Your absolute favourite ONE ballad ever, and I mean EVER!.... what is it?

Offset

gusman2x said:

Is this Love - Whitesnake

 

 https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/3826370/#Comment_3826370

riffbrother

Boston - A Man I'll Never Be 

EricTheWeary

Jfingers said:

Screwing up my numeracy rating but  the full original version of Thin Line Man - Giant Sand

Play that in a pub. I double dare you!

7:24, it’d be value for money on the jukebox. 

Kurtis

Timcito said:

ToneControl said:

Timcito said:

ToneControl said:

Timcito said:

"Just Like a Woman" - it shares something with "Nothing Compares 2 U" in that the 'speaker' seems barely able to contain the despair of loss. It's a beautiful song which managed to be beautiful even at a time when gay relationships were not seen as beautiful at all. Doesn't matter if you're gay or straight, it's heartbreakingly human and vulnerable. 

Do you mean the Bob Dylan song?

Yes.

I've read some online reviews and analysis, and I can't see any mention of this song and gay relationships, can you explain please?

"Just like a woman" - this was a time when Dylan chose his words carefully. Why "like" a woman if she is a woman? It would be a frivolous use of figurative language otherwise. 

In fact, the relationship seems marked by shame and furtiveness for the speaker:
It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
The imagery of rain and dying of thirst suggests the speaker is troubled (rain) and has unfulfilled desires (dying there of thirst). "So I came in here' suggests a place that he does not normally go; he has been driven by troubled urges.

The we get,

I can't stay in here

Ain't it clear that I just can't fit
Why can't he stay? What is it that he can't fit into? I think he may have resorted to the lover at a time when his natural passions got the better of his sense of propriety, and he allowed himself to indulge in a non-straight union. However, he is racked with doubt because he feels like a misfit, maybe both in the straight and the gay worlds. He refers to the 'world' of the lover a few lines later"
But when we meet again, introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world
... A world that was 'other' to him, or at least a world that he kept himself from for respectability's sake. We also get the sense of shame here, and the sense of an appetite (hunger) that he could not resist. Why does he not want the lover to 'let on' if not that he is attempting to thrive in a heterosexual world, and the liaison with the lover might tarnish his reputation?

The description of their lovemaking seems to tie in with this sense of wanting to reconcile the sex he has had with this man with the norms he feels he should live by:
.Ah, you fake just like a woman
Yes, you do, you make love just like a woman
Yes, you do, then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl
It was not 'weird sex' after all! It was 'just like' having sex with a woman, so he can attempt to cling to his identity as an essentially straight man.

Each of these lines in itself may not add up to much, but taken together, I think they form a picture of a man who had a passionate but, for the time, illicit relationship with a man and is torn between his true self, which loves the man, and his need to 'fit,' to be a normal man in society with normal urges. 

What I find beautiful about the song is its truth and its compassion and the love that breaks through despite the speaker's attempts to suppress it. At the moment when he says,

And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse is this pain in here
I can't stay in here

Ain't it clear that I just can't fit
Yes, I believe that it's time for us to quit
... there's a kind of climax of emotion and confusion in Dylan's voice, as though he's on the verge of breakdown before gaining control again on 'fit.' The speaker is all about control, and after this brief panicked and desperate moment, he is back on track again, and the song regains it rather sweet, lilting melody.

That's my 'reading' of this song, anyway. He may have been referring to acid, I guess, as many songs at the time about women did, but I think the other indications incline me more toward the gay relationship. 

Another thing I love about the song is the creation of a persona that is not Dylan, or at least seems not to be Dylan. He did it in "Don't Think Twice' when, on the surface, the speaker seems to be telling the woman that she should not feel bad about what's happened but cannot stop himself from blaming her for everything in the same breath! It's supreme artistry. At that time in his career - up to Blonde on Blonde - he stripped humanity bare in a way that puts him alongside the great poets for me. 

That's not how I heard it. 

RocknRollDave

A guilty pleasure, and god knows there are definitely better ballads (and this coming from a guy who, generally speaking, doesn't 'do' slow songs nor ballads...)


but


Alone by Heart.

Offset

RocknRollDave said:

A guilty pleasure, and god knows there are definitely better ballads (and this coming from a guy who, generally speaking, doesn't 'do' slow songs nor ballads...)


but


Alone by Heart.

...plus These Dreams.  Love both.

Timcito

Kurtis said:

Timcito said:

"Just Like a Woman" - it shares something with "Nothing Compares 2 U" in that the 'speaker' seems barely able to contain the despair of loss. It's a beautiful song which managed to be beautiful even at a time when gay relationships were not seen as beautiful at all. Doesn't matter if you're gay or straight, it's heartbreakingly human and vulnerable. 

That's not how I heard. 

Well, even if you ignore all the other hints and imagery suggesting that this is a relationship that the speaker regards as a guilty pleasure about which he wants all evidence removed, what do you make of him saying that the lover 'makes love just like a woman'? The only other explanation I can think of is the sarcastic and misogynistic insult, "You leave things all over the place, just like a (bloody) woman!" But that wouldn't make sense with 'make love'; it would need to be something negative and stereotypical like 'nag' or 'spend lots of money.' Would we not more reasonably assume that the lover is not, in fact, a woman, but the speaker is somehow trying to find points of similarity between the lover and an actual woman?

Kurtis

I think you need to remember the next line "but she breaks just like a little girl".

She does everything like a woman "should" (and then some), but when she breaks, she breaks just like a little girl.

That's how I saw it I might be wrong.

Weren't a lot of bob dylans songs about a particular woman? 

Timcito

Kurtis said:

I think you need to remember the next line "but she breaks just like a little girl". 

How does that change the meaning, do you think?

Kurtis

I've edited my post^^

ToneControl

Timcito said:

ToneControl said:

Timcito said:

ToneControl said:

Timcito said:

"Just Like a Woman" - it shares something with "Nothing Compares 2 U" in that the 'speaker' seems barely able to contain the despair of loss. It's a beautiful song which managed to be beautiful even at a time when gay relationships were not seen as beautiful at all. Doesn't matter if you're gay or straight, it's heartbreakingly human and vulnerable. 

Do you mean the Bob Dylan song?

Yes.

I've read some online reviews and analysis, and I can't see any mention of this song and gay relationships, can you explain please?

"Just like a woman" - this was a time when Dylan chose his words carefully. Why "like" a woman if she is a woman? It would be a frivolous use of figurative language otherwise. 

In fact, the relationship seems marked by shame and furtiveness for the speaker:
It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
The imagery of rain and dying of thirst suggests the speaker is troubled (rain) and has unfulfilled desires (dying there of thirst). "So I came in here' suggests a place that he does not normally go; he has been driven by troubled urges.

The we get,

I can't stay in here

Ain't it clear that I just can't fit
Why can't he stay? What is it that he can't fit into? I think he may have resorted to the lover at a time when his natural passions got the better of his sense of propriety, and he allowed himself to indulge in a non-straight union. However, he is racked with doubt because he feels like a misfit, maybe both in the straight and the gay worlds. He refers to the 'world' of the lover a few lines later"
But when we meet again, introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world
... A world that was 'other' to him, or at least a world that he kept himself from for respectability's sake. We also get the sense of shame here, and the sense of an appetite (hunger) that he could not resist. Why does he not want the lover to 'let on' if not that he is attempting to thrive in a heterosexual world, and the liaison with the lover might tarnish his reputation?

The description of their lovemaking seems to tie in with this sense of wanting to reconcile the sex he has had with this man with the norms he feels he should live by:
.Ah, you fake just like a woman
Yes, you do, you make love just like a woman
Yes, you do, then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl
It was not 'weird sex' after all! It was 'just like' having sex with a woman, so he can attempt to cling to his identity as an essentially straight man.

Each of these lines in itself may not add up to much, but taken together, I think they form a picture of a man who had a passionate but, for the time, illicit relationship with a man and is torn between his true self, which loves the man, and his need to 'fit,' to be a normal man in society with normal urges. 

What I find beautiful about the song is its truth and its compassion and the love that breaks through despite the speaker's attempts to suppress it. At the moment when he says,

And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse is this pain in here
I can't stay in here

Ain't it clear that I just can't fit
Yes, I believe that it's time for us to quit
... there's a kind of climax of emotion and confusion in Dylan's voice, as though he's on the verge of breakdown before gaining control again on 'fit.' The speaker is all about control, and after this brief panicked and desperate moment, he is back on track again, and the song regains it rather sweet, lilting melody.

That's my 'reading' of this song, anyway. He may have been referring to acid, I guess, as many songs at the time about women did, but I think the other indications incline me more toward the gay relationship. 

Another thing I love about the song is the creation of a persona that is not Dylan, or at least seems not to be Dylan. He did it in "Don't Think Twice' when, on the surface, the speaker seems to be telling the woman that she should not feel bad about what's happened but cannot stop himself from blaming her for everything in the same breath! It's supreme artistry. At that time in his career - up to Blonde on Blonde - he stripped humanity bare in a way that puts him alongside the great poets for me. 

I'm no Dylan expert, but I can't find anyone else interpreting this way, and there are 2 names cited as potential women they think this Dylan was personally insulting. 

Funkfingers

Thommo - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

gusman2x

Offset said:

gusman2x said:

Is this Love - Whitesnake

 

 https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/3826370/#Comment_3826370

Ha!

I’m afraid I’m quite partial to some retro wave and synth wave electronic music also. Their lyrics make Coverdale seem like Keates lol

littlegreenman

You'll all no doubt be surprised that I've chosen a Zappa track! A rare heartfelt story of heartbreak from Frank, and featuring a stunning guitar solo from the 13 year old Dweezil

Ladies and Gentlemen, Sharleena...

Vintage65

Fast Car.

Grampa

Sandi Thom - November Rain

DuploLicks

Offset said:

SimonC said:

Closely followed by Wild Horses.

Presumably The Flying Burrito Brothers' version :-)

I’ll take the Sundays cover. How it should have been done the first time. 

maltingsaudio

Thread proves I can’t make a definitive choice , but will throw this one into the mix
https://youtu.be/0P5jV4lHHR0?si=7GXR-bUkzGvI-Ah_

HAL9000

Every Time You Say Goodbye - Ella Fitzgerald 

Timcito

Kurtis said:

I think you need to remember the next line "but she breaks just like a little girl".

She does everything like a woman "should" (and then some), but when she breaks, she breaks just like a little girl.

That's how I saw it I might be wrong.

Weren't a lot of bob dylans songs about a particular woman? 

Well, perhaps one of the song's strengths is that it can be understood in different ways. Probably not a case of right and wrong.

I don't know - I hadn't heard that one about his songs being about one woman.