Bobby Dylan, with the best-ever put-down song in the known universe...
Positively 4th Street
Uploaded by OzgeAkdag. - Watch more music videos, in HD!
Sorry about the advertising, but finding the original track was a quest I wasn't quite prepared for, given all the false starts and bad covers I had to wade through. This vid was the best I could do and the advertising is the price ya gotta pay, I suppose. I've mentioned before in these pages about the way some songs stay with you through the years; about how your interpretation concerning meanings, associations, and life circumstances invariably change, yet the song remains relevant. "Positively 4th Street" is another in a long line of these sort of songs. This particular lyric makes me grin in a sardonic sorta way these days:
You say I let you down,
You know it's not like that.
If you're so hurt, why then don't you show it?
You say you've lost your faith,Anyone who's ever been betrayed can relate to that sentiment, methinks. "Positively 4th Street" is masterful and while I think it's the "ultimate put-down song" one shouldn't rule this out:
But that's not where it's at.
You have no faith to lose, and you know it.
Heh... "it's been a whole lot easier since..." and so on. But leave us not dwell too much on that. Instead, let's consider: our outdoor Happy Hour was good today, as was its soundtrack. (We heard both of these tunes while sitting out on the verandah, btw. This isn't a contrived post.) Today is the sort of day you don't want to end, but end it must. We're indoors now and the sun is going down; it was great while it lasted.
I know the old ladies who hang around with me are special but, these girls put a smile on my happy hour face.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJvrhvvmz4U
I don't even care they speak that commie stuff...
That guy with the glasses next to Dylan looks a lot like Elton John (today). Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteThat song is a real bummer for happy hour. You get some bad tamales at the PX?
Anon1: Is that Czech or some other sort of Slavic language? I checked out the YouTube site but the notes don't say and a search for "Azalea band" doesn't turn up any plausible hits. The girls are danged good looking, tho.
ReplyDeleteAnon2: Most songs are about love found/love lost, aren't they? No bad tamales, just the occasional bad memory. ;-)
From my limited knowledge, the genre is Slovenian.
ReplyDeleteThey are really big with the button accordion. For some danged reason (maybe my trips to middle America) I really like button accordion sounds.
In Slovenia it looks like kids form polka bands, not rock bands, and make a lot of money all summer playing for polka feasts.
Katja Kaučič's is one of my favorite accordion players:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2hOTfNpjFk
Glad you got an open air Happy Hour!
ReplyDeleteAnon: Katja's left hand really flies, don't it? Interesting stuff, and thanks for it!
ReplyDeleteMoogie: It really was great outside yesterday!
Buck, You're right, this is the greatest put down song of all time. I remember back in the late 60's--I'd been teaching about 5-6 years if I remember right--I used this song in class for several semesters. For what reason, I no longer remember. But it always got a great class discussion going about what would've prompted such vitrol, etc. My favorite line is "what a drag it is to be you."
ReplyDeleteI'd have liked to sat in on those discussions, Dan. No one really knows what Dylan was on about with "4th Street," but The Wiki has a a roundup of the speculation. Interesting, eh?
ReplyDelete