Dylan's '' To Make You Feel My Love'' why so much dislike for it on the forum.

Completely agree with serge and ifyouever ... and loved the comparison to the godawfulness of Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

I've always though Dylan was an intelligent alternative to this kinda crap. What's next? An album full of Christmas carols?

Jeff

 

I agree, i don't think i'd be as big a a fan of the song otherwise.

 

Gaaaah! Kreplach!

That'll never happen . . .

 

No way, says Jose...

 

Live in Manchester, 1998:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML-DbmmzfDc

 

sounds like most people either really like this song or hate it.

 

I'm not sure it really fits with TOOM's mood but maybe that's a good thing, since that album is about 70 min long and it might be a relief to some listeners. That said, I love the song and strongly disagree that its at all saccharine. I disagree even more with any comparisons to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" which really is slight, to say the least, and I think even McCartney would agree. Has he ever played it live? (Maxwell, that is). THe fact that Bob plays Make You Feel my Love live means something and the fact that its been the subject of so many successful covers is equally significant IMHO. As with much on this board, YMMV, but I believe the harsher criticism of this song to be way off base.

 

I've always thought of ''Maxwell's Silver Hammer'' as nothing more than a nice little novelty tune, not only do i think McCartney would agree, but i think he probably wishes he'd written ''To Make You Feel My Love''.

 

"When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case"...

That couplet's not just saccharine; it's plain bad. There's really no way around that assessment.

From the man who wrote...

"The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face"

...or...

"I'm going out of my mind with a pain that stops and starts,
Like a corkscrew to my heart, ever since we've been apart"

...or...

"Seen the arrow on the doorpost, saying this land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans to Jerusulem"

...it is a far cry, indeed. To me "TMYFML" is like "Maxwell" in that it is a whiff. Both artists tried, and missed their marks. There is as meaningful a difference in quality in Dylan's song from "All Along the Watchtower," say, as there is in McCartney's song from "Hey Jude," for example. Both of the songs in question, IMO, are notably beneath both men's best work, and reside near the bottoms of their respective songbooks.

And to me, the fact that Garth Brooks and Billy Joel have covered the Dylan song is actually a strike *against* the song. Who's next, Barry Manilow?

 

I've always loved this song. But from the first time I heard it, I took it as being written from the perspective of someone who doesn't have the person he wants and loves, and will do anything to win them over (or back). There's a certain bitterness, and obsession, that Dylan seems to be conveying. Which is exactly the state of mind someone is in when they are love sick.

The genius of the song is that it does work both as a straight love song and a bitter 'why can't I have you' song. Dylan's vocal is brilliant, imo, because he is in the latter state (at least thematically with the rest of the album). It also sounds like a first or second take since he clunks and changes a chord here and there, but the emotional tone he was probably trying to convey was all captured in the performance.

Perhaps it's not his most brilliantly conceived and image-filled lyric, considering his past catalog. But, imo, writing simple lyrics that 'cut to the core' is much harder than creating abstract lyrics.

 

Forever young was on an album twice, i dont hear much complaining about that simple song.

 

To me, "Forever Young" is very near perfection. Lyrically, it puts nary a toe out of place, IMO.

But it's not a love song. It's a song of joy and hope to Dylan's son. And the song transcends its personal implications, and becomes universal. A song of joy and hope for all of us; and thus a great example of Bob Dylan's genius.

No less a wit -- or intellect -- than Oscar Wilde once wrote: "All bad poetry is sincere." From the perspective of artistic stance, sincerity is murder, and negotiated at the risk of great peril. The sincere love song, which Dylan is negotiating in "TMYFML," is as thorny as it gets. It's been done to death, and anyone who picks it up -- even a genius like Dylan -- had best be at his or her very sharpest.

To me, a great analogy is Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliette and Nabokov's Lolita. Nabokov *knew* that the sincere love story had already been done for the ages. It was a credit to his genius that he understood that the only way to freshly retell such a story -- to smuggle in his sincerity -- was through the medium of a transfiguration of some kind. His solution was to have a forty year old man fall in love with a fourteen year old girl. And to make us -- despite ourselves -- weep for the sincerity of this man's love by the novel's end.

My opinion is that, in "To Make You Feel My Love," Dylan makes the mistake of avoiding indirection in a form/genre that has all but been exhausted. He set himself an almost impossible task from the outset.

 

I love Dylan's version. His vocals really add a bit of a darkness to the song that fits in with the rest of the themes on Time Out of Mind, not to mention the spare folk production. His performance saves the song from being sappy, which it has become in countless cover versions of the song. That said, I like Billy Joel's version.

 

Hi ifyouever, sorry i cant qoute you my phone is limited. I love Forever Young also but its a simple song that almost didnt get place on he album because someone made a comment to Dylan that he was getting soft in his old age. I guess my point is that one mans sugar is anothers classic.

Always good to talk Dylan no matter the case

 

i aggree. Dylans delivery or lack of gives the song an earnest yearning that Garth and Billy do not. I dont think the song was meant to be sung in such a sappy way. Whats that old poster? Nobody does Dylan like Dylan?

 

I absolutely love this song but I agree the Time out of mind version is a bit weak. It only hints at what it could be. THE version to get is the live version on the Things have changed single. It send shivers up my spine every time every time I hear it.

The lyrics are quit simple but that's good enough for me. It even sounds very liberating to me that you don't have to be a Nobel prize winner to offer one a warm embrace.

I have cover versions of it from Luka Bloom, Neil Diamond and Adele. I love them all so this song can't be all that bad...

 

I hear the second as the point of the song. I hear someone who missed (or blew) chances in the past and is in agony waiting to find out if this will be the one that works. Not lovey-dovey, not I'm-so-happy (as serge hears it) - not happy at all. Anxious. Who says the singer is even directly sharing these thoughts with the beloved?

 

Dylan once said he realized that all his songs or a good portion of them were really directed at himself. I mean who says to one they are expressing such words to as an apex " You aint seen nothing like me yet" ? To me the song is a vey inward reflection about some feelings he would die to express to the subject but perhaps never has. its my opinion that he hasnt even got involved with the person yet. Love at first site and for some time at a distance. Maybe his expression of realizing he is is in love with the idea of being in love.

You aint seen nothing like me yet. She possibly isnt even aware of him. Its a fantasy in his own head. Or maybe its a larger idea. Maybe its all the women in his life or that idea woman..... his " Angelina".

 

This is a Garth Brooks song that happened to be written by Bob Dylan, IMO...

 

Old Bob hasn't had to prove anything lyrics wise for long time...if that's what people are looking for...and it seems many are attacking the lush lyrics...if he wants to write a simple song...great

 

Post of the Year .

Or, actually, it might because of the tendency, which Dylan and Neil Young have both struggled with, of people to expect their heroes to do the same type of thing over and over again ("you're a biting, sophisticated, literary type - you can't sing a soulful love song using small words - YOU'RE CONFOUNDING MY EXPECTATIONS, DAMMIT!").

Simpler and hokier.

"But it had the Band... and it was 1973... and I was stoned the first time I heard it... and I had hair... that means it's better!" - sh.tv

(for the record, I like "Forever Young")