be teasing or biting, is certainly there - it's hard to interpret the vocal delivery style, the overt Dylan references ("It's alright ma / 'Cause everybody must get stoned"), the harmonica snippets and the closing "I lost my harmonica, Albert" as anything other than poking fun at Dylan!

There is the view that Dylan retaliated to this insult with a cover of "The Boxer" (hmm interesting that I should be perfectly ok with Dylan's "spoof" yet write this long post in Simon's case!). My own reaction to it is rather funny - initially, I loved it, and thought it must be better than the original (which I don't remember hearing in its entirety at this point). It was as though I thought "Covers of Dylan songs aren't as likeable as the originals, and so Dylan's own covers must be better than the originals" (of course, after really hearing the original since then, I think it is the surely the stronger song, though the cover suits a particular mood). It is only when I read that the song was supposedly a parody that I started to see where these people were coming from - I'd never considered the delivery to be sloppy previously, but on reconsideration I guess it is, almost purposely so. I always took it to be part of the idiosyncratic charm of the song! As for whether I think it a parody or not, I am really unsure. Sometimes I hear it and think it's just too quick and subdued to be a serious take, but then other times I take this to be a very legitimate interpretation, if only for a different mood and time.

Whether Simon harboured resent over the idolization of Dylan by the masses, I am not sure. I got the feeling that there was an undercurrent of this amongst people who saw the case of Lou Reed as being one of "Take Reed if you want a real poet, and Dylan if you want some phoney for the masses" - it isn't exactly jealousy, but there is the feeling that one's favourite artist has been unjustly overlooked in favour of a less deserving one. Simon, in his early days anyway, definitely seems more like a poet of old than Dylan, simply because of the choice of imagery and the general thematics of the lyrics. Whether he's more of a poet full-stop is another question (My answer? The question has none). Yet I'd be disappointed if Simon saw Dylan as a faux-poet or something of the sort. One can certainly accuse "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (which, incidentally, "Phillipic" is supposed to be based on) of being nothing more than a mish-mash of random words. But as rock's most charming poet* would say, "People see no worth in you / But I do". I dunno, I think there's something more than that to the song. It isn't just the lyrics, great as they are** - it's just the fact that it's a short punch of the surreal, what with the frantic guitar (what an unforgettable opening to the song!) and the very style of the delivery. Maybe the lyrics don't mean*** anything, but I don't think I'm kidding myself when I say that it somehow works.

I guess I wouldn't say that Dylan is about the lyrics, and the lyrics alone. For the songs that really work, it's his delivery of said lyrics that will probably win you over. I have a book of the man's lyrics, but simply out of homage to him, as I really don't see myself pulling the book out anytime soon to bask in the words. The reason I say it's not just the lyrics is that I'm not particularly fond of The Byrds' cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man", nor am I in awe of Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower"****. The originals are far more moving, where Dylan seems to find just the right way to speak those magical lines of his ("Yes the dance beneath the diamond sky"...).

I sometimes think that Dylan suffers from people like me who gush about him and then go on about his lyrics. The problem is that people can go into it expecting an actual poem or something of the sort, but it's not quite that. Poetic, no doubt (at least to me), but there is still a ways to go before we call him a poet. Rock's poet-laureate, maybe, but like I've said before, I don't think one should necessarily consider this to be the same as a "real" poet. Rock-poetry is a different beast, and if you can take the good with the bad, it's ultimately very rewarding.

At any rate, I have a CD of a Simon/Dylan concert that was held sometime in the last ten years, so I guess any problems they had in the past are for the most part resolved. There's an interesting article about these concerts here. There is the interesting point made that Simon was not part of Dylan's 30th anniversary celebration, but perhaps that is not as surprising as it is on first mention. After all, Simon's writing style is a fair ways away from Dylan's, so it's hard to call Dylan a direct mentor of Simon. Whether or not Dylan opened the doors for Simon's own instrospective writing I am not sure - Simon's writing is clearly in a niche of its own by Sounds Of Silence, which is what, 1965?

But, all that aside, even I have to admit that "Phillipic"'s riff is insanely catchy, as are the lyrics themselves. "I've been Norman Maillered, Maxwell Taylored" indeed!

* Shucks, Morrissey comes awful close to being a poet, don't he? One cannot measure the worth of "Reel Around The Fountain" in gold.

** Once you start singing, it's hard to stop - but it's very easy to get breathless. In my youth, I've tried and failed several times to match Dylan's delivery, but it was just too much. Someday.

*** And when do lyrics "mean" something? Oh my, deja vu...

**** I find it interesting that so many people refer to Hendrix's cover as being clearly better than the original (some going so far to assert "We all know that Dylan's songs are better when they are covered by other people". Wow!), again simply because I like how people can see things in such different ways. To me, the original is far more ominous and powerful - "Let us not speak falsely now / The hour is getting late", then that harmonica. Ooh, don't make them like that anymore.