Word: wesley
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...John Wesley Harding represents for Dylan a quantum jump in style from what he was doing before he dropped out of sight. The unexpected discontinuity requires an explanation. The new record is haunted by tramps and prophets, robber-chieftains and gypsies, called forth one by one in solemn incantation. However, these particular outcasts of society are unlike, and handled differently from, the junkies and petulant girls who used to trouble Dylan...
...contrast, to express the same concern for the world's materialism in John Wesley Harding, he uses a Lonesome Hobo and coupled with a warning...
...details, and imagery, of the songs in John Wesley Harding are far removed from contemporary life, and there is a new preaching tone...
...songs in another, strange realm. This process is akin to the Brechtian notion of "defamiliarization"--making the action subject to rational scrutiny, unclouded by emotion, because it is viewed from a distance. And since this technique requires activation by a Message, Dylan was able to infuse John Wesley Harding with a spiritual, almost religious tone...
...record is rightly driven by muted, subtle rhythms and complex interaction. Dylan and his regular drummer, Kenny Buttrey, seem to have developed the sort of perfect understanding that Bart Starr shares with Carroll Dale. In places all over the record, they groove effortlessly, as at the end of John Wesley Harding when Buttrey pumps the shutters, with Dylan wailing on harp...