The Times They Are A Changin'

Remember I told you I begrudgingly signed up with lala.com with the nickname Daffy Duck? Well, it's a good thing I did sign up because lala.com is about to go away, and the only people still allowed on the site are previous subscribers. Because I signed up so I could find Chocolate Coffee for you, I am one of the privileged users who can continue to listen to music on Lala until it is no longer on May 31st. Just about one week from today. You probably already know all about the demise of Lala. But I didn't, and I'll tell you, Daffy D. is a little sad.

I didn't set out to write about Lala this week. I wanted to write about some great road-trip music on an album by Bob Dylan my sister burned for me a while back called Modern Times. I'm on the younger end of the baby boomers, so Bob Dylan, who turned 69 yesterday, (yeah, I know, can you believe it?), was a little too before my time. But when I got this CD from my sister, I put it on in my car one day as I headed down the road. With nothing but freeway ahead of and behind me, I had a chance to find out Bob Dylan is and probably always was, a great song writer, a real poet. And either he's cleaned up his diction, or I just didn't listen carefully enough the first time around, but contrary to my expectations, I could actually make out most of what he's saying on this delightfully upbeat album of R&B songs for geezers from 2006.

As I began to research the lyrics so I could quote a few and sound cool, I went to Lala to find out the name of the songs, which I didn't have since it's a pirated copy of the album. Did I say my sister burned it? I meant to say I found it on the street. I went to Lala to look up the name of the songs on Modern Times, and that's when I found out Lala is going away. The message on their website is short and cryptic. Sometimes I don't appreciate what I have until I don't have it. With Lala, after that one search for Chocolate Coffee when I was writing Song of the Second Winter I never even used it again. But I was still shocked and saddened to see the news of its demise. Yeah, shocked, saddened, and curious. There was no clue as to the reason on the Lala website. So I had to Google Lala. Sounds funny, doesn't it, Google Lala. But really, I did Google Lala. 

 

That's where it gets interesting. Google gave me an array of choices for information about the death of Lala, but I picked usatoday.com because I knew they'd cut to the chase and the story'd be super easy to read. And it was. Here's a quote: "Lala is shutting down, just a few months after Apple purchased the online music service, reads an update on its website". Well, the website doesn't talk about the Apple purchase. But it's usatoday.com, what do you expect, great journalism? What they should have said was, "Lala is shutting down, reads an update on its website, just a few months after Apple purchased the online music service". Didn't those people read, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves? 

 

However poorly it was worded, I did have my answer. But I have to say, as evidenced by the comments below the usatoday.com article about Lala, everybody's a writer these days, and some of them are really good. You can go there and read them if you like. My favorite is the one that simply says "ta ta". The people writing the comments should have jobs writing the articles for usatoday.com. They'd do a better job. 

 

And on the subject of everyone being a writer these days, that brings me back to Bob Dylan, and a time when everyone wasn't a writer. Just writers were writers, and he was and is a damn fine one. And prolific. While I still can, and after getting over the shock of no more Lala as of this time next week, I looked Bob Dylan up on Lala. Opposite the word "songs" is the number 1,127. Opposite the word "albums", 72. Yes, 72. 

Wow, I thought, I want to know more about Bob Dylan. Did you know there is a website called bobdylan.com? The way things are going, I'm pretty sure everyone will have their own website soon. And it turns out Bob's is a pretty good one. You can click on songs and the lyrics come up for free. Oops, once this gets out, Apple may buy his website and start charging. But for now, they're free, my favorite thing in the internet research world. If you want to actually hear the songs, however, you'll have to click on "buy". Yes, sad to say, if you want to play his songs, the poet is charging. A far cry from the little I know about Bob Dylan's anti-consumerism early years.

Whatever I think of Apple buying up Lala, and Bob Dylan selling his songs on the internet, that doesn't take away from what I really wanted to tell you about this week, how much I like Dylan's album Modern Times. I've been enjoying it since I first listened in the car as I cruised on down the freeway. The arrangements are catchy and energizing, but the real treat is in the lyrics. According to brainyquote.com, Bob Dylan said, "I'm speaking for all of us, I'm the spokesman for a generation." Well, he's still speaking for us now, even if it is for a price and we're all geezers. Good for him. More good writers should make a living at what they love and do best.

That's the problem with everyone being a writer these days. The fear of good writers is that everyone being a writer cheapens the value of good writing and makes it harder to make a living at it. But that's another topic for another day. If you want to listen to Modern Times, you'll have to find another free online music provider, (let me know if you find one) or go to Apple's iTunes, and hope the rumor is true they are going to launch an affordable Lala-like subscription music service to take it's place. Or you can pay Bob Dylan. Wasn't it he who said, "And the times they are a changin'." 

© M.E. Rollins