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I Want Your Love · 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! There's a little bell figure at the door of today's record.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Follow it for a moment.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Once the strings and the voices arrive, You can still hear it doing its small, stubborn job.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the pleasure of Chic's I Want Your Love.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a part you could sing on its own.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Put them together and something quite private happens in the middle of a crowded floor.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: The singer can say what she wants.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Getting an answer takes rather longer.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We've got the full album performance from Say Chic,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: almost seven minutes in the company of a question.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Niall Rogers and Bernard Edwards wrote it together.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll meet both of them on the other side of this first stop.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: For now, choose the bass or the bell and keep following it when the strings swell.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Sheik's I Want Your Love.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Come back when you've heard where that little figure takes you.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Diana Ross gives us a wonderful change of perspective.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine having the entire dance floor under control and finding the person you came
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: with a complete mystery.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how neatly she delivers those first words of Upside Down
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: and how much trouble there is inside them.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Rogers and Edwards wrote and produced this one too.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: On Sheik's record, the bass could stretch its legs under the strings.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the little gaps in the groove keep catching your ear.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ross can lean into one of them and turn a few clipped syllables
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: into a confidence shared across a table.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're playing the released album version from 1980.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Upside Down.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Listen once to the bass under the refrain, then bring your attention back to Ross.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll meet you at the next record.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen to what happens to Nile Rodgers' rhythm guitar when there's room
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: for the sound to travel.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: David Bowie wrote Let's Dance and produced it with Rodgers.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's that rising group vocal at the entrance.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The drums are enormous.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then Bowie's own voice arrives, remarkably low and close.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: What interests me is the distance between the public invitation
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: and the private offer he makes to one person.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the full album performance.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Stay beyond the part you remember from the radio and hear how much
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: of the conversation passes to the instruments.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: That blues guitar belongs to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Our next stop is another guitarist altogether.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Bowie's Let's Dance and give the band those last few minutes.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: The next voice you hear belongs to Jimmy Hall.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The name on the sleeve is Jeff Beck.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: That division of labour is half the fun of Ambitious, the opening track on Flash.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lyle Rogers wrote this song and produced the recording.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've now followed him from the inside of his own band
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: to a session built around somebody else's guitar.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hall can articulate the ambition in a whole line.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Beck needs only the little tale of a phrase to give us his opinion of it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for the change in texture when the guitar comes forward,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: then hear how quickly the groove claims the space again.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Jeff Beck's Ambitious.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you come back, we'll follow a piece Beck loved to play on stage.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: That piece is Little Wing.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Hendrix Estate remembers Beck playing it often,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: which gives us a lovely reason to hear the original with fresh ears.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Jimi Hendrix Experience on Axis, Bold as Love.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: The song lasts less than two and a half minutes.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Before Hendrix starts singing, try to decide where the chord ends and the melody begins.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: A note gets held, another flickers across it,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: and the same pair of hands seems to be accompanying a singer who hasn't arrived yet.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Once the voice comes in, that imaginary companion becomes a presence in the words too.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the last guitar phrases disappearing under the fade.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Little Wing, then come back for the record Hendrix himself carried
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: onto the Monterey stage.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: At Monterey in 1967, Hendrix played Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: For our sixth stop, we're going back to Dylan's studio recording.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's that first crack of the snare.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The organ comes rolling up behind him, and the verse just keeps finding new things to say.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the moment the band opens into the refrain.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You could join in with everyone in the room,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Even as Dylan makes the person he's addressing sound utterly alone.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the possibility I'm chasing in this series.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: A great pop refrain can put a difficult question in your mouth and give you
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: a tune strong enough to carry it home.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for the organ under that first question and come back for a last thought.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Back at the beginning, Schick could hold a whole floor with four words of desire.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: At the far end, Dylan can do something just as arresting with a question.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: In between, we've heard Rodgers change the job of the guitar three times,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Beck answer a singer, and Hendrix make an introduction sing before a word is spoken.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Next time you put on I Want Your Love, try listening to the rhythm guitar as a voice.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll hear another conversation going on.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGaddy.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 6:11
  [music]