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Transcript

Firestarter · 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.
0:41
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!
1:00
SPEAKER_00: This morning, we begin with a record that seems to have kicked its own door down.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: The Prodigy's Firestarter makes an entrance through Keith Flint's voice,
1:08
SPEAKER_00: a hammering beat, and a jagged guitar texture.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: But part of that texture has a previous life.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: The single credits a sample from the Breeders' SOS.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Our route follows that fragment through Kim Deal and Pixies to Nirvana,
1:23
SPEAKER_00: then changes temperature with Neil Young before arriving at Dylan.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: These connections are different kinds of evidence.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: A sample is a material link.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: An acknowledged influence is a musician's testimony.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: A listening comparison is my argument.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: For our first stop, listen to the abrasive repeating figure against the drums,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: and to how Flint's vocal turns rhythm into a character.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Pause for the full album recording of Firestarter, then come back.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Now the sample leads us into its own room.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: SOS, from the Breeders' 1993 album Last Splash, is a short instrumental written by Kim Deal.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: The record's quartet was Kim and Kelly Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim McPherson,
2:08
SPEAKER_00: with production credited to Kim and Mark Freegard.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: We should not turn a songwriting credit into a claim about which person played
2:15
SPEAKER_00: the sampled guitar.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: What matters here is the transformation.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: A detail in a band recording becomes a repeating component
2:23
SPEAKER_00: in the Prodigy's electronic construction.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Listen for the guitar's wiry texture and the way the brief arrangement makes
2:29
SPEAKER_00: that texture an event.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Then imagine it cut loose from this room and locked to a different beat.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Pause for the Breeders S.O.S.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: and return for the person who joins our next two bands.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Kim Deal takes us from the Breeders back to Pixies.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: On Gigantic, she supplies the lead vocal as well as belonging
2:50
SPEAKER_00: to the band's original rhythm section.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: We're hearing the Surfer Rosa album performance in its 2007 remaster rather
2:58
SPEAKER_00: than the later single re-recording.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Start with the bass figure and notice how much
3:03
SPEAKER_00: of the song's character it establishes before the larger surge arrives.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: The connection to Nirvana is documented, but it needs careful wording.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Kurt Cobain told Rolling Stone that when writing Smells Like Teen Spirit,
3:16
SPEAKER_00: he was trying to emulate Pixies and their quiet to loud dynamics.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: He did not identify Gigantic as that song's specific source.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: It is our chosen example of a band language he admired.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Pause here for Pixie's Gigantic, then come back.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Nirvana make the change in pressure impossible to miss.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Smells Like Teen Spirit was written by Kurt Cobain, Chris Novoselic and Dave Grohl,
3:42
SPEAKER_00: and produced by Butch Vig for Nevermind.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the difference between the exposed verse and the full weight of the chorus.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: The riff is only part of the effect.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: The arrangement makes the distance between those states feel enormous.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Our next connection is more sombre.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Cobain's final note later invoked a refrain shared
4:02
SPEAKER_00: by Neil Young's acoustic My My Hey Hey and its electric counterpart.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: That is part of the song's later reception,
4:10
SPEAKER_00: not evidence that teen spirit borrowed Young's music and not a way of explaining
4:14
SPEAKER_00: a person's death through a lyric.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Pause for Nirvana's original album recording, then return as we leave the amplified room.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: The selected My My Hey Hey is Neil Young alone with an acoustic guitar,
4:29
SPEAKER_00: despite the catalogue's joint artist credit with Crazy Horse.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: This performance was recorded at the Boarding House in San Francisco in 1978
4:37
SPEAKER_00: and released on Rust Never Sleeps the following year.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Young and Jeff Blackburn share the writing credit.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Without the electric version's force, the questions about Rock's endurance feel exposed.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the guitar's repeating movement.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: The fragile edge of the voice and the space around each phrase.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Then, our final documentary link comes from Young himself.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: In Waging Heavy Peace, he recalls hearing Like a Rolling Stone in Toronto and says
5:05
SPEAKER_00: that its poetry, attitude and atmosphere became part of his own makeup.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Pause for My My Hey Hey, Out of the Blue, then come back.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Young's testimony brings us to Dylan's actual recording.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It does not prove that My My Hey Hey borrowed a particular melody or structure.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: It tells us how one musician absorbed another record's possibility.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Like a Rolling Stone, produced by Tom Wilson in 1965,
5:33
SPEAKER_00: lets a dramatic voice stretch across an electric band's forward motion.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: The opening drum strike, the organ's lift,
5:41
SPEAKER_00: and the recurring challenge keep the performance moving even
5:44
SPEAKER_00: as its address becomes more severe.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the exhilaration of that sound beside the uncertainty of the person being addressed.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: This is where my theory begins.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: A popular song can carry character, accusation,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: ambiguity and room for the listener to argue back.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Pause for Bob Dylan's original Like a Rolling Stone and return for one last thought.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: We began with something apparently new and discovered a guitar fragment with a past.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Then, a shared musician, an admitted influence,
6:17
SPEAKER_00: a difficult piece of reception history and a songwriter's own memory changed
6:21
SPEAKER_00: the scale of the story.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: None of that makes these six records the same.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: The pleasure is in hearing how fiercely each one remakes the possibilities available to it.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Firestarter's shock survives the discovery of its ingredients.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: If anything, those ingredients make the shock more interesting.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGaddy.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
6:45
[music]