Ian Tyson vs. Bob Dylan vs. The Road to Las Cruces

June 1, 2018
   I was cleaning out my unfinished drafts this morning and found this intriguing strand of an idea which I poached from an article:

   Ian Tyson has strong words about Bob Dylan, whom many consider America’s greatest songwriter. “He’s a genius, but he abuses it a lot. He’s an asshole genius.”

Daily Whip Out: "The Nobel Outlaw"

   Tyson says the best concert he ever saw was a Mark Knopfler show that also featured Dylan as the headline act, in the Calgary Saddledome in October 2012. “I am a huge Mark Knopfler fan,” Tyson says. “He’s as good as it gets, and he was wonderful. He has so much respect and love for the Celtic traditions. That’s where my music comes from. The Celtic songs from the Scots and the Irish got distilled down into cowboy songs.”

   But Tyson says Dylan’s performance put a damper on the evening. “Dylan came on and fucked it all up,” the Canadian cowboy says. “That little twerp. He turned up the sound — typical fucking Dylan.”

   Then he played “A Road to Las Cruces" — a song “we get asked for a lot in the West.” The wistful song is on Tyson’s 2005 album Songs from the Gravel Road. 

Does the wind still blow in New Mexico?
Silver candelabras yet shine
Is Catherine still the Queen of El Paso
Never to be yours, never to be mine
Out of reach like the pale moon that shines
On the road to Las Cruces 

—Ian Tyson

"Road to Las Cruces"

   Not sure why I saved this, or where it was going, but I did make a note to myself:

"A petty grudge makes the grudgee seem smaller."
—Old Vaquero Saying