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美国国家公共电台 NPR 'My Fifth Career': Bettye LaVette Reinvents Bob Dylan For Herself

时间:2018-05-21 02:36:12

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(单词翻译)

 

DON GONYEA, HOST:

There's been no shortage of musicians who've covered Bob Dylan songs over the years - Jimi Hendrix, Old Crow Medicine Show, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Chapman. The list could probably go on for a year. A new take on Mr. Dylan's music is from rhythm and blues1 powerhouse Bettye LaVette.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THINGS HAVE CHANGED")

BETTYE LAVETTE: (Singing) In a minute now, I'm expecting all hell to break loose. People are crazy...

GONYEA: This is Bettye LaVette's first album on a major label in 30 years. It's all Dylan, and it's called "Things Have Changed." Bettye LaVette joins me now from the studios of W Biggio in Newark, New Jersey2.

Ms. LaVette, welcome to the program.

LAVETTTE: Thank you, Don. I'm glad to be here with you.

GONYEA: So I should actually begin with full disclosure here. I am a bit of a Bob Dylan obsessive3, and I'm quite certain that most of the songs that you've chosen won't be familiar at all to people who aren't Dylan geeks like me. They're not the old iconic Dylan anthems4 or chesnuts, for the most part at least. Why go in that direction?

LAVETTTE: Well, I didn't choose a direction. I didn't have any relationship with the songs before, which is a very good thing because they weren't being changed at all to me. They were the way that I heard them and as I've been telling people when they say the word, cover - well, it kind of insulting to me because I've worked on 'em so hard, and all you have to do to cover a tune5 is listen to the record and just repeat it. But when you interpret a song, you have to find your own way into it and find your own meaning. And with Bob Dylan, it was quite a joy to understand what he meant before I could say what I meant.

GONYEA: I've seen you describe Dylan's words as not being pretty. You say they're more practical or they're more logical. Explain what you're saying there.

LAVETTTE: Well, I said that because he's often called a poet. A poet, as I know a poet to be tends to speak in beautiful terms, and he does speak practically and in prose, and I didn't find anything really pretty, per se, about the lyrics6. I did find some pretty melodies though, so I softened7 the presentation of the lyrics like in "Emotionally Yours" and found things that I had heretofore never heard from Bob.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EMOTIONALLY YOURS ")

LAVETTTE: (Singing) Come baby, find me, come baby, remind me of where I once begun.

He doesn't act and sound the way he feels. He just says, these are my words, and I'm very hurt. But he never sounds that way.

GONYEA: Right.

LAVETTTE: And you know how I am. I sound hurt all the time on Happy Birthday or whatever (laughter)...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EMOTIONALLY YOURS")

LAVETTTE: (Singing) I will always be emotionally yours.

GONYEA: So that song, "Emotionally Yours," that's one that I sometimes play for people when they tell me they don't like Bob Dylan. I guess - you know what I'm getting at when I do that? I guess that's what I hear in your voice as well.

LAVETTTE: That's kind of what I present at first. You have to study him and hunt him down to find this. That's why I want to talk with him so bad. I want to see if I can make him cry.

GONYEA: Have you met?

LAVETTTE: Not really. We've kissed.

(LAUGHTER)

LAVETTTE: I was in Italy on the same festival that he was on, and security would not let anyone out of their dressing8 room. And I said, well, why? And they said, because Mr. Dylan is going on the stage. And I'm like, well, I don't care. Let me out of my dressing room. So I come out of my dressing room, and I'm angry because he's got my band and me and everybody trapped while he takes 50 steps to the stage. So I'm walking along the same path he is and on the other side of the room. And I said, hey, Robert Dylan. And he was walking with his bass9 player and his bass player mouthed to him, that's Betty LaVette. He walked over to me, took my face in both his hands, kissed me dead on the mouth and walked on the stage, so that's what we've done thus far.

GONYEA: That's a nice moment. So I want to talk to you about the song "Mama, You've Been On My Mind." First, we're going to play just a bit of Dylan's version of it. Then we'll listen to yours.

LAVETTTE: Ok.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAMA, YOU'VE BEEN ON MY MIND")

BOB DYLAN: (Singing) I don't mean trouble, please don't put me down or get upset, I am not pleading or saying I can't forget you, I do not pace the floor bowed down and bent10, but yet, Mama, you been on my mind...

GONYEA: No mistaking that Dylan voice there.

So when he sings this song, it's about a lover who is far away or maybe gone completely but who keeps intruding11 on his thoughts. But your version, Bettye LaVette, of "Mama, You've Been On My Mind" is quite literally12 about your mother.

LAVETTTE: It is. And all those lyrics seem to apply to my younger life and how my mother literally did not know where I'd be waking up tomorrow and how she'd stay up sometimes, I'm sure, all night, worrying about me. I was either in another state or, certainly, in another city, and it - I immediately, I met - not for one second, did I think about anything else but that. That came into my mind immediately.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAMA, YOU'VE BEEN ON MY MIND")

LAVETTTE: (Singing) Although cause you trouble, you didn't put me down or get upset, and I ain't pleading or saying I can't forget, You used to pace the floor bowed down and bent, but yet, Mama you been on my mind...

GONYEA: If you don't mind, I'd like to talk a little bit about your earlier career. You started out as a teen star in the early 1960s. Your career, eventually, kind of, got off track. You struggled a great deal in that period with career and with money and even with life, in some ways. Did you think you were done?

LAVETTTE: Well, that's why this is my fifth career. Every time one of those records charted and I was zoomed13 around the world and brought back, I thought I was done each time. I've had no big problems with life or living. Someone has always liked me and someone is always willing to help me try and be the best or biggest Bettye LaVette I could be, so I've been fortunate on the friend side and the help side. It's just the industry that has had a difficult time putting me wherever they wanted me to be. They never seem to know. They won't accept the fact that I'm a singer. They want me to be a kind of singer, and so we've been at odds14 with that. But slowly, certainly since - in these last 10 years, in this fifth career, I've been being accepted on many different fronts and it always been my dream to be - to have what I call a Ray Charles audience - young, old, black, white, American, foreign, whatever.

GONYEA: You said you felt some pressure from the industry to kind of pigeonhole15 you. Where were they trying to put you?

LAVETTTE: Well, they started up trying to make me sound like a girl. I really thought, at one point, I could sound like Doris Day, and it took me a long time to accept the fact that I sound more like James Brown. And now I'm trying to convince everybody else that it's OK for me to sound (laughter) like James Brown (laughter) even though I'm little and I'm a girl.

GONYEA: You weren't Doris Day. You also weren't The Supremes, and you weren't...

LAVETTTE: Well, that's what I mean when I say, (laughter) Doris Day. They all sounded either like they came from church or like girls, and I didn't come from church, and I really don't sound very much like girls as we know girls to sound.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'")

LAVETTTE: (singing) Listen senators and congressmen, please heed16 the call...

GONYEA: That is Bettye LaVette. Her latest album is "Things Have Changed."

Bettye LaVette, thank you very much for talking to us.

LAVETTTE: Thank you so much for talking with me. I can't wait to meet you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'")

LAVETTTE: (Singing) 'Cause a one that gets hurt is a one who is stalled...


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 blues blues     
n.抑郁,沮丧;布鲁斯音乐
参考例句:
  • She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
  • He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。
2 jersey Lp5zzo     
n.运动衫
参考例句:
  • He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
  • They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致,都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。
3 obsessive eIYxs     
adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的
参考例句:
  • Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
  • He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。
4 anthems e63efc85a8384929b8067b0278b921b5     
n.赞美诗( anthem的名词复数 );圣歌;赞歌;颂歌
参考例句:
  • They usually play the national anthems of the teams at the beginning of a big match. 在大型赛事开始前,他们通常演奏参赛国国歌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Rise please, rise for the anthems of & . 请全体起立,奏和两国国歌。 来自互联网
5 tune NmnwW     
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整
参考例句:
  • He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子,并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
  • The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。
6 lyrics ko5zoz     
n.歌词
参考例句:
  • music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
  • The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。
7 softened 19151c4e3297eb1618bed6a05d92b4fe     
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰
参考例句:
  • His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
  • The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。
8 dressing 1uOzJG     
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料
参考例句:
  • Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
  • The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。
9 bass APUyY     
n.男低音(歌手);低音乐器;低音大提琴
参考例句:
  • He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
  • The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。
10 bent QQ8yD     
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的
参考例句:
  • He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
  • We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。
11 intruding b3cc8c3083aff94e34af3912721bddd7     
v.侵入,侵扰,打扰( intrude的现在分词);把…强加于
参考例句:
  • Does he find his new celebrity intruding on his private life? 他是否感觉到他最近的成名侵扰了他的私生活?
  • After a few hours of fierce fighting,we saw the intruding bandits off. 经过几小时的激烈战斗,我们赶走了入侵的匪徒。 来自《简明英汉词典》
12 literally 28Wzv     
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
参考例句:
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
13 zoomed 7d2196a2c3b9cad9d8899e8add247521     
v.(飞机、汽车等)急速移动( zoom的过去式 );(价格、费用等)急升,猛涨
参考例句:
  • Traffic zoomed past us. 车辆从我们身边疾驰而过。
  • Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停,喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
14 odds n5czT     
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别
参考例句:
  • The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
  • Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗?
15 pigeonhole tlczdr     
n.鸽舍出入口;v.把...归类
参考例句:
  • The pigeonhole principle is an important principle in combinatorics.鸽巢原理是组合学中一个非常重要的原理。
  • I don't want to be pigeonholed as a kids' presenter.我不想被归类为儿童节目主持人。
16 heed ldQzi     
v.注意,留意;n.注意,留心
参考例句:
  • You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
  • For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。

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