August 28, 2012: Post 595 (2012 Day 241)

August 28, 2012

Daily Comment

I first heard Bob Dylan's It's All Over Now, Baby Blue at a friend's house, right after she'd bought the Bringing It All Back Home album. I hadn't been that big of a Dylan fan - I thought he wrote better than his records sounded, and, like his die-hard folkie fans, I thought the switch to an electric sound was a sell-out. Fifteen-year olds can be so self-righteous.

Great song as it is, Dylan's version wasn't the one that got me. The version that knocked me out was by Van Morrison's early band, Them on the album Them Again.

What an amazing performance. I know now that they brought in some studio musicians for the take on the album, but at the time, I thought this was the best band I'd ever heard out of England (I didn't know they were from Belfast, either). They replaced the Animals, who had held that spot previously.

The song also had a big impact on me musically. Taking someone else's song and covering it in a way that changed its style, while preserving the emotional intensity and integrity of the original. Borrowing from other genres to create a synthesis. I think of this as the 'rock' my music is built on.

The Them version of the song begins with a bass line stolen from Ben E. King's Stand By Me. But only for two measures. The third measure twists it into something more original, while preserving the groove of the stolen phrase. Then a guitar, sounding like a vibraphone (played through a Leslie cabinet?) adds an exotic, jazzy feel. That builds until the gospel, bluesy, soulful vocal of Van Morrison starts, singing the lyrics with total commitment. That intensity is carried through the rest of the song, building by adding a few more musical layers, but keeping the vocal-bass-guitar parts at the center, with the vocal intensity never faltering, even as it seems to increase in gravitational force.

Here's a youtube link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7WJHdE0__I.

This now sounds to me like something I would arrange, but that could be a mind trick based on years and years of loving this arrangement - a chicken and egg thing: Did I love the arrangement because it sounded like my own, or do I think it sounds like me because I loved the arrangement back when I wasn't very musically sophisticated?

I'm pushing hard for my band to cover this, and it's one of those rare times (I can only think of a couple of others) where I want them to learn it from the cover rather than the original.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        203.8 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    206.2 lbs  
Day Net Loss/Gain:     - 2.4 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011.

Diet Comment:

OK, turning it around, like I do just about every week.

Food Log

Breakfast

Chia gel.

Lunch

Rajma Masala (red kidney bean curry) with spinach and eggs, and Spring Mix, cole slaw mix, red cabbage and balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner
Roast turkey and home-made mayonnaise. Still hungry, so I made and ate a couple of Italian-style chicken sausages with whole seed Dijon mustard.

Snack
Cocoa-kale protein shake (almond milk, whey protein (36g protein), kale, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, stevia-inulin blend).

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:    22 oz,   Water: 124+ oz

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