Bob Dylan can't even
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For Bob Dylan connoisseurs, the release of The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 is a momentous occasion. It encompasses the studio sessions that gave us the albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde, and it's available as a 2-CD sampler, a reasonable 6-CD version, and an ultra-comprehensive 18-CD collector's edition for the true Dylan obsessives. The collector's edition, which compiles every outtake from those crucial 1965-66 sessions, may have been released by Columbia primarily for copyright reasons, but for those willing to slog through the 19-hour runtime, there are some unexpected pleasures.
For a Billboard review, Chris Willman listened to the whole 18-CD set in a marathon session. Here's how he describes one track:
Dylan grows increasingly frustrated by how he feels the Hawks are mangling "She's Your Lover Now." "Aw, it's ugly," he says. "I can't. I can't even." Did Bob Dylan just invent the 21st century catchphrase "I can't even"? I think he did!
I managed to find the track in question: "She's Your Lover Now – (1/21/1966) Rehearsal" (Disc 11, Track 3). Here's a clip of the relevant bit:
Some background… The Jan. 21, 1966 session took place as Dylan was putting together the songs that would become Blonde on Blonde. He was recording in Columbia's New York studio with a group that included members of The Hawks, who backed him up on his first "electric" tour and would soon find fame on their own as The Band. Dylan was dissatisfied with how "She's Your Lover Now" was turning out — although a nearly complete full-band version of the song, first compiled on The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3, sounds awfully good. After the rehearsal in which Dylan "can't even," he dismissed the band and tried doing the song on his own, accompanying himself on the piano. That sounds awfully good too. (Elvis Costello says it's his favorite track on The Cutting Edge, telling Esquire, "The whole clambake is worth that one performance.") But Dylan would ultimately abandon the song, leaving it off Blonde on Blonde, which was mostly recorded by studio musicians in Nashville after Dylan moved down there in Feb. 1966. (See the Sean Wilentz essay "Mystic Nights" for more on these sessions.)
So was Dylan half a century ahead of his time because he couldn't even? For more on "I can't even" and recent elaborations like "I've lost the ability to even," see:
- Tia Baheri, "Your Ability to Can Even: A Defense of Internet Linguistics," The Toast, Nov. 20, 2013
- Rebecca Cohen, "In Defense of I Can't Even," Lexicon Valley (Slate blog), Mar. 12, 2014
- Michael Reid Roberts, "Life Sentences: The ABCs of 'I Can’t Even.'" The American Reader, May 16, 2014
- Clive Thompson, "I Can't Even." The Message (Medium blog), July 21, 2014
- Gretchen McCulloch, "Why Is It That You 'Can't Even' But You Never Find That You 'Can Even'?" Mental Floss, Mar. 24, 2015
I like Gretchen McCulloch's characterization of "I can't even" and its kin as "stylized verbal incoherence mirroring emotional incoherence." When Dylan complained, "I can't… I can't even…", he was certainly experiencing emotional incoherence, and in his verbal expression of it, he was perhaps trying to convey something like, "I can't even get through this song (or this sentence)." Of course, that's a long way from the stylized incoherence of modern-day can't-eveners, as spoofed not too long ago on Saturday Night Live.
Laura Morland said,
December 29, 2015 @ 10:22 am
I love the audio and video links… but how do we even get from 1966 to 2013?
(Admittedly I haven't read the linked articles; perhaps the answer(s) lie there?)
[(bgz) Part of the story has to do with a shift in the usage of even over the past few decades. For more on that, see Mark Liberman's 2011 post, "Why does 'even' even mean?"]
richard krummerich said,
December 29, 2015 @ 10:40 am
Urban Dictionary comented on its use on July 3, 2010
Keith DeRose said,
December 29, 2015 @ 11:50 am
I guess instead of:
2: sampler; 6: reasonable; 18: obsessive
I'd go with:
2: a little much, but reasonable enough, I suppose; 6: obsessive; 18: I can't even
DWalker said,
December 29, 2015 @ 1:25 pm
Regarding Dylan: I know he is influential in American popular music; many people worship him; etc. but I never understood his appeal.
For me, his music is not fun, pleasant, enlightening, or exciting to listen to. I just don't get it. (I also don't like to listen to Neil Young, but that's because he can't sing any better than I can. And I wouldn't want to listen to myself sing!)
Oh well; to each his own.
I am wondering if I will ever receive a copy of Rolling Stone magazine (which I subscribe to) that doesn't mention Bob Dylan somewhere in the issue….
KevinM said,
December 29, 2015 @ 1:45 pm
So I guess Ben is a Zimmer Man?
david donnell said,
December 29, 2015 @ 4:28 pm
Similarly off-topic: I always wondered if Bobby Zimmerman ever visited Zimbabwe?
Ken Miner said,
December 29, 2015 @ 6:25 pm
@ DWalker Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, came out in New York City in the 60s, where I was then, with a phony accent and singing Songs of Experience at the ripe old age of twenty. A few of us saw through it (Jean Shepherd for example) and never dreamed he would take off. But he did.
A guy named Bill Wyman had an article on Bob Dylan in the July 28, 2014 issue of New York Magazine in which he remarks that after 1974, "depending on how generously you view his career, there has been either a long decline or decades of remarkable and kaleidoscopic creativity… " (He can't tell which it is. What else is new?)
Charles Antaki said,
December 29, 2015 @ 6:33 pm
I admit to being baffled by this usage – I've never come across it in Brit-speak. (Maybe I live a sheltered life.)
chuck said,
December 29, 2015 @ 6:50 pm
There is also a remarkable, coincidental intimation of the "more cowbell" skit 34 years before it appeared on Saturday Night Live. On two consecutive takes of Visions of Johanna (disc 9, tracks 14 and 15), producer Bob Johnson implores his desire for more cowbell.