Analogs of Vysotsky: my replies

[Matthew Walker]

Hi Vadim,

I too think that this has been a really interesting discussion. I also 
think it's interesting that people on the list have come up with so many 
different candidates for North American analogues to Vysotsky, and from 
several generations: Guthrie, Cash, Dylan, Cohen, Springsteen, Cobain. 
Dylan and Springsteen, if you were to ask them about this, would likely 
say Woody Guthrie (Dylan says somewhere that "You could listen to his 
music and learn how to live," which I think is really the single most 
important criterion one needs to satisfy in all cases, Vysotsky 
included). Even if none of the aforementioned really match ALL the 
initial criteria you posed, they each check certain boxes, some in ways 
that Vysotsky to my mind probably never even approached. This is all 
subjective of course (did Vysotsky ever write anything as cool as 
"Atlantic City," "Tower of Song" or "Heart-Shaped Box"? etc.). As for 
cultural impact, the various subgenres of American music rarely ever 
reach out to everybody--in a sense that's part of their power. Kurt 
Cobain, who in concert could destroy pretty much everything and 
everybody on a good night, arguably spoke to just about every 
disaffected white kid in America under the age of 25 back in the 1990s; 
if George Bush Sr. had been able to respond to Nirvana like you say 
Brezhnev responded to Vysotsky, then Cobain would have been doing 
something wrong. There was a folk-aesthetic with him too, if that's what 
you need, even if it was buried under a lot of noise: see his Leadbelly 
cover.

I would add that the lack of longevity you associate with some of the 
artists above is actually testament to the vibrancy of the American 
tradition--someone new always comes along who does it differently, if 
not better. In the late 1980s you used to hear Led Zeppelin on the radio 
constantly in America, people were still buying their albums like they 
had just come out yesterday a full ten years after they broke up, but 
that had less to do with their greatness than with the fact that 
mainstream rock music here was more or less in a creative rut. There 
were amazing things going on "underground" of course (Sonic Youth, 
Dinosaur Jr., Replacements, et al); Kurt Cobain is probably most 
important in rock history for dragging all of that above the 
floorboards, so to speak.

If we don't confine ourselves to Americans, I'm surprised no one has 
mentioned Joe Strummer. Neil Young too.

Anyway, if you could arrange a songwriting contest amongst all of the 
above, living or dead, Robert Pollard of Dayton, Ohio would beat 
everybody, with both hands tied behind his back and nothing but a broken 
crayon between his toes--but again, that's my humble opinion.

Best,

Matt Walker
Stanford U.





On 2/9/14 9:53 AM, Dorian Juric wrote:
> Hi Vadim,
>
> Well I'm definitely learning things about Vysotsky I did not know (and 
> probably putting my foot in my mouth a few times over it). I've always 
> been more familiar with his music than his biography, had no idea he 
> was so involved in theater.
>
>    I guess my reservations with Waits and Cohen lie less in these 
> factoids and more in the tone or feel of their work. When I listen to 
> Vysotsky I've always felt a really strong folk aesthetic to his work 
> and, if I understand correctly, when he wrote songs about the 
> down-and-outs those people held those songs as representing them in 
> some ways. Cohen and Waits have always been a bit bourgeois about 
> their take on the down-and-outs.
>      Cohen (who I will also point out is not an American but a fellow 
> Canadian) continues to sell out concerts, but it is to a particular 
> crowd, and the majority of them are the same crowd he sold out to in 
> the 70s. He's lauded as a great poet, and his books of poetry sell as 
> well as his records, but they always seem to be bought by those who 
> grew up with him, or else college students engaged in creative writing 
> circles. He was marginally connected to Andy Warhol's Factory and in 
> my mind has a sort of beatnik/poet laureate aspect to him. If you ever 
> hear people talking about Cohen, it's usually about how his accountant 
> squandered his money a few years ago and he was forced to republish 
> materials and tour so he could pay his bills.
>      Waits on the other hand, has made his name by being weird and 
> eclectic. The experimental aspects of his music are often first and 
> foremost. He not only writes theatrical music, but the music sounds 
> like a play when it is listened to, like the characters are 
> caricatures that were made up to display an allegory. His 
> down-and-outs are stage versions, the real dock workers and ditch 
> diggers have never connected with him. His characters are one-eyed 
> midgets shooting pool in the Philippines while a sailor looks at a 
> cameo of his wife. Waits chooses to wear different characters as 
> singer too, in one song he's Howlin' Wolf, in the next he's Hank 
> Williams, after that he's Captain Beefheart or Aretha Franklin. His 
> albums all have separate tones, and each song has its own flavour. 
> Wait's following is less his own generation and more the younger 
> people who crave something fresh and alternative. He's like someone's 
> grandfather that managed to stay hip and cool and so is (obviously) 
> the best grandfather. To think of Vysotsky picking up beat-boxing at 
> age 60 seems really strange to me.
>
>       Unless I'm way out to lunch, I always saw Vysotsky more like a 
> Steve Earle figure, political and engaged, and when he sang about 
> peoples' lots in life and their hard times, those people found it rang 
> true, heard themselves in the music. That's why Bob Marley sounds 
> right to me too, and Guthrie and Springsteen. But I fully admit that 
> I'm learning aspects of Vysotsky I had no idea about.
>
>
> Dorian Jurić, MA
> McMaster Univeristy
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2014 15:26:33 +0000
> From: thysentinel at HOTMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Analogs of Vysotsky: my replies
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>
> Hello all,
>
> I didn't realize we are limited to three posts per day, so I will try 
> to answer everybody here in one letter.
>
> 1.  I don't think Cobain fits here at all.  He was undeniably 
> charismatic, had some of what I refer to as "the dark vibe" that 
> Vysotsky possessed in abundance, but spoke for a relatively small 
> segment of the society.  Plus his poetic achievements are dubious at 
> best, and his longevity was rather brief:  as a cultural phenomenon, 
> he barely outlived grunge genre as a whole.
>
> 2.  Same with both Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie.  Their impact was 
> strong but very short-lived.  Nowdays they are all but gone from the 
> American public discourse.  Although they certainly had some powerful 
> songs:  Seeger's "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" was great and very much 
> in Vysotsky's vein.  Any others?
>
> 3.
> > For my money, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan rose to that level (though Dylan
> couldn't sing a lick); I'll put Paul Simon's genius, with or without
> Garfunkel, up against anyone (some listeners outside the New York area
> may not see it). And his songs had a substantial, meaty content that you
> don't often get in pop music.
> Paul Simon definitely had the talent and the longevity.  But was his 
> impact strong enough?  Was his peak high enough?  Did he have any of 
> the "dark vibe"?  I am mostly familiar with his S&G stuff and I saw 
> him live in 1999 and remember his song "Can't Run But" having some 
> social criticism, but I certainly did not get the sense of power 
> coming from him.  If anything, he was miles better than Dylan, who 
> opened for him and looked like a mannequin.
>
> One thing I did not get from him is the "substantial" and "meety". 
>  Can you provide some examples?
>
> Dylan I already commented on.  His appeal, even in his prime, was 
> limited to the American "intelligentsia."
>
> 4.  One aspect of Vysotsky's phenomena is that his popularity doesn't 
> seem to wane.  He is consistently in the Top Five in downloadables / 
> plays at Yandex Music, and that's a good indicator of his popularity 
> with the youth.  I don't think Dylan or Marley currently enjoy that 
> level of success.
>
> 5.
> > Waits doesn't really belong here, he has never been the voice of a generation, he's a California jazz 
> musician turned
> > experimental rocker and folky who writes songs about the down-and-outs and the weirdos. Waits songs are 
> theatrical, they
> > belong on the stage (and have made their way there once or twice) although they often do have recourse 
> to old folk habits.
>
> Let's apply this to Vysotsky.  "Writes songs about the down-and-outs 
> and the weirdos"?  Check.  "Theatrical songs that belong on stage"? 
>  Check.  AAMOF, this and the voice is what makes Waits a very fitting 
> analog of Vysotsky.  About a fifth of his songs Vysotsky wrote for 
> theater, in the range between war-themed to "Alice in Wonderland." 
>  "Recourse to old folk habits"?  Check.  But you are right, he was 
> never the voice of a generation or a major cultural force.
>
> Are there any songs that would be close to Vysotsky? I have only heard 
> some random songs like "Yesterday's Here," "Singapore," etc.
>
> 6.
> > If you're looking at sheer impact Marley needs to go a lot higher on 
> that list, he has very disjointed followings but the number
> > of people who listen to his music and the impact it has had on 
> grassroots politics, etc. is surprisingly enormous from a man
> > who died so young.
>
> Marley died at 36.  His peak lasted about seven years.  His longevity 
> (btw, I'm talking about longevity of impact, not longevity of career) 
> and impact are certainly very high.  He fits the political, spiritual, 
> and "dark vibe" angles of Vysotsky.
> He can certainly overtake Cohen in terms of impact and being a 
> cultural icon, but not in terms of longevity:  Cohen is still very 
> relevant and still sells out stadiums.  Marley can probably overtake 
> Cash in impact and possibly as the "icon"(although I believe Cash was 
> always huge in the South), but definitely not Springsteen.
>
> 7.
> > As a poet Cohen matches but the music isn't comparable and Cohen was 
> always poet first, musician second.
>
> But you've just described Vysotsky!  Or did you mean it the other way 
> around?
>
> > For my money, Marley, Dylan and Lennon really strike me as probably the 
> best choices.
>
> Seriously, no Cash?  He had the darkest vibe of them all, and to me 
> it's a key ingredient in Vysotsky's legacy.  It would also be helpful 
> to know if any of them exhibited the "Гибельный восторг" of Vysotsky.
>
> 8.
> > Part of Vysotsky’s fame came from the fact that he was he was also 
> an incredible actor of stage and screen – including giving one
> > of the most internationally renowned performances of Hamlet of his 
> generation – if not the 20^th century.
>
> Cash and Elvis were both actors.  Jon Bon Jovi is an actor.  Acting 
> alone doesn't necessarily add to one's legacy and cultural status.  In 
> fact, Vysotsky's two signature roles -- Zheglov and Don Juan -- did 
> not happen until his dying days.
>
>
> > I do think that it is apples and oranges – but if you are trying to 
> describe an orange to someone who has never seen one, you
>
> > have be creative.
>
>
> Very well versed :).
>
> 9.
> > Let's not forget Lennon's (in)famous quote about the Beatles being 
> "more popular than Jesus now." (it was true, but many didn't want to 
> hear it)
> Lennon was bigger than Jesus with the Beatles.  But in the 70s he seemed a little washed up, although, oddly enough, this is when his societal stands became much stronger.  But, again, I need to listen more to his solo stuff.  What I've heard ("Imagine," "Believe") lacked in power, somewhat.
> 10.I'd love for this discussion to continue.  But if, for whatever reason, you (or the moderator) don't want to continue it here, let's do this at
> www.facebook.com/vysotskyinenglish
> Thank you all for your contribution!
>
> Vadim
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