5. Bryan Ferry
I’m not a huge fan of the original. I like Dylan, but it’s a bit relentless and obviously incredibly depressing, apocalyptic and all those things. It’s so bold of Bryan Ferry to basically turn it into a party, all these terrible warnings from Dylan about war and ecological collapse get turned into this celebration. Every time I listen to it I always think, ‘oh, that’s just like now, these waves of annihilation and death and destruction’. And you’re just surfing across the top of it, enjoying the wreckage. I love the glee he takes in describing the end of the world, and the joy with which the band plays and turns it into this party anthem. In The Ruins I talked about how for me brilliant music takes two totally opposing ideas and crams them together to create a mood or a feeling that you can’t get from anything else. The gleeful annihilation of this track I don’t get from very much else. It’s almost like a brand-new emotion and I’m always chasing that.
