Old Acquaintance

Much of the weekend, the bit when I've not been in work, has been spent catching up with old friends - and eating well in the process. A sound use of time, as was listening to the Elvis Costello collaboration with Allen Toussaint The River in Reverse. Why can't music this good be played in supermarkets? I ask this simply because when we were shopping at the appropriately named Giant Supermarket at Parkway Parade yesterday somebody had deemed it appropriate to play something for the shoppers' delight that involved this chap doing irreversible damage to Leaving On A Jet Plane (with a Latin beat!) and, even worse, Blowin' In The Wind. Now I can accept that the former is something of an open target due to its excessive sentimentality, but surely Mr Dylan deserves better. And why anyone would think of treating his gently fragile masterpiece as a kind of jauntily upbeat cabaret show-stopper is beyond my understanding.

In passing, Dylan does an extraordinary live version of Blowin' In The Wind with the Band on Before The Flood. He reinvents the song as a kind of celebratory, rabble-rousing call-to-arms. It shouldn't work, but does. It's a safe bet they'll never play that in Giant.