No Direction Home

Yesterday I had to watch No Direction Home, Martin Scorcese's documentary about Bob Dylan, for my work. I didn't have time to watch all, but it was very, very interesting. It was not just a portrait of a great artist, it was also a document of times gone by. It records Bob's youth in Minnesota, his influences and his move to New York City in the early sixties. It contains loads of beautiful music from the 1940's and '50's and also wonderful pieces of film from that era. You should really go see it if you're interested in music and history!

Anyways, this documentary made me want to listen to old music again, so I went to my favorite record store today, but I couldn't find the records by Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family or Hank Williams that I wanted. So instead I bought No Depression by Uncle Tupelo... It's great! I can easily understand why there's even a magazine named after it.

What's more, on the market I found two very cheap books with poetry. One of them (The Faber Book of Modern Verse) has some poems by Dylan Thomas, the poet Bob Dylan took his name from. I don't know whether I will like his poetry, but in No direction home it sounded very powerful. The other book is called The American Poets 1800-1900 and contains of course a number of poems by Emily Dickinson, whom I like very much, because she has such a beautiful way with words, though I always have a hard time understanding what she means with them... ;-)