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Transcript

Cold Little Heart · 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,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 0:41
  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!
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before the voice, a world.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Today we begin with Michael K. Wanuka's Cold Little Heart, the full album recording from Love.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And hey, the long introduction matters.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Guitar, strings, and wordless voices establish a feeling before the singer explains anything.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the tension between the scale of the arrangement and the vulnerability of
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: the voice that eventually enters it.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: This journey asks what happens when a song gives itself more room,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: more time, more uncertainty, more space for instruments to speak.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: My Dylan theory is our starting point, not a claim that musical ambition began with one record.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Our first connection comes from Kiwanuka himself.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Writing for Port Magazine,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: he explained how Funkadelic's maggot brain encouraged him to open his own album with
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: a long track And trust instrumental passages to carry emotion.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll hear that next.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: First pause the episode and listen to Cold Little Heart.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how your sense of the song changes when the lead vocal finally arrives.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Come back when you're ready.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Funkadelic's Maggot Brain takes us to 1971 and a guitar that seems to speak.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're using the full studio album recording just over 10 minutes long.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: After George Clinton's spoken introduction,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Eddie Hazel's lead guitar becomes the centre of attention.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: The quiet accompaniment leaves room for every bend, held note and change of pressure.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the space between the phrases as well as the phrases themselves.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling develops through touch, tone and the time allowed for a note to decay.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is what makes the connection with Kiwanuka so useful.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: A long introduction can already be the emotional centre of a record.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Words don't have to arrive before meaning does.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: As a listening suggestion, compare the opening two minutes with the final two.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hear how the guitar's intensity changes,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: and whether you experience its return to quieter phrases differently.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Pause now and listen to Maggot Brain by Funkadelic, then come back for Pink Floyd.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Our third recording is Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond, parts one to five.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're hearing the opening part from Wish You Were Here, not both halves joined together.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The connection from Funkadelic is my listening interpretation.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not claiming that one recording directly inspired the other.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Both give expressive guitar and the space around it enough time to become a world.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hazel brings the feeling very close.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Floyd let it unfold across a wider landscape.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The band's official history records Sid Barrett's unexpected appearance during
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: the album sessions.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean the song was first conceived when he walked through the door.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the long opening and the way the guitar phrases hang in the keyboard atmosphere.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: When the vocal arrives, the music scale suddenly becomes personal.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Pause the episode and listen to Shine On You Crazy Diamond, parts one to five.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what changes when that human address enters.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be here when you return.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Beatles and a day in the life.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: We move from sustained remembrance to a present that keeps changing shape.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: This connection is about musical structure.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Floyd make us wait for an entrance.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Beatles move us between different kinds of experience.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Lennon's distant voice and McCartney's everyday bustles seem to run on different clocks.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: The orchestral surge changes the scale again.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Beatles official account describes 40 musicians at the orchestral session.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is not simply a grand backing arrangement.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: The orchestra is an event in the story.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are using the 2009 album remaster.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Its catalogue timing includes more than the familiar core performance, so let the ending run.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Pause and listen to a day in the life.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the change into McCartney's middle passage,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: the return to Lennon's woe and the long decay at the end.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then come back for Hendrix.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower makes the guitar another narrator.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: After the Beatles' ordinary world becomes uncanny,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: We enter a world that already feels unsettled.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is a thematic comparison, not evidence that a day in the life caused this recording.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hendrix's guitar answers the words, changes their temperature and makes the urgency physical.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The song itself is Bob Dylan's.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Here the authorship connection is clear and it will take
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: The official Hendrix archive documents Dave Mason contributing 12 string guitar
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: during the sessions.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for the acoustic drive underneath the electric transformations.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: This performance doesn't need a long running time to feel enormous.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Pause now and listen to all along the watchtower.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to the different guitar sounds between the vocal passages as
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: if each were a different speaker, then return for our destination.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: We arrive at Bob Dylan performing like a rolling stone.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: From Hendrix interpreting a Dylan song, we return to Dylan's own voice.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The opening snare hit feels especially abrupt after the long landscapes earlier
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: in this playlist.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The music is already moving and the address leaves little room to get comfortable.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Here is someone whose position in the world has collapsed.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The refrain can feel like accusation, frightening freedom, or both.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hear this as a watershed in the room Popular song could make
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: for difficult language and unsettled identity.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: That remains an editorial thesis.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't proof that every ambitious record descends from Dylan.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Pause the episode and listen to Like a Rolling Stone.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the way the organ and the band keep the refrain moving
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: while its central question returns.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then come back for a final thought.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: We began with a voice arriving after a whole world had formed around it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: We end with a voice whose question will not let the world stay still.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Funkadelic let the guitar carry the feeling.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Pink Floyd gave absence duration.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Beatles fractured the everyday.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Hendrix made a cover into an electric act of interpretation.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Six different ways of refusing to make a song smaller than the experience inside it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find the playlist and written source notes with this episode when
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: the edition is published.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGady.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan, six songs, five connections, one destination.
• 6:54
  [music]