ABSTRACT
Estrellita composed most of the lyrics here on a New Year’s eve/day, which calls to mind a story Leonard Cohen (one of Estrellita’s favorites) once told about Bob Dylan:
Dylan said to me, “I like this song you wrote called ‘Hallelujah.’” In fact, he started doing it in concert. He said, “How long did that take you to write?” And I said, “Oh, the best part of two years.” He said, “Two years?” Kinda shocked. And then we started talking about a song of his called “I And I” from Infidels. I said, “How long did you take to write that.” He said, “Ohh, 15 minutes.” I almost fell off my chair. Bob just laughed.
Estrellita likes Dylan too and she sent First a note protesting her home radio station’s facetious 70th Birthday tribute to Dylan. She was put out, in particular, by “absurd” conflations of Paul Simon and Dylan …wherein Simon is quoted as saying people always compared him to Bob Dylan (in his dreams: no one could compare the two)… Simon was a pop star, a gifted one, who either never had an edge or softened it all the time for commercial success. Simon undersold his audience …
And what’s worse: “Simon mispronounces Graceland throughout his hit song, but Elvis is buried there!”