I've been wanting to dig a little deeper into Lyle's music. He's just got such a great, understated, evocative voice. The only other stuff I knew of his was a double CD of covers - other songwriters who inspired him. And it's a great collection for sure. But I've always wondered what HIS music was really like.
From what I can tell, this Anthology was meant to compile his early country stuff (as opposed to his later folk/jazz). It's a little twangier than what I usually like... steel guitars and all that... but not enough to get in the way of the songs themselves, which are totally solid. And they take quite a few listens to really soak in - but I expected that.
Of course, my fave has to be "If I Had a Boat":
"If I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean. And if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat..."
They played it at the end of an episode of Parenthood, and it totally drew me in and started this whole Lovett kick in the first place.
Now, this one is sort of out of character for me, because 1) it's actually new, and 2) they're under the age of 60. Kidding. Sort of. I knew their radio hit, of course, and thought it was cool enough. But then I heard them on the Today show... where normally, 98% of musicians sound atrocious because of the acoustics... and man, they were GREAT!
In the past I would have second-guessed myself trying to get into a band like this, because the people that liked them before they were mainstream think you're just jumping on the bandwagon... which is true. I know I'm late to the party and all that. But I don't care. I just like what I hear. They have a really cool sound that's addictive, once the hooks draw you in.
Favorite: "Radioactive"
I'm pretty close to finishing up the Dylan catalog, which is crazy. I've only got a few live albums left, so it was time to try this one. Totally '80s, mostly a greatest-hits set list... not all that exciting, in some ways. But I had heard this version of "Tangled Up in Blue" was completely rewritten and revitalized... and it's true! Besides the lyric and melody changes, Bob did something pretty amazing with the song, changing it from first person to third person. It was already about shifting personas to begin with. From Wikipedia:
"Tangled Up in Blue" is one of the clearest examples of Dylan's attempts to write "multi-dimensional" songs which defied a fixed notion of time and space. Dylan was influenced by his recent study of painting and the Cubist school of artists, who sought to incorporate multiple perspectives within a single plane of view.
This makes the last line of the song especially powerful: "We always did love the very same one, we just saw her from a different point of view... tangled up in blue."
Oh, and the lead guitarist (Mick Taylor) is excellent... he manages to elevate most of the songs without turning them into '80s excess. Not an easy task considering it was, you know, 1984.
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