Tag Music

Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

Dylan’s Beautiful Bummer of a Breakup Album

Released: January 20, 1975

If heartbreak had a sound, it would be Bob Dylan’s voice cracking on side one of “Blood on the Tracks.” Following his separation from his wife Sara, Dylan created what might be history’s most eloquent version of the “It’s not you, it’s me… but actually it’s definitely you” conversation. Think of it as the singer-songwriter equivalent of drunk-texting your ex, if your drunk texts were somehow worthy of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The album opens with “Tangled Up in Blue,” a masterpiece that somehow makes getting dumped sound like an epic adventure worthy of Homer. Dylan jumps through time like a quantum physicist with relationship issues, proving that even when you’re telling a story about love gone wrong, chronological order is optional. The song has more perspectives than a cubist painting, with Dylan switching from first to third person like he’s trying to convince himself it all happened to somebody else.

“Simple Twist of Fate” follows, and there’s nothing simple about it except Dylan’s ability to rip your heart out in under five minutes. It’s the kind of song that makes you want to call everyone you’ve ever dated and apologize, even if you don’t know what for. The harmonica solo sounds like it’s being played by someone who just found out their dog died, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

“You’re a Big Girl Now” might be the most patronizing title since “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” but the song itself is a stunning admission of vulnerability. When Dylan sings “I can change, I swear,” you can almost hear every therapist in America collectively sighing. This is followed by “Idiot Wind,” which might be the most elaborate way anyone has ever said “Well, you’re stupid too!” after a breakup. It’s like a diss track written by Shakespeare—brutal, poetic, and occasionally incomprehensible.

“You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” is the sound of someone trying to be cool about an impending breakup and failing miserably. It’s like telling someone “I’m totally fine with this” while ugly-crying into your pillow. The country-tinged arrangement is so sweet it almost masks the fact that Dylan is basically saying “Thanks for the future trauma!”

“Meet Me in the Morning” proves that even Bob Dylan gets the blues, though his version involves more obscure literary references than most. It’s followed by “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,” an epic tale that makes Game of Thrones seem straightforward by comparison. It’s either a complex metaphor for love and loss or Dylan just really wanted to write a cowboy story. Either way, it’s magnificent.

“If You See Her, Say Hello” is the sound of someone pretending to be over their ex while clearly not being over their ex. It’s like running into them at the grocery store and acting totally casual while secretly hoping they notice how well you’re doing (spoiler alert: Dylan was not doing well).

The album closes with “Buckets of Rain,” which feels like Dylan finally reaching the acceptance stage of grief, though in typical Dylan fashion, he gets there by way of surrealist imagery and references to chicken shacks. It’s either profound or nonsensical, and somehow it’s both at the same time.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)

Final Thoughts: “Blood on the Tracks” is the sound of a master songwriter turning personal pain into universal art. It’s like reading someone’s diary, if that someone happened to be the greatest lyricist of the 20th century. The album’s only flaw might be that it’s so good it makes your own breakup songs sound like nursery rhymes in comparison. Dylan doesn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve here—he takes it out, examines it under a microscope, and then describes it in terms so poetic they make Leonard Cohen sound like a greeting card writer. It’s the kind of album that makes you grateful for great art while simultaneously making you hope you never go through what it took to create it. If you’re going through a breakup, this album is either the best or worst thing you could possibly listen to. Possibly both.

Goal Met – Learn 10 new songs

Anthony Panariello 1 Comment

I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years. I would say I’m an intermediate guitarist, mostly in that I can play a lot of songs, I can sight read a tab and pick it up quick.  I know my scales and chords, circle of fifths and all that jazz but I never really took that leap as time to play was almost always limited.

It wasn’t so in the beginning. I bought a guitar when I first moved out into the wide world and was living on my own (for the young folks who might be reading this: There was a time you could have an entire apartment to yourself and still have money left over for stuff like buying a guitar). It was a green Yamaha acoustic that was on clearance at Sam Ash and since the price was right I walked out the store took it home and to quote Bryan Adams ‘played it until my fingers bled’

Since I had moved to a new area and didn’t have may friends yet I would come home from work, put on the Yankee game and just practice. That amounted to 2-3 hours a day for almost six months. I took a few weeks of lessons but eventually stopped going as the teacher and I didn’t really vibe and there wasn’t anyone else in the area giving lessons. I turned to the internet and guitar books (this was before YouTube)  and got pretty good at playing and even started coming up with my own tunes.

The only thing I couldn’t do for some reason was sing while I played. It just seemed terribly difficult because if I focused on my singing my guitar playing would suffer and vice versa. It wasn’t until maybe 10 years in that I understood I needed to KNOW the guitar parts, anticipate the chord changes and riffs. Practice so much that it was completely automatic. Once I did that I found I could focus on singing the song and the my hands would handle the guitar part on their own.

Around this time I got together with some friends for an impromptu jam band where we’d get together and play songs and that really taught me more about music and timing that almost all the time I spent practicing alone. It really drove home the fundamentals of music. I think mostly it was the singer yelling at me that I’m in the wrong key or tempo.

The issue I wanted to solve is that  I would sing from the tabs or lyric sheets since it was easier. I mean, I was at home practicing and I’d just print out music and words and use them. I’d bring printouts of tabs to the jam sessions (in almost all the videos everyone else is jamming out and I’m staring at my music stand). Whenever I was out or someone asked me to play something, I couldn’t. I could play them the music but I couldn’t dredge up the words without bringing them up on my phone. I also notice that without memorizing the songs you miss some of the distinctive vocal parts that make the song unique and it wasn’t as dynamic as it should be.

I determined that I was going to change that – and this year I was going to memorize at least 10 songs so I could play them all from memory. I know I put it as 10 new songs but there were a few songs I already knew  that I really wanted to master. It’s a bit of an eclectic list but here’s the songs I masted this year and a little bit on why I chose them.

Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison: The ultimate campfire song. The opening riff is iconic and the chord progression is really simple. The vocal parts weren’t demanding and everyone loves belting out the ‘sha-la-la’ parts.  The lyrics weren’t overly complex and there weren’t any technical parts to bog down the learning process so this one was a good one to start with.

Stick Season – Noah Kahan: I was perusing some guitar website looking for tabs for other songs when I noticed this song was suddenly in the top 10 most visited tabs on the whole site. I popped over to YouTube to see what the fuss was and I absolutely loved it. It was a complicated song to pick up as it starts with an annoyingly complicated finger picking part, has some frustrating barre chords and the vocals had a syncopated rhythm to them that was very difficult to pickup. I ended up just listening to it over and over during my commute to work until I nailed down the timing. Once that all came together it’s now one of my favorite songs to play and sing

A Bar Song (Tipsy) – Shaboozy: This was the song of the summer for 2024. It was all over the radio and for some reason my kids absolutely love this song (my son crushed it during a Karaoke party). It was super catchy and only had 4 chords so I decided to entertain my son I’d learn the song so he could sing along with me.  I picked up the song in a couple of days. It was probably the quickest I learned a song this year but I just clicked with it and it stuck in my memory better than any of the other songs. It’s super fun to play and a really good singalong song (also a Karaoke staple for me now)

Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town – Pearl Jam: I’m of an age where grunge was the formative music of my generation and Pearl Jam was one of my favorite bands. This song off their second album quickly became one of my favorite songs so I wanted to add it to my repertoire.  The chords were pretty basic and it was a fun challenge trying to replicate Eddie Vedder’s complex voice.

Wild World – Cat Stevens: Ok Ok, I’m a junkie for 1970’s singer songwriters. Cat Stevens, Carole King, Harry Chapin, James Taylor and their contemporaries. I just always loved Cat’s voice and this song always resonated with me for some reason. This one was a bit more complicated as there were a lot of chord changes and the riff during the chorus gave me fits.  I had learned it in the past as part of the jam band but never tried to sing and play at the same time and it was a real challenge. It took me a long time to figure out how the vocals laid over the chords but it was a really great feeling the first time I nailed it start to finish.

Merry Christmas – Ed Sheeran / Elton John: I needed a holiday song in my catalog and this one is such a great tune and the lyrics are full of hope and love. It’s my wife’s favorite Christmas song so I wanted to learn it for her. It was a challenge transposing the piano chords into guitar chords but I dug up a few vides on YouTube that explained it and after a little trial and error I was able to work it out. I found that as I was singing I would modulate my voice to better match Ed Sheeran then drop it a bit to be closer to Elton John during his parts. It was subconscious but I decided I really liked that contrast and kept singing it that way. The intro and outro were a bit different but the rest of the song used the same chords so it was pretty easy to learn.

Norwegian Wood – The Beatles:  I mean, I have to have a Beatles song, right? I was in the mood for some music from the fab four and was streaming their songs when Norwegian wood started playing and I remember 30+ years ago that it was one of the very first songs I tried teaching myself how to play. I wondered how much of it I remembered so I grabbed my guitar and I was shocked that I could play that little melodic riff on the first try. I guess that lived in my brain somewhere permanent! I spent a week or so memorizing the words and learning how to sing over the melody and chords.

Black – Pearl Jam: My absolutely favorite song of all time. Such a powerful performance and the lyrics are so stark and painful. This one is a bit of a more vocal challenge as Vedder really pushes his voice on the bridge and completely commits to the random noises.  The chords were super easy to learn but the vocal timing was a big pain as he draws out certain words over two bars instead of one and I needed to figure out how he worked that into the overall song. It took some time but I figured it out. It’s still a challenge to belt out “You’ll be the star in someone else’s sky but whyyyy whyyyyyy can’t it be miiiiIIIiiine” I find I can’t start with this song. I need to be warmed up and maybe have one or two teas with honey before I can commit to that level of anguished yelling.

The Book of Love: The Magnetic Fields / Peter Gabriel: Steven Merrit of Magnetic Fields adds a gravitas to this song that I found poignant but man did Peter Gabriel crush this song when he covered it (Check out the final episode of Scrubs where the song is featured). It’s such a simple song but the lyrics are beautiful. My favorite part is “the book of love is filled with music, in fact that’s where music comes from, some of it’s transcendental some of it’s just really dumb.. I love it when you sing to me” the song has only 4 chords that repeat but are played in a pretty complicated way. Once I figured out how to replicate that (with a mix of plucking and strumming) it all came together.

Perfect – Ed Sheeran: One of my wife’s favorite songs. I really wanted to learn this one to play for her. It helps that Sheeran’s voice is well within my vocal range and he tends to keep the guitar parts pretty straightforward. It was actually really difficult to memorize the vocals as in each section they are similar but he changes the wording a bit and I keep messing up and repeating the first verse instead of the correct words. It took a really long time before I was able to get it right and I was annoyed that he shoehorned in a  few extra syllables in the second chorus “Darling, just hold my hand, be my girl, I’ll be your man” I mean it took a long time for me to try to replicate the timing of that (I had to just keep doing that part over and over until I worked it out). It seems small but it upsets my timing and rhythm a bit so I wanted to ensure I transitioned into the next line with the right timing.

Overall I’m excited at the progress I made. I make sure at least a couple times a week I practice the entire set and if I make an error I stop and practice the part I made the mistake at over and over until I’m sure it’s resolved. I also made a playlist and a few times a week I’ll just listen to it on my commute and sing along to try to keep my memory sharp.

Oh, and I also bought a metronome – you’d be surprised at how effective it can be in keeping you in time.

[I have a few more I’m working on but haven’t completed yet and I’ll update this list as appropriate. ]

The Beatles – Revolver

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment
The Beatles’ Psychedelic Revolution

Released: August 5, 1966

In the sweltering summer of 1966, The Beatles unleashed an album that would forever alter the landscape of popular music. “Revolver” isn’t just a collection of songs—it’s a declaration of artistic independence, a middle finger to the constraints of conventional pop, and quite possibly the moment when four mop-topped heartthrobs truly became legends.

Gone are the simple love songs and yeah-yeah-yeahs that defined their early career. In their place stands a kaleidoscopic journey through psychedelia, Eastern philosophy, orchestral arrangements, and tape loops that would make an avant-garde composer blush. The album opens with the biting taxation commentary of “Taxman,” George Harrison’s sardonic greeting to the British government, and from there, it’s clear we’re not in Hamburg anymore, folks.

Speaking of Harrison, “Revolver” marks his emergence as a songwriting force within the band. His contributions here are essential, not merely complementary. This is the album where George stopped being “the quiet one” and started being “the one you really need to pay attention to.”

McCartney’s contributions showcase his increasing sophistication as a composer. “Eleanor Rigby” pairs stark imagery with baroque strings, creating what might be pop music’s first legitimate art song. Meanwhile, “Here, There and Everywhere” proves he could still write a love song that would make your grandmother swoon—if your grandmother was into revolutionary chord progressions and sublimely complex vocal arrangements.

But it’s Lennon who pushes the envelope furthest into the bizarre and beautiful. His experiments with tape loops and reverse recordings on “Tomorrow Never Knows” created a template for psychedelic rock that artists are still trying to replicate today. It’s the sound of a man who’s discovered LSD and Indian mysticism, and decided that pop music needed both.

The production, helmed by George Martin, deserves its own chapter in recording history. The innovative use of ADT (Automatic Double Tracking), varied tape speeds, and close-mic techniques created sounds that engineers would spend the next decade trying to figure out. This is the album where the studio truly became an instrument in its own right.

What’s remarkable about “Revolver” is how it manages to be both experimental and accessible. Each sonic adventure is anchored by memorable melodies and harmonies that could only come from The Beatles. They’re pushing boundaries while remembering to bring their audience along for the ride.

The influence of this album cannot be overstated. Without “Revolver,” we might not have had Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” Radiohead’s “OK Computer,” or any number of albums that dared to treat the recording studio as a playground rather than just a documentary tool.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)

Final Thoughts: “Revolver” represents The Beatles at their creative peak—a perfect balance of innovation and accessibility, experimentation and pop craftsmanship. Its only flaw might be that it set the bar so high that rock bands have been struggling to reach it ever since. The album manages to sound both perfectly of its time and completely timeless, a rare feat that cements its place as one of the greatest albums ever recorded. If you only own one Beatles album (though why would you do that to yourself?), make it this one.

Radiohead – OK Computer

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“OK Computer” by Radiohead: A Pretentious Odyssey Through the Digital Wasteland

In the annals of rock history, few albums have been as simultaneously lauded and overanalyzed as Radiohead’s “OK Computer.” Released in 1997, this opus has been hailed as a visionary masterpiece, a prophetic warning of our technologically dependent future. But let’s cut through the static and get to the heart of the matter: is it really all it’s cracked up to be, or just a collection of beeps and boops masquerading as profound art?

From the opening guitar arpeggios of “Airbag” to the final whimpers of “The Tourist,” “OK Computer” takes us on a journey. Unfortunately, it’s less of a road trip and more of a pretentious trudge through a swamp of self-importance. Thom Yorke’s vocals weave between unintelligible mumbles and banshee wails, as if he’s trying to simultaneously channel a moody teenager and a malfunctioning dial-up modem.

Yorke’s lyrics are a smorgasbord of pseudo-intellectual ramblings. It’s as if he swallowed a thesaurus and regurgitated it onto paper while watching late-night sci-fi reruns. The band seems to mistake obscurity for profundity, leaving listeners to wade through a lyrical quagmire that’s about as clear as mud on a moonless night.

Musically, the album is a testament to the band’s technical prowess, I’ll give them that. But it often feels like they’re showing off for the sake of it. It’s the musical equivalent of that guy at a party who won’t stop talking about his vintage synthesizer collection. We get it, you can play your instruments. Now can we have a tune we can actually hum?

“OK Computer” is the emperor’s new clothes of the music world. Critics and fans alike have spent decades convincing themselves of its genius, afraid to admit that maybe, just maybe, they don’t actually understand what’s going on. It’s not that the album is bad, per se. It’s just that it’s not the earth-shattering, life-changing experience it’s been made out to be.

In the end, “OK Computer” is like that friend who studied philosophy for a semester and now won’t shut up about existentialism at parties. It’s trying so hard to be deep that it forgets to be enjoyable. Is it influential? Absolutely. Is it technically impressive? Without a doubt. But is it the masterpiece it’s purported to be? This reviewer says: Computer says no.

In a world where we’re constantly bombarded with information, perhaps Radiohead’s greatest achievement with “OK Computer” was creating an album that makes you wish for a little less input. It’s a testament to the band’s skill that they managed to make something so complex, but sometimes, as they almost say in “Karma Police,” this reviewer just wants them to “stop this noise.”

Intentional Listening

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I decided to go with the top 50 albums of all time (according to Rolling Stone) to choose the albums I’d be listening to. I know myself enough to know that if I just throw on the album my brain will convert it to background noise by the second song. So I decided to implement an ‘intentional listening’ plan. I isolate myself in my comfy red chair (seriously, everyone needs a comfy chair in their life), put on the headphones and pull up the lyrics to all the songs so I can read along with them as the songs are played.

This is the way we used to do it – we’d get the record and the lyrics would be on the sleeves and we’d lie down on our bed and listen to the album in total isolation. It’s a personal intimate experience with the music and one I wanted to replicate