the rix mix

The Twyla Tharp / Bob Dylan musical,"The Times They Are A-Changin’," is closing this week. No matter. I wasn't going to see it. For all the thousands of times I've heard couplets like "You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat / Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat," starting when I was in high school, it never occurred to me that I actually needed to see a chrome horse & a diplomat with a siamese cat on his shoulder. I don't know if that's in the show, but there's definitely a lot of expensive silliness like it. Uncle Bobby had ample opportunity during his superstar arena tours back in the 70s to present his own songs as stupidly literal stage extravaganzas, & chose not to. For sheer interpretive weirdness, there's always The Four Seasons' old recording of "Queen Jane Approximately," with Frankie Valli nasally intoning phrases such as, "When all of your advisers heave their plastic / At your feet to convince you of your pain /Trying to prove that your conclusions should be more drastic..."