Grammys 2015: Transcript of Bob Dylan’s MusiCares Person of Year speech

These songs didn’t come out of thin air. I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth. Contrary to what Lou Levy said, there was a precedent. It all came out of traditional music: traditional folk music, traditional rock ‘n’ roll and traditional big-band swing orchestra music.

I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that’s fair game, that everything belongs to everyone.

For three or four years all I listened to were folk standards. I went to sleep singing folk songs.

.. All these songs are connected. Don’t be fooled. I just opened up a different door in a different kind of way. It’s just different, saying the same thing. I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary.

.. Sam Cooke said this when told he had a beautiful voice: He said, “Well that’s very kind of you, but voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.

.. Traditional rock ‘n’ roll, we’re talking about that. It’s all about rhythm. Johnny Cash said it best: “Get rhythm. Get rhythm when you get the blues.” Very few rock ‘n’ roll bands today play with rhythm. They don’t know what it is. Rock ‘n’ roll is a combination of blues, and it’s a strange thing made up of two parts. A lot of people don’t know this, but the blues, which is an American music, is not what you think it is. It’s a combination of Arabic violins and Strauss waltzes working it out. But it’s true.

 

The Katy Show

The lyrics openly quote Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and the “champion” in the chorus is likely a Queen reference, a group that Perry has often claimed as a touchstone. (Her fragrance is called Killer Queen, so this may be Perry’s most solid statement of aesthetic loyalty.)

Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde: 150th anniversary

Why did Wagner choose such an unusual style? Partly it was the result of a new outlook on life. He discovered the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, in 1854. Schopenhauer believed that people were driven by unachievable desires; the chasm between what they want and what they can get is immiserating. Wagner was inspired by such pessimism. For a man prone to fleeting romantic liaisons, love was always unsatisfying. And he came to believe, again thanks to Schopenhauer, that music was the best way to express such complex emotions.

.. “Tristan” is all about dissatisfaction. The love between Tristan and Isolde is so intense it cannot possibly be realised in the real world; their only option is to die together. To represent the pain of their unachievable desire, Wagner had to dispense with conventional harmony. He also could not offer the audience neat chunks of music that were easily digested. He wanted them to feel as anxious and confused as the protagonists.