Bob Dylan and Amanda Palmer may not look alike (depends on the lighting of course) and they may not sound alike, but they do have this in common, they are, at rock bottom, folkies. Dylan started his career as a folk singer, a teller of shaggy dog stories with a distinct POV, and then went became an acid rocker, essentially going from Tolstoy to Chehkov and now, in the winter of his life, back to Tolstoy. Amanda is an art rocker who fell for the shaggy dog stories of Chehkov, but she didn't have the skill, and ended up more like Stephen King circa "Carrie".Palmer thinks she is doing performance art but she is too literal, she thinks linearly and her songs, except, you know, the obvious stuff, are stories. Or maybe stories given them too much credit, On her newest album, the Tuesday released Theater Of Evil, they are more like outlines with a punch line thrown in: they are the shaggiest of stories. "The Killing Time" is a situation taken on sideways, it appears to be an extended amplification of desire. She would rather be humiliated and murdered then kill… except for the object of her affection. It weaves characters and pictures into its emotional zone slinging.
Other songs, "Melody Dean", "Massachusetts Avenue" (quite biographic, right?) "Melody Dean" these are all rooted in the same place as Dylan shows his. Tempest is one long story, on and on, accumulating images though Dylan really has one thing pm his time out of mind, his imminent demise.
For years now, Dylan has circled the question of his death. All endings are his endings, it is the symbol, the death head that peers over the shoulder of just about everything he has done except MAYBE the Christmas show. The thing is, on Tempest Dylan is a great writer so you have to dive head first into his words to find where he is going and as you kinda sink in them, as they are everywhere you turn, it is harder and harder to view the man who is hiding behind them. The sinking of the Titanic is big enough but it is really the sinking of the man himself. It is his death, his characters, his world that disappears beneath the waves. "Tempest" the song, indeed, the album is "The Long Death Of Ivan Ilyich" written in a different tone for another purpose. Dylan struggles with his mortality through struggling with out mortality.
It is a fascinating story and one we all will deal with in great depth.
And it is folk the way Palmer is because it is hidden folk based biography. Palmer and Dylan keep on looking at the world and seeing themselves.
Tempest – Bob Dylan – Grade: B+
Theater Of Evil – Amanda Palmer – Grade: B