The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes

(this is the updated verion of Marcus' "Invisible Republic") In 1965, Bob Dylan played Newport with an electric band. Playing songs from the groundbreaking "Highway 61 Revisited", Dylan-- in one of the finest performances of his career-- was roundly booed by the audience and condemned by critics. Why? Greil Marcus' fascinating book starts with this question: why were audiences so hostile to Dylan's new material and style? Marcus' thesis is that Dylan on Highway 61 rediscovered the folk music that America had forgotten, a folk music which had been co-opted by the '30s (and subsequent) Left, a music which was much older and much, much weirder than the work of Woody Guthrie and other late '50s exemplars of the folk tradition. Audiences were in for a shock when Dylan's surreal imagery and often apolitical but weirdly resonant lyrics replaced his plainer earlier folk tunes and protest songs. The book's former title is an allusion to Ralph Ellison's novel "The Invisible Man," whose protagonist is invisible to his fellow Americans because they choose not to see him. In the same way, the very, very weird music of Dock Boggs, Mississippi John Hurt and many others, documented with loving care by Harry Smith, the compiler of the seminal "The Anthology of American Folk Music," was invisible to mainstream audiences during the 1950s and '60s, just as the history they documented was invisible to the majority of its time. It is a countercultural history in song of the U.S., including everything from slave narratives, love ballads, ancient blues, mythical re-tellings of political events, etc. This music is much richer and more complex than the mid-twentieth century folk music familiar to Dylan fans. Marcus illuminates the connections between Dylan's mid-60s work and the "The Anthology of American Folk Music" and shows how Dylan's leap forward-- into surrealism, wild juxtaposition, historical allusion, electric instrumentation and only elliptical allusions to politics-- was also a leap backward into the Anthology's traditions. This is one of those books whose ideas make the head spin. Marcus writes clearly but manages to keep the imagination running on overdrive. Like Pynchon, Levi-Strauss, Murakami and Dylan himself, the work is as much a set of ideas as an invitation to connect the many dots. As well as a fascianting tour through the work of Dylan, the Band and the Anthology, this is partly an alternative history of the U.S. and a pretty incisive reminder that folk music, as Dylan once said "is pure mystery."

_The Old Weird America_ is the greatest description of the mystery of rock and roll ever put into prose. Rock is an ancient mystery religion-- insight, gnosis emerges when the terror and strangeness has been absorbed and transmogrified. Lead into gold, the wound of Amfortas healed, the mountain rooted down by the mole. The first time I heard Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes , I felt that terror. I was afraid of Tiny Montgomery, of Silly Nilly, of the Coachman. I knew that there was no relief for me until the world of the Basement Tapes was as real as the four walls of my bedroom. Now that it has become that familiar, there still is no relief. Rock and roll means never shaking the hell hound on your trail, no relief from the exasperated humiliation of begging Mrs. Henry to look your way and pump you a few. The ironic, elusive fantasy of the Million Dollar Bash always somewhere in the near future, with Rosemary waiting there to put it to you plain as day, and give it to you for a song.

This is a retitled re-issue of _Invisible Republic_. For its content, then, it clearly deserves a 5-star rating (at least from here). However, you ought to know what you will be getting if you already have that classic.

An astonishing book. Less a meditation on Bob Dylan's basement tapes than on the nature of America, its structure is improvisatory and its prose is hallucinatory. In order to justify devoting an entire book to this often silly music, Marcus frequently relies on overstatement; but I don't think he had any other choice. And this overstatement is counterbalanced by a surplus of imagination, inspiration, and fascinating facts. For Marcus, a collection of music conjures up an imaginary place -- especially such collections as the basement tapes and Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I'd like to start listening to music this way. What would be the characteristics of the places conjured up by, say, the Tropicalia boxed set, Prokofiev's wartime piano sonatas, or the Carmina Burana?

I think the people who are complaining that they are not getting a conventional song by song disection of the tapes here are missing out on the much richer and insightful text that we do have. The greatest understanding of the Basement Tapes comes i think comes out of an explanation of their context. In this fashion, rather than providing a staid run-of-the-mill anaylsis of this collection of songs, Marcus aims, and is able to push them gently into the light. This also leaves room for the reader to make up his or her own mind about the music to a degree. By the way there are some great interpretations of some of the songs; i enjoyed the segements which discussed 'Tears Of Rage', and 'Lo and Behold!'.