Bob Dylan: Teen Plagiarist

I want it that way. Wait, you want what what way?

(NEWSER) - Some lyrics are just so ambiguous you have no idea what you’re singing about when you sing along. Willa Paskin lists 20 “songs that make you go, huh?” on BlackBook :

• “I Want It That Way,” Backstreet Boys: “Make up your minds dudes, is ‘that way’ a good or a bad thing? Or is it anal sex?”
• “Push It,” Salt N’ Pepa: OK, maybe this one isn’t so vague: “Yeah, the ‘it’ in this song is pretty definitively ween.”

Even so, the 'beloved iconoclast' puts together an interesting collection

(NEWSER) - With the announcement of Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart, “smirkers got smirkier”—you try picturing Dylan singing the lyric, “How’d ya like to hang a stocking on a great big coconut tree?” without smirking—but in the end, the collection is interesting, if a bit silly; “a surreal and occasionally rousing collection of gooey holiday ballads,” writes Amanda Petrusich for Pitchfork. More»

Bob Dylan's Christmas album is just the latest in a long line

(NEWSER) - Bob Dylan’s decision to record a Christmas album is certainly ill-advised—“fans may have stuck by him throughout the musically self-destructive late '60s, the God-bothering late '70s, and the Grateful Dead-collaborating-Madonna-imitating mid '80s, but surely even Bob's fans have a limit,” writes John Matthew Hall for the Independent. But Dylan’s not alone; Hall offers up the worst disasters in rock and roll careers, from John Lennon to Michael Jackson: More»

Theater, jazz, poetry collide in East Room event

(NEWSER) - Spoken word, jazz, and theater took the White House by storm last night in what has been called the first presidential poetry jam, the Washington Post reports. “We're here to celebrate the power of words,” President Obama said, adding that his wife is his poet. The jam, Michelle Obama said, was something she had wanted to do “from day one.” More»

Now at Christie's; may fetch $11K

(NEWSER) - Looks like the stars were aligned for Ringo. A 1960 letter written by Paul McCartney sought a drummer for the Beatles two years before Starr joined the Fab Four. The note was discovered folded into a book at a Liverpool yard sale, the AP reports. It was a response to an ad placed by a drummer looking for a band. In the missive, McCartney offered the drummer—whose identity remains unknown—an audition. More»