Like A Rolling Stone part 12. How Does It Feel?

by Jochen Markhorst

XII        How Does It Feel?

 The in itself rather generic question How does it feel has by now pretty much been hijacked by Dylan’s song – two, three generations can no longer hear the word combination without unleashing the reflex to be on your own. Just as the question What is love can no longer be asked without someone shouting Baby don’t hurt me, and just as every teacher in the Western world dreads the lesson in which he has to mention Galileo – one of the class jokers wíll shout Galileo Figaro magnifico in a high-pitched voice.

Still, every so often, some daredevil manages to escape the suction of “Like A Rolling Stone”, and the best example is Slade’s 1975 pièce de résistance. The single “How Does It Feel” is only moderately successful, presumably because the song and arrangement are so totally unlike Slade, but it is an exceptional song, with quite prominent proponents at that. The loudest fan is Oasis’ Noel Gallagher, who goes on record in 1999 with:

“People just think when they listen to Slade, they think of Cum On Feel The Noize and Mama Weer All Crazee Now, but: How Does It Feel is easily one of the best songs ever written. Ever. Such a brilliant song. Go on buy it if you’re watching this. It’s on the Greatest Hits. Track 13.”

Strength of the song, Noddy’s unique vocals and lyric content all gloriously resist the Dylan association. But in general, users bow their heads and refer implicitly or explicitly to “Like A Rolling Stone”. Like recently, English indie band London Grammar’s “How Does It Feel”, with the curtsy in the chorus; “How does it feel now you’re alone? / How does it, how does it feel to feel low?” (on Californian Soil, 2021), or 1970s rockers UFO in 1978‘s “Lookin” Out for No. 1” (“How does it feel to be right out on your own? / Just gotta keep looking out for No.1”), which incidentally seems very much inspired by a Lou Reed throwaway, Transformer‘s album filler “Wagon Wheel” (“Won’t you tell me, baby, how do you feel / Hey you gotta live your life as though you’re number one”). Or even more subtly, as with die-hard Dylan fan Graham Nash;

… in the message to Dylan disguised as a naive peacenik anthem “Be Yourself” from his still very charming solo debut Songs For Beginners (1971), the song opening with

How does it feel
When life doesn't seem real
And you're folating about on your own
Your life seems uncertain
So you draw the curtain
Pretending there's nobody home

… and then insinuating slightly less subtly in the third verse that we are talking about Dylan:

We once had a savior
But by our behavior
The one that was worth it is gone
Song birds are talking
And runners are walking
A prodigal son's coming home

With biblical ambiguity, as befits a Dylan tribute. Nash’s unbritish lack of irony and his verging on Disney-like weakness for pathos don’t really stand the test of time, but on the other hand: the album features granite songs like “Better Days” and “I Used To Be A King” – which fortunately far overshadow the embarrassing hippie naivety.

The other side is the slogan-like use of How does it feel. Dylan books, tribute records, bootlegs, articles and reviews… the catchiness of the slogan is eagerly and often used and reused. As for the record on which Nancy Sinatra sings her version of “Like A Rolling Stone”, 1999’s How Does It Feel.

It is a somewhat peculiar cover. Of course, roughly half of the more-than-200 covers struggle with the challenge of adding something to the original – perfection is hard to improve on, after all. So we have many covers that do qualify for the stamp “pastiche” or “parody” or “tribute” rather than “real” covers, than interpretations like Spirit’s of Hendrix’s, covers that manage to hold up the monument, but from a different angle. Nancy with the laughing face is somewhere in between.

How Does It Feel is an album assembled from scraps, just as the album cover appears to be a leftover from Nancy’s photo shoot for the May 1995 issue of Playboy. Twelve songs, six different producers, and a tracklist that ranges from Linsey De Paul’s “Sugar Me” to Hazlewood’s “Happy” to the highlight Brook Benton’s 1962 “Walk On The Wild Side”.

Anyway, the record is named after Nancy’s version of “Like A Rolling Stone”, one of two songs produced by Bones Howe. Which suggests that Howe was the instigator – Minnesotan Bones Howe began his impressive career (Elvis, Sinatra, Mamas & Papas, and especially Tom Waits) with Dylan; his breakthrough was the 1965 hit he produced for The Turtles, Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe”. In 1979, he enticed Jerry Lee Lewis to record the obscure Dylan throwaway “Rita May”, and sometime in between, December 1975, he produced three songs for Nancy (also the as yet unreleased “Uptown” and a song that eventually ended up on How Does It Feel as well, “Fancy Dan”).

Bones’ work is generally beyond dispute. In particular, his work with Tom Waits (the Asylum records) is rightly praised in only superlatives, as is his influence on that umpteenth comeback album by The Killer (Jerry Lee Lewis, 1979). But in December 1975, he is not really in form, or not really inspired (which seems rather inconceivable when you are in a studio with Nancy Sinatra).

In any case, the arrangement is very unfortunate. A far-forward mixed hi-hat doing exactly the same thing as on every KC & The Sunshine Band record of the 70s and rather obtrusively trying to insist that funk would be a good choice for “Like A Rolling Stone”, a horn section wavering between Herb Albert, Blood, Sweat & Tears and a 70s police series, and a hideous background chorus. The only golden edge comes from Nancy – always cool, calm & collected, although that promise of sultriness she usually achieves partly by singing just behind the beat is absent today. Nancy opts for ennui – which, of course, does fit this lyric in a way. However: after two verses, producer Howe allows her to sing the chorus one more time, and then we already enter the fade-out: seven (!) times a bored sounding “Like a rolling stone”, slowly fading away, the timer is at 3’29” and done. Bob’s your uncle.

The arrangement is bad enough, but boldly discarding half the lyrics borders on sacrilege. The recordings are presumably intended for a relaunch of Nancy’s career, after her last, not too successful 1972 record Woman – but someone is wise enough to decide that this is not the way to go, and lets the recordings disappear. It eventually takes until 1995 for Nancy’s next record to be released. That record, One More Time, the one for which she does the full monty in Playboy for promotion, does indeed pave the way for a rather successful relaunch, by the way. Or comeback, actually. Which apparently gave her the courage to put together the leftover record How Does It Feel in 1998. “Bones Howe kept our session tapes of “Like A Rolling Stone”, “Fancy Dan” and “Uptown”, thank heaven,” Nancy then declares. Hmm. One could have an opinion thereon. Maybe it would have been better if Bones had lost those tapes. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose, after all. On the other hand: “I think Nancy is head and shoulders above most of these girl singers today. She’s so soulful also in a conversational way.” So says Dylan in the 2015 AARP interview, so nearly 50 years after he could review her version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” (1966) and 16 years after he was able to hear her version of “Like A Rolling Stone”.

It’s quite a compliment. From the master himself. Now, how would that feel?

Continued: Like A Rolling Stone (1965) part 13: The songs find their way to me one way or another

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

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