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Sign of the Times · Six Degrees of Dylan - Audio Episodes

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGady and I have a theory.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone changed what a popular song could be and every rock
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: and pop song since can be connected back to it.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is a journey through musical evolution, following the influences,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: shared ideas and unexpected encounters that connect one record to another.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Six songs, five connections, one destination.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 0:26
  [music]
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, a quick listening note.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: For licensing reasons, the songs themselves aren't included in this episode.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find today's Spotify playlist linked in the post notes.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you know when to pause and listen,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and point you towards particular moments in each song.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Take your time, then come back when you're ready to follow the next connection.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy! Listen to the space between the first piano chords.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Before Harry Styles raises his voice, nobody seems to have decided quite how big the room is.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: He starts by trying to comfort someone.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: By the end, he sounds as though he needs every person in the room to help.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: This was his first solo single in April 2017.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: What interests me is how long it takes him to get from speaking distance to shouting distance.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for the drums coming in.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make his promise more reassuring or does it tell you how frightened he is?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Sign of the Times and come back when you're ready.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Keep that piano in your ear.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're going back to David Bowie and a girl who has gone to the cinema for some peace.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Rick Wakeman's piano on Life on Mars has a restlessness all its own.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Try following the little runs between Bowie's phrases.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The singer has scarcely introduced his character
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: before the accompaniment starts pulling her somewhere else.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Styles and Bowie share that trick of opening a private conversation onto a huge chorus.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I hear the resemblance most clearly where it breaks down.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Harry wants a way out.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Bowie's girl has bought a ticket and finds the same old world looking back at her.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Life on Mars, the hunky-dory performance in its 2015 remaster.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen to what happens when Bowie gives a song away.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote and produced All the Young Dudes, But it's Ian Hunter at the microphone.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: The opening guitar already has a tune you could sing.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hunter follows it with a verse that sounds almost like somebody filling you
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: in on the people at the back of the room.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then those people seem to acquire a voice of their own.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the chorus, try picking out where Hunter's individual rasp ends and the group begins.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me how different it feels to sing about a crowd and to find yourself singing in one.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Come back for a very different use of a second voice.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: On Lou Reed's Satellite of Love,
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: the man who supplied that anthem has moved to the back of the studio picture.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Listen first to Reed.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: His voice barely lifts an eyebrow as he watches something go up into the sky.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then listen behind him, especially towards the end,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: for David Bowie singing high above that wonderfully level delivery.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow either voice and get a rather different idea of what the song is about.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Reed gives you a man watching television.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bowie gives you the extraordinary thing he thinks he's seen.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Satellite of Love from Transformer and follow that higher voice
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: until the record runs out.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's another name on Transformer that we need now.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mick Ronson produced the album with Bowie.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: On Only After Dark, he's the one who gets to open his mouth,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: and the change in scale is delicious.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: After the long upward reach at the end of Reed's record,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ronson gives you a short rhythmic figure that keeps tugging the music back to earth.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Try listening to the guitar figure through one vocal line.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Each seems to leave just enough room for the other.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: A musician we've followed through someone else's credits suddenly has a whole record
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: to tell us what a night out might feel like.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Mick Ronson's Only After Dark, then come back for a jump of ten years.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: In 1975, Ronson played guitar on Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder review.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's our way into Dylan, but our destination was recorded ten years before that tour.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Put Ronson on the stage in your mind, then put him aside as you start this record.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for the first drum crack.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Al Cooper's organ sticks out of the crowd of instruments like a voice looking
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: for a gap in the conversation.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan keeps addressing one person,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: and the band makes room for everyone else to shout the question too.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's our opening predicament again.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: What does a private address become once a crowd can sing it?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Bob Dylan's original Like a Rolling Stone.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Come back for a last thought.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Harry Styles opens by offering somebody comfort.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan ends by asking somebody to account for herself.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Between them, a cinema audience, a gang of friends,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: a television viewer and a guitar player stepping up
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: to sing have all changed who's speaking and who's listening.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Next time you hear a chorus getting bigger, try following the quietest voice in it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's where the story turns.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGaddy.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 5:37
  [music]