Re: Dylan's irony

On May 14, 7:23 pm, Dr_dudley <dud...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Br'er Jumbo,

On May 14, 5:45 pm, Brother Jumbo <ch...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On May 14, 9:55 pm, Dr_dudley <dud...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Here from the OED:}

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally
signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect
{

Which seems different to me from sarcasm, sneering, or trolling, but
not exclusively.

Yes, Brother Dudley (I'm assuming you're still male), but that's only
a partial definition. Good old Wikipedia says:

Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning dissimulation
or feigned ignorance)

'K but that just introduces into my feigned ignorance yet another term
"dissimulation" which i can claim not to understand along with
"irony", and which roils the waters re: bob.

Now, on paper "I want you" is not in itself that ironic, but the way
Bob sings the phrase on BonB could be said to be ironic, in that he
sings it as though it means "I couldn't care less about you".  I.e..
"dissimulation" - lack of similarity between the words' meaning and
the manner of the delivery

---

Nice try. But the example doesn't hold water. Yes, it "could be said
to be ironic", but i initially thought and still these many years
later think that bob *did* want her. Raging hormonally.

Anybody else got a clear cut example of bob's "irony"? Other than his
dreams being made of iron and steel, or them distant ships on them
iron waves?

Irony--so easy to look at, so hard to define.

Of course, the place Dylan comes from is irony, the Mesabi Range. The
dirt up there must be bright orange.

"I Want You" has much less iron content. Well, none to my ears. To
say, "I want you" and then add "so bad" and precede it with "honey,"
and to sing it ironically--wow, you'd have to be one mean-ass,
uncaring cat to commit THAT to ferrous oxide tape.

There are many types of irony and we can't be one hunnert percent sure
which type Simon refers to. I guess we can eliminate dramatic irony
(audience has information that characters don't) or Socratic-type
irony (asking naive questions that you already know the answer to; a
sort of proto-trolling). There's sarcasm, which has come to be
synonymous with irony in modern parlance. And Dylan has plenty of that
in both lyrics and delivery. And then there's the shoe's-on-the-other-
foot kind of irony a la, "Michael Jackson was suing someone for
sexually molesting his kids? That's pretty ironic." And of course
there's '80's mocking irony, which can be Emilio Estevez in Repo Man
picking up a can of food which has the label, "Food," Hawaiian shirts,
and most of David Byrne's "True Stories." Also see: Spy Magazine
(where it was practiced at a very high, comic level), for example,
saying that rock lyrics can stand up next to the greatest poetry, case
in point: Wordsworth, "I wandered lonely as a cloud" = Dion and the
Belmonts, "They call me the Wanderer;" or inviting critics to analyze
the paintings of 4 and 5-year olds in a Soho gallery that Spy said
were painted by new Belgian artists, and printing their highbrow
critiques.

It is most assuredly not the unpleasant occurrences listed in the
Alanis Morrissette song. Those are merely unpleasant occurrences.

I think Simon is referring to shoe-on-the-other foot irony ("ain't it
hard when you discover that...he could steal"); understatement in the
delivery to give a contrary and mocking feeling not obvious in the
lyrics (most of "All Along the Watchtower"); and cases where delivery
has almost the opposite meaning of the lyrics (the stanzas in "Who
Killed Davey Moore"). "One Of Us Must Know" is irony at a high level,
where he covers most of the irony bases in his delivery.




Not that I think that, but I think Paul Simon thinks that...

Understood.

Cold irony boundly yrs,
dudley

.

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