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Coyote · 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! Tonight, we begin with someone who keeps her eyes open.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Joni Mitchell's Coyote is attracted to an encounter without becoming blind to its limits.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our six records follow desire and the stories people tell about it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who speaks, who gets interpreted, and what happens when a song changes hands.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: On the original Hegira recording from 1976,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Mitchell's guitar moves alongside Larry Carlton's lead, Bobby Hall's percussion,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: and Jaco Pistorius's bass.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how the bass finds a root around the guitar rather than simply sitting underneath it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: To my ear, the music keeps open another direction even while the voice is occupied.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to decide who the real Coyote was to hear the tension between these two people.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Joni Mitchell's Coyote, the original Hijira studio performance.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the separate paths of the guitar, bass and voice, then come back.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Patti Smith gives the night a different shape.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where Mitchell is watchful, Because the Night makes an emphatic claim for intimacy.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's our first connection, a thematic comparison,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: not a claim that one singer directly influenced the other.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: The next connection is documented.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Smith co-wrote Because the Night with Bruce Springsteen.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Introducing it years later on Mountain Stage,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: she explained that her words were for Fred Smith,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: with whom she had been having a long-distance relationship.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: A shared writing credit carries a very personal message.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: On the original Easter performance,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: listen to the distance between the seriousness of the piano introduction
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: and the size of the chorus.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling gets larger without losing its address.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Patti Smith's Because the Night, the 1978 studio recording.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hear the first chorus open out, then return.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: We follow Smith's co-writer to Bruce Springsteen's Fire.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The performance keeps desire under pressure.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: A contained voice, space around the words,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: and a chorus that feels more intense because it has been held back.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But listen critically to the narrator.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: He treats another person's resistance as concealed desire.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can hear his conviction without accepting his account of what she wants.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Beside Mitchell's alertness and Smith's own declaration, his certainty becomes uncomfortable.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is the studio recording released on The Promise in 2010,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: from material begun in the Darkness era sessions.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Springsteen's official account says some recordings were finished with later vocals
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: or instruments, so we should not call this an untouched 1977 master.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Fire, the selected Promise studio version.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to what the voice withholds, as well as what it insists upon, then come back.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now another Springsteen composition leaves its writer's hands.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Manfred Mann's Earth Band recorded Blinded by the Light on the Roaring Silence in 1976.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our selection is the full album performance,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: with room for the keyboards and guitar to carry the listener away from the vocal
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: and back again.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: This connection is straightforward.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Springsteen wrote the song.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The musical comparison is mine.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fire concentrates its pressure.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: This recording keeps opening doors.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: For our next step, look beneath the famous hit.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Earth Band recorded Randy Newman's Living Without You on their 1972 debut.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Harry Nilsson also recorded that composition on Nilsson Sings Newman.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Their shared repertoire gives us the bridge.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for the Earth Band's full Blinded by the Light.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Follow an instrumental passage, then notice how the hook welcomes you back.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: That shared Newman song takes us to Harry Nilsson,
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: but today's selected recording is Without You.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Keep the distinction clear.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Living Without You and Without You are different compositions.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pete Hamm and Tom Evans wrote the song Nilsson Sings Here.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Richard Perry produced the recording, with orchestral arrangement credited to Paul Buckmaster.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how close the voice feels at the beginning,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: then to the change of scale when the chorus arrives.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: An intimate confession has become something large enough to fill the room.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It feels immediate, even though many separate contributions helped to build it.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nilsson also gives us a documented route to Dylan.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: His 1974 album Pussycats includes subterranean homesick blues.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Without You, the original Nilsson Schmilson performance.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hear the piano entrance and the expansion of the first chorus, then return.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our destination is Bob Dylan's original Like a Rolling Stone.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: After Nilsen's appeal to a departing lover,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: the opening snare can sound almost like an interruption.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The organ pushes forward, the guitar finds openings around the vocal,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: and the band makes room for a singer who won't give the listener
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: an easy resting place.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wait for the first refrain.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The detail of the verse gives way to a question that a whole crowd can sing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Across this route, we've heard people claim the night, interpret a refusal,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: remake a writer's song, and insist that life cannot continue without somebody.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan leaves the question open.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when the story you had about your life stops working?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's a possibility I hear in this 1965 single, not proof of a single line of influence.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Like a Rolling Stone, the original Highway 61 revisited studio recording.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for the organ around the first refrain, then come back for a final thought.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Return to Coyote after those six records, and Mitchell's watchfulness may sound different.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: She is still attracted, still travelling,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: and still able to notice what another person cannot see.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: The connections we've followed include shared writing and shared repertoire,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: alongside our own comparisons as listeners.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody gets the last word, including the person telling the story.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the pleasure of playing the records again.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow the same route and find a different point of view.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGaddy.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 7:14
  [music]