New release: “In the Hands of Young Children”

A couple of years ago, we were given a challenge by our friend, songwriter, singer, curator and general cultural dynamo, MC Hansen, to perform a set of Bob Dylan songs as part of a series of 80th birthday celebrations being held at various venues around the country. Our first thought was that we had no idea how to approach the assignment, and so we sort of hedged a bit. Then COVID arrived, laying the entire arts sector into a coma and the idea got moved from the too-hard pile and all the way to the very back of the not-going-to-happen shelf. But some kind of seed had been planted in our minds, so when MC asked us again when the pandemic was over, we just kind of knew what we were going to do, without really having spent any time thinking about it. We would approach the songs as we would any other traditional song; forget that the bloke who had written them was still alive, and indeed a massive cultural icon for our parents generation and by extension us as well, and just sing the songs and see what happened.

And we absolutely bloody loved them.

Traditional songs often have a sort of telegraphic “show don’t tell” approach to them. Like the Icelandic sagas, or a Hollywood movie, they don’t tell you people are sad, they just show them crying. They tell you what William said to Mary as he left her on the beach, and leave you to judge how he was feeling. They describe what Prince Heathen did to the lady in her garden fair, and leave you to draw whatever moral conclusions you will. And Dylan’s lyrics are just such an effortless extension of this tradition, that performing them was like putting on gloves.

So we decided to record a few of our favourites from the concert, and put them out on a little digital release – again, here on the big man’s birthday. “In the Hands of Young Children” will be out on all major streaming platforms on may 24th. Happy birthday Bob! And congrats on being well on your way to becoming an honorary member of that great college of bards of the past: “Anon.”