Dylan's Eulogy For Johnny Cash

[Jon Hall]

Does anyone have a copy of the eulogy Dylan wrote about Johnny Cash? I remember something about Johnny being a North star that you could set a course by. Johnny certaintly set a course and held to it for his entire career.

[Mike Crocker]

http://loftware.typepad.com/loftware/2004/01/bob_dylans_stat.html

GOOGLE is your (and mine) friend.

Mike

[Santiago]

This is really cool. I had never read that. Thanks for sharing.

[Jon Hall]

Thanks Mike...what a heart felt expression. I read that at some venue (Newport maybe) Johnny told Bob how much he admired and respected his music and then gave him one of his Martin guitars.

[Fretsman]

Nice heartwarming read, Thanx

[Dan Hoover]

i'm very glad that i stumbled on this thread this morning...i just felt a big release in the back of my neck..a real opener...thanks for this..cheers

[Martian]

I have to say, I was never a Dylan fan, and never,ever, will be. Perhaps I only looked at him at face value, that being I hated his voice , didn't understand most of his lyrics, and was sure in the time frame of a week I could play harp better.However, this read was without doubt the most touching and heartwarming bit of anything that I have ever seen or heard of from Bob.In lit. class (way back in highschool '69), we had a sub come in ,who was a very young student teacher from Ann Arbor with a phonograph, and I got geeked (lit not being the most riviting class). She played a very obscure Dylan song, much to my dismay and we were to write our thoughts about what she called a genius. I turned a blank piece of paper with my name at the top. She called out for me and when I was asked to explain ,I told her what I wrote above.(can't sing, can't play , etc.) She did not get upset as I thought she would,but explained to me he was to be looked at more as a poet. I mentioned that Edgar Allen Poe was a poet and I didn't want to hear him sing The Raven.This did upset her! Oops. But again,my level of respect has just gone up higher for Dylan than anything I have ever heard from him. P S absouloutly hate the thing he did with Ralph, it was even worse than I thought it would be, but love the respect and reverence he must have had for John Cash, just my oppinion, don't be upset at me ,that student teacher probably still is

[Fretsman]

I'm not a huge fan, but I've grown to appreciate Dylan, Try to think more a a flowing life's story being told in a smooth graceful flow. I do not like the harp deseased tunes for the most part and his early vocals were his strongest, He has had peaks and valleys vocally since, It's not about who's more talented? In music it's too often forgotten there's beauty in simplicity.
It's about the feeling, I find myself enjoying a blue sky cruise listening to let's say Tangled Up In Blue among others, Repetitive acoustic simplified bliss. Similar to Johnny Cash but Johnny had a little more rockabilly. They could talk a story in song. Some folks will have settle down with a book or movie to get the same compassion you get out of a good song

[Mike Bromley]

A lovely series of posts, folks. All heartfelt in a freedom-of-speech kind of fashion. No doubt about the Man in Black, though.

[Steve Ostrander]

I think what defines artists like Cash, Dylan, Paul Simon, and even Jimmy Buffett, are not so much that they are great singers, because they are not. They aren't great composers, they write fairly simply constructed music that is pretty easy for the rest of us to learn. They are not terrific guitar players. What stes them apart is that they are great storytellers and poets. They have a way to universally touch people with the turn of a phrase, or their comment on the human condition. They are able to examine feelings and emotions that we all share like love, hate, greed, poverty, grief, etc. and package them and give them back to us in a way that we can identify with.

[SternART]

But Dylan "is" a great songwriter......or so many people wouldn't cover his tunes. A lot of his songs speak to me, but many times it was exposure to someone else's recording of them, I guess starting back in the late 60's with the Byrds. Anyone ever hear Dylan's radio show on XM? Man...he is an incredible musicologist, knows about everything that came before him.....folk, R&B, country, rockabilly......knows it all in great detail. I've enjoyed his radio shows.

I also enjoyed reading his words on Johnny Cash.

[Fretsman]

I was straightening up my music room at home and was putting some old guitar mags away and found a Remembering Johnny Cash article in the January '04 Acoustic Guitar mag that had a nice humbling article about Johnny written by David McGee. I tried to search it out online so I could post it but to no avail, I found others, but not that one. It was well written and was also a good read that had a quip about Kris Kristofferson's eulogy at his funeral stating how he was what's best about America. It touched on the Hurt video where he read the anti drug poem as he looked weathered and worn while clips of him in his earlier vibrant prime scrolled thru. Proud and passionate, not ashamed of the human side growing old and frail. It humbled me and makes me wise as to living in the now.

I only saw Johnny Cash once and it was only for 1 song when he and June sang at the Bob Dylan tribute in MSG. It was a fantastic show with so many honoring Bob Dylan, Many a memory from that night, Hell I was one of the 1st to Boo Sinead O'Connor while picking up it was she that Kristofferson was talking about as he introduced the upcoming act. It had nothing to do with her so called "artistic expression" when she ripped up a picture of the Pope on SNL, I booooed the idiot broad because she played the PNC Arts Center in Holmdel NJ and said she would not sing if the venue did it's normal playing of the Star Spangled Banner prior to the show, The venue pleaded with her stating that they're her fans and who's she punishing by taking that stand and when she stood firm, the venue backed down and didn't play it, She can take American dollars, but not allow our anthem to be played? Booooo (http://www.answers.com/topic/sinead-o-connor#Garden_State_Arts_Center_performance).

Back to Johnny.... He could come across as both preacher and outlaw, An orator of a different simpler America, I'm not doing the Man justice with my words here as he was an exquisite human being and I'm falling short of capturing his aura. The big ol' voice of common man or the voice of common sense which is written in the article, Proud til the end was he, We should all walk thru life with that much integrity in our chest, RIP.

[John Flynn]

As a 16-year old, he very first album I bought with my own money was "Dylan's Greatest Hits." I got it on 8-track and I think I wore it out playing it. All the negatives people have said are true: Technically, he is not a great composer, singer, poet or musician. But you could say that about Dylan's hero, Woody Guthrie, a lot of the early blues and old-time country icons. And like those folks, I don't think he would have had the appeal if his stuff had been "polished." His appeal was that succeeded in coming across as one of us, an average Joe from our generation, who just picked up a guitar and said what needed to be said, straight up. It's like someone said about the blues, "If you don't get it...can't nobody explain it to ya."

[Jim Roberts]

John..." Technically, he is not a great composer, singer, poet or musician." Huh? We must be talking about two different Bob Dylan's. With all due repect, maybe you are correct in saying, "If you don't get it...can't nobody explain it to ya." And to call Bob Dylan an average Joe...oh my.

Cool eulogy from Bob to Johnny, btw.

[David M.]

Very cool read. I haven't read Dylan's "Chronicles" yet, but am reading "This Wheel's On Fire" by Levon Helm. Based on everything Helm says, Dylan was / is a very gracious person.

[Steve Ostrander]

I read Dylan's "Chronicles" and enjoyed it. I've also read a lot of Kinky Friedman's work (both fiction and non-fiction) and he also stated that Dylan is a very shy, gracious and humble person, who often comes off as being aloof because of his shyness.

Another thought: the very first song I ever learned on guitar, over 40 years ago, was "I Walk the Line". I also remember watching the Johnny Cash show on TV about that time.

[Jim Roberts]

Arthur...I have listened to The XM Dylan radio show and it really is fantastic. Worth the $4.99/month I am currently paying for XM!