Dear pottery lovers. I'll cut to the quick. I have two home-made .wav files on this web page. You are here to settle a musical score: Whether the songwriter Bob Dylan or the songwriter Joni Mitchell is the better writer of the two. To allow you an impartial decision, not based on the intangibles of melody, voice, physical attraction, humanness, and the like, I stripped the songs of all non-essentials while allowing the works to keep the dignity of the spoken word. This is why Albert and Princess were chosen to help us, picking amongst the shards as they may.
The challenge uses the lyrics supplied by the protagonists's champions on rec.arts.poems, a Usenet newsgroup. It presents the work in a, um, most dispassionate way imaginable. Yet, as another songwriter wrote, these memories can't wait.
Here are the technical details for the intrigued. The texts (for singing along, of course), are provided below. Please e-mail me with your vote -- Bob or Joni? -- as well as post it on rec.arts.poems in the thread "Marek's Impartial Text-to-Speech Songwriter Challenge: The Bedroom Tapes -or- The Hissing of the Winter Lawns?". Note: You might get best playback if you quit other applications (so as not to compete for disk access).
| Bob Dylan's pottery | Joni Mitchell's pottery | |
| (as ogg file) | (as ogg file) |
Note: The lyrics for Joni were provided on rec.arts.poems by R Sommo
and the lyrics for Bob by J R Sherman. I hope they forgive me. Heh.
I have forgiven myself. I don't think Joni or Bob have a say in the matter.
Long live Apple, for even old Apples are eminently useful, as shown here.
-- Marek
(all of) LITTLE GREEN
Born with the moon in Cancer.
Choose her a name she will answer to.
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her.
Call her green for the children who've made her.
Little green, be a gypsy dancer.
He went to California.
Hearing that everything's warmer there.
So you write him a letter and say, "Her eyes are blue.".
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you.
Little green, he's a non-conformer.
Just a little green.
Like the color when the spring is born.
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow.
Just a little green.
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform.
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes.
And sometimes there'll be sorrow.
Child with a child pretending.
Weary of lies you are sending home.
So you sign all the papers in the family name.
You're sad and you're sorry, but you're not ashamed.
Little green, have a happy ending.
Just a little green.
Like the color when the spring is born.
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow.
Just a little green.
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform.
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes.
And sometimes there'll be sorrow.
Copyright 1967 BY JONI MITCHELL/BMI
(end of) VISIONS OF JOHANNA
Words and Music by Bob Dylan
Copyright 1966, 1985 Dwarf Music
The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him.
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say.
a prayer for him".
But like Louise always says.
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?".
As she, herself, prepares for him.
And Madonna, she still has not showed.
We see this empty cage now corrode.
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed.
The fiddler, he now steps to the road.
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed.
On the back of the fish truck that loads.
While my conscience explodes.
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain.
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.
Last Modified: 2007/7/28.