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Water No Get Enemy · 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]
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, a quick listening note.
• 0:42
  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! This morning, we begin with a groove that feels large enough for everyone.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Felakuti's Watanoget Enemy lets its parts keep their independence
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: while making something together.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our six songs follow that idea into political storytelling, remembrance,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: and a promise of freedom.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then we reach Dylan, where freedom becomes a much less comfortable proposition.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is a listening argument, with documented connections along the way.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: It does not make every artist a descendant of one American record.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Feller wrote and produced this 1975 performance with Africa 70.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Tony Allen's drums are part of the collective intelligence behind it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: For our first stop, follow the interlocking rhythm before the voice arrives.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how the horns add pressure without making the groove feel crowded.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We are hearing the full 11 minute album recording from expensive shit.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Water Nougat Enemy, then come back.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first crossing has a documented foundation.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Failer's music influenced Talking Heads and Brian Eno as they made Remain in Light.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean Listening Wind sampled the Failer track we have just heard.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The particular comparison is mine.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: We move from a groove that feels expansive into a song that draws us close
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: to one imagined person.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: David Byrne's character sees foreign intrusion into his world,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: and the story turns towards violence.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The arrangement remains restrained.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Its beauty does not make the situation safe.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the repeating pattern underneath the vocal and to the way the voice seems
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: to remain inside the atmosphere rather than escaping above it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is the 1980 studio performance in the selected 2005 remaster.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Talking Heads' listening wind and return when you are ready.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: From an imagined figure, we move to a named life.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Gabriel wrote Biko about Steve Biko,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: who died in 1977 after injuries received during interrogation
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: by South African security police.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Gabriel's own account describes his shock on hearing the news.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is a real repertoire connection too.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Gabriel later recorded Listening Wind on Scratch My Back in 2010.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: That cover does not mean it inspired the earlier Biko.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The comparison between our selected recordings is thematic and musical.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Repetition lets the story gather weight.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are hearing the English language performance from Gabriel's third solo album,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: produced by Steve Lilywhite.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: The later single involved a newly recorded vocal and remix,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: so it is important to keep the selected version clear.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the opening voices, then to the heavy pulse and the drone around Gabriel's lead.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how repeating a name becomes an act of remembrance.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for the album recording of Biko, then come back.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Miriam Makeba changes the position from which the testimony reaches us.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Soweto Blues responds to the 1976 uprising, a different event from Biko's death.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: The writers are Hugh Masekela and Stanley Kwesi Todd.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are hearing Makeba's 1989 Welela recording, rather than the earlier 1977 performance.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: After Gabriel's monumental repetition, attend to the movement in Makeba's phrasing.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: The groove does not remove the grief from the account.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It gives the voice a moving body and keeps the listener present.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am comparing the emotional work of these performances,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: not making their historical subjects interchangeable.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how she presses a line forward, then lets the accompaniment answer.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Miriam McCabe's Soweto Blues and return for a connection
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: through friendship as well as song.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Makeba and Nina Simone were close friends.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Makeba encouraged Simone's move to Liberia.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is a real human connection.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it does not mean Makeba caused Simone's interpretation of I Shall Be Released.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: The musical link is my reading.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Public testimony gives way to a promise of release.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan wrote the composition.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: The authority of this performance belongs to Simone.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It appeared on To Love Somebody in 1969.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: The official album notes recognise the gospel character of her treatment.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: For this listening stop, follow the relationship between piano, organ and voice,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: then hear what changes when other voices gather around the refrain.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: The song does not name one particular prison or country.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Its openness lets different experiences enter.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Nina Simone's I Shall Be Released,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: then come back for the writer at his own microphone.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We turn back from 1969 to 1965, and freedom changes its meaning again.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like a rolling stone addresses someone losing the protections that once made life feel secure.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is a different predicament from people struggling against apartheid.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: The comparison gains nothing by pretending their stakes are the same.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: What I hear is a collision between the band's exhilaration and the severity of Dylan's address.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tom Wilson produced this recording.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Al Cooper's organ and Mike Bloomfield's guitar are among the sounds keeping its movement alive.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: My watershed theory concerns how much dramatic language,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: ambiguity and social observation a popular record can hold.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It does not erase the histories we have just travelled through.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the opening drum strike, then to the lift of the organ as the first chorus arrives.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Bob Dylan's original Like a Rolling Stone and return for a final thought.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: We began with musical parts learning to inhabit a common space.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: We end with someone discovering that the space around them has changed.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Between those points, rhythm carried political fiction.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: A name became remembrance.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Testimony kept its dancing body and a promise changed hands.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Six songs do not prove a single family tree.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: They let us hear a conversation about what freedom might require and what
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: a voice can do with it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: The source notes and selected recordings are in the written edition.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGaddy.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
• 7:22
  [music]