I’m Not There Soundtrack Giveaway!
Over the past twenty years, Todd Haynes has perfected his own, often avant-guarde, brand of maverick filmmaking. He really made a name for himself in 1987 when he re-enacted the life & death of Karen Carpenter using Barbie dolls in a short film called “Superstar” that was ultimately pulled from distribution after a lawsuit by Richard Carpenter. The film projects that he has chosen to take on have been relatively few and far between when compared to some of his contemporaries, but you always know you are going to get something original when his latest film is unveiled.
There is a great deal of excitement for his new film “I’m Not There”, which has been receiving positive reviews since screening at the Telluride, Toronto and Venice Film Festivals earlier this year. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about “I’m Not There” is that it celebrates the life of Bob Dylan without being a traditional biopic.
Six actors, including Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett (who won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for the role) represent various evolutions and persona’s from Dylan’s career without directly portraying him. The narrative is inspired more by his songwriting than by his actual life and, as such, will probably confound as many viewers as it delights.
The film opens in limited release on November 21st and will continue to expand across the country towards the holidays.
The 2-cd soundtrack assembled for the project is just as ambitious as the film itself. Over 30 Dylan songs are covered by a veritable who’s who of indie rock. It’s one of the few places you’ll find Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, The Black Keys, Stephen Malkmus, Antony & The Johnsons, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Willie Nelson, Karen O, and Jeff Tweedy rubbing elbows
outside of Coachella or Austin City Limits festival lineup.
We have 4 copies of this 2-cd collection to give away to some lucky Futurist readers. All you have to do is leave a comment before Friday, November 9th telling us about your favorite Dylan song and why. We’ll select 4 winners from all the entries received!
Stream Music from the Soundtrack from the official site or Myspace.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
oh jesus. favorite dylan song? now THAT’s tough.
for this exact second, it’s “talkin’ world war 3 blues.” reason: i’ve always loved the last few lines. not real sure why, probably just the way bob delivers them (which won’t translate here, but here are the lyrics):
“Half of the people can be part right all of the time/
Some of the people can be all right part of the time/
But all the people can’t be all right all the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that/
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,”/
I said that.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Me personally, “series of dreams”, although I’m not really sure why, it rains a lot here, so our umbrellas are ALWAYS open; as far as my 3 year old is concerned, he loves the “mighty quinn”, and wants to hear it every time we get in the car. He’s a big Bobfan!
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
My favorite Dylan tune is one of his strangest: “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” The tune began life during Dylan’s “basement” sessions with The Band and was eventually given to The Byrds to kick off their “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album (feat. Gram Parsons).
On The Byrds version of the track, Roger McGuinn reversed the verbs in a couplet, singing “pick up your tent,” rather than “pack up your tent.”
When an official Dylan rendition of the song finally saw the light of day, many of the lyrics and images were switched and altered, with Dylan sarcastically singing: “PICK up your money, PACK up your tent, McGuinn,” directly referencing the famous mistake.
The song is goofy, rambling and brilliant. With references to “Genghis Kahn and his brother Don,” and “a fish that walks and a dog that talks,” it’s perhaps Dylan at his most playful. From what I understand, the stars of ONCE, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, cover the song for this OST.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:37 pm
‘clothesline saga’ - Basement Tapes, not a true Bob Dylan song but rather a Bob Dylan & The Band tune. I love the looseness of the tune. Sounds like it was recorded in a basement after a few drinks, oh wait, it was.
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“Stuck Inside of Mobile…” After hundreds of listens, I still enjoy puzzling over the meaning of the lyrics.
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:37 pm
I don’t need the free album, but still wanted to contribute to this line of thought. Best Dylan songs, in my mind to date aren’t the really famous ones:
Isis, It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carole, It Aint Me Babe, Jokerman, Series of Dreams and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.
The reasons for each of these is their intended tone. The imagery and the context during which they were released (in other words, take a minute to think about what everybody else was doing at the time.)
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
My favorite Dylan song, at least the next couple minutes, is “Let Me Die In My Footsteps”. It is a perfect snapshot of someone dealing with the reality of the Cold War in the early 1960’s. You can damn near smell the dampness of those fallout shelters.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:55 pm
“A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”
I actually heard the Edie Brickell & New Bohemians version before his original and fell in love the song.
A stellar piece of folk poetry on surviving and living this life.
Sometimes I think Dylan’s pedestal is a wee bit too high (see: Victoria’s Secret ad), but then I hear this song and I get it.
“I Shall Be Released” with The Band is veryclose second.
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:55 am
My favorite Dylan song is ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ I don’t think there’s a need to describe it, just feel it http://youtube.com/watch?v=xO0gSJGJ7Fs
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 am
Favorite Dylan song? That’s seemingly impossible to answer. I can’t think of any other artist who has such a wealth of material. From the political to the personal and from the surreal to heartfelt. I have to reach back to my favorite Dylan album ‘Blood on the Tracks’ and its beautiful opening track “Tangled Up in Blue”. Recorded after a long recuperation from a near fatal motorcycle crash and while in the process of a divorce from his first wife, ‘Blood’ is the most personal statement from one of the most enigmatic singer/songwriters of all time. It was with this album that the elusive Dylan really wore his heart on his sleeve.
“Tangled Up in Blue” is a song that is at times enigmatic and open to interpretation and yet is at once the most personal and the closest Dylan ever got to autobiography. The free form lyrics relay the thoughts of a man dipping back into his life while on the road during the ’60s. With a torrent of lyrics, Dylan manages to recount a life on the road-a brief affair with a woman he met-their marriage-and their subsequent parting of the ways.
It’s a beautiful song that is at once nostalgic with a hint of bitterness. And yet there’s a sense of resignation and hopefulness at the end.
It’s a brilliant first track to an equally brilliant record that sums up everything great about Dylan.
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
My favorite Dylan song, for a variety of reasons, is Subterranean Homesick Blues. For starters, it was influential in so many ways, from it origins as possibly the first music video to its rap-like recitation.
But the chief reason remains Dylan’s incredible lyrical skills, which were top shelf here. “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” is one of the greatest lines in pop music history, and few songs end with line as smile-inducing as “the pump don’t work, ’cause the vandals took the handles.”
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I love “Lay Lady Lay.” It’s got a Lorca-like prose to it that really moves me.
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
My favorite Dylan song right now is “Buckets of Rain”, and I am particularly obsessed with the Neko Case version. It has that near-Guthrie sort of vibe, and a little bit of honky tonk, and it’s just .. good.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:39 am
My favorite Dylan song would have to be Subterranean Homesick Blues. Dylan wasn’t much on my musical radar screen until I was 15 and went to see Don’t Look Back at a revival movie house (back in the day when they had revival houses) with a couple friends. I think that movie was the first time I really heard–and saw–Subterranean Homesick Blues. Dylan nonchalantly standing there with his stack of signs changed my view not only of him but what popular music could be–visually, politically, musically. For some reason, that video (can we call it one of the first music videos?) made my little teenage head explode.
There’s an underlying anger and dissatisfaction with the system in that song that hit the right chord in me. It made me start seeking out current music beyond the popular top 40 stuff I heard on the radio. It’s like I suddenly “got” what rock could do–it wasn’t just something fun to listen to. It was art. It was a statement. I still adore that song.
November 4th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Even coming in at over 8 minutes, I’ve always loved “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” ‘cuz it tells such a great story. At first it seems pretty straight-forward, but after repeated listens the allegories between Dylan and the women he was involved with at the time start to become apparent, and the straight-forward story telling suddenly becomes intriguingly complex. Anyhow, it’s a great song.
November 4th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
So I made a playlist of my favorite Bob Dylan songs. I got it down to “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Positively 4th Street,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Shelter From The Storm,” and “Tangled Up In Blue.” They are all amazing songs, so I had to go with the “goosebump test” to ultimately decide which was my favorite. My gut and epidermis told me it was “Shelter From The Storm.” That was the one that elicited the most emotional response from me. So that was my choice.
But ask me the same question again next week. My answer might change…. :)
November 5th, 2007 at 5:28 am
My favorite Dylan song has always been Tangled Up in Blue. One happy memory associated with it is when the Dead were covering it back in 88 and I heard this really annoying guy behind me shout along to the only lyric he knew: “Some are carpenters’ wives!” I also really love this song because it won me a copy of this great soundtrack!
November 6th, 2007 at 12:41 am
The problem with ever trying to pick ONE great song bestowed upon us by Bob Dylan is that his catalog is so expansive and so varied that every person will have a different opinion. Sure, there are a few of his songs that are weaker than others and a few that, despite any personal opinion, demand to be (at the very least) respected, but his collection is so chock-full of keepers that few will have a similar favorite.
I love pretty much every song on the Highway 61 Revisited album, and it’s hard to narrow it down to one (especially since concert staples such as “Like a Rolling Stone” were first heard here), but I’m going to have to go with “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.” It’s one his most simple and more elegant ballads, and completely captures the blues feel that makes Highway 61 Revisited my favorite Dylan album. “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Like a Rolling Stone” seem like epic poetry in length and depth comparison, but it shows that just in a few words Dylan can still be a master craftsman of American life. The opening lyric “Well I ride on a mail train, baby/Can’t buy a thrill” just seems, to me, to show that his lyrics need not be long-winded to be clever. This is a simpler Bob Dylan, a song that in a few short minutes conveys an great deal of his life and captures an audience’s attention. I absolutely love this song; it just hits me in all the right places. I’m sure I’m in a minority, but that’s the beautiful thing about Dylan: he was never one man, but the embodiment of many. His styles are wide and varied, and each song will touch a different person differently. For me, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” is THAT song, the one I could listen to endlessly and the one that reeled me in like no other. I have no profound rhyme or reason for loving it, but it’s Dylan…do you really need one?
November 6th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
My favorite Dylan song is “One Headlight.”
My life was forever changed when I heard this verse: “She said it’s cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can’t break away from this parade
But there’s got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed…”
Truer words have never been written.
God Bless you Uncle Robert for birthing Jacob, the greatest songwriter of our generation.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
For being the 20th person to comment, I figured I’d be at least fifth or sixth in citing something from recent years. Like most of the people above, my love of Dylan’s music is always morphing, evolving and blowing in the wind. (Clever, no? Shut it.)
In all seriousness, “Cold Irons Bound” has been on my mental playlist ever since its release in 1997. I still have the ticket stub for my spot in line for the midnight release of Time Out Of Mind, and I don’t think my relationship with my college roommate will ever be the same for all the late nights I stomped along with that rhythm. The way that song builds and crescendos musically rips at you like upside down gravity. Your feet are in those irons, and all of a sudden your knees are all you’ve got. And then the lyrics start.
“Reality has always had too many heads.” There’s no way to parse this song. It’s no ballad or existential talking blues. It’s a proud rage at how distant he feels from life and love.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
My favorite Dylan song is ‘Everybody must get stoned’ because, well… everybody must get stoned (at least once!)
November 6th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
It’s hard to choose just one song and it’s especially hard to choose one song without sounding a bit cliched. That said, I would have to say “Like a Rolling Stone” is my favorite Bob Dylan song. I very well could be mistaken, but I understood the song to mark one of the first changes in Dylan’s music by moving away from his more activist/folk music roots. What makes it a great song is that Dylan, with an established audience and their expectations, was willing to go into another direction musically that risked alienating much of his listeners–and did from what I understand–and set the tone for the rest of his career.
Taking a risk and reinventing himself is what makes this a great song in my mind. That and it’s still damn catchy.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Real tough question.
I would say “Masters of war” because this song’s the perfect anti-militarist protest.
Dylan can see through the masks of moral superiority, and shows them up(the ones who “build the big bombs”) for the cowardly, power-mongering, money-grabbing hypocrites they are.
It’s so strong and powerful that I cant help feeling angry when I hear it.
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead
November 6th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Though my mp3 player might tell me I listen to Lay Lady Lay and Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right more often, my favorite Bob Dylan song is A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. It literally stuns me to silence when it comes on. This song reminds me, a writer myself, of the incredibly important role of an artist as empathizer, dissenter and recorder of our day-to-day existence. I teach it to my students who ask what they can do with their humanities courses. Bob Dylan’s music, for me, is at its best when it’s plugging into that collective consciousness. His sound may change from one period to another but he always gets the heartache, protest, and, ultimately, gratitude right.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:36 am
My favorite Dylan song is “The Hurricane.” I’m a huge believer in the beauty of lyrics and I think only Dylan could craft an epic song that speaks to so much (our society, ourselves, our government, etc.) yet is focused on one very specific tale. I just saw him twice within a few month span (July in Albuquerque and October in Syracuse, N.Y.) and it was surreal to watch him play “Like a Rolling Stone,” but I left a little disheartened since I didn’t hear about Reuben Carter either time.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Motorpsycho Nightmare. Hilarious and brilliant at the same time. Who else could take the skeleton of an old joke and turn it into a political statement?
November 7th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I would say that the best Dylan’s song is the… last one. He’s an artist you always want to hear something new from. Apart from this “small” consideration I go crazy for “Like a Rolling Stone”.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
You always take a risk of running afoul of the Dylan purists when you even mention his music in the ’80s, but dammit, I have always had a fondness for the song “Jokerman” from the 1983 album “Infidels.” It features a really intriguing video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igMaEw3SJuk). As a teenager first recognizing and appreciating Dylan through MTV of all things, the song captured a poignant commentary of the Reagan era. And just like his early songs, it has a staying power and relevance to the issues of today.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
My favorite Dylan song tends to vary wildly depending on mood, what I’m listening to, etc. — but at the moment, I’ve got to say “I Shall Be Free” from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. It’s such a funny song. In under five minutes, Bob manages to satirize relationships, politics, pop culture and himself — and keep it all as light and bouncy as a soap bubble. Amazing.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
It’s definitely hard to choose, but my personal favorite is “Positively 4th Street”. It’s just so full of vitriol. I love it.
I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you
Gets me every time.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
“Maggie’s Farm” because it’s such a great protest song, such a great you-can’t-fire-me-because-I-quit anthem. Whenever I hear it, my soul raises its puny fist in defiance. Yeah, that’s right, nobody can make me do anything!
And then the next morning, I put on my monkey suit and head back to work.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
My favorite Dylan song is “Like a Rolling Stone.” The thing that does it for me is the keys. After the first smack of the drum, when the organ starts up, I get this feeling like I’m home. It’s hard to explain, but there’s something about how that organ, and Bob’s harmonica, and that great electric guitar all come together to speak to me.