I Don’t Belong To Anybody

Sonic Youth “I’m Not There” – Most of the selections on the I’m Not There soundtrack find the artists either going out of their way to do an impression of Bob Dylan as they sing his songs (resulting in atrocities like that goddamn Hold Steady track, which manages to make Craig Finn come across as being more punchable and unlistenable than usual), or performing his music on their best behavior, as if they could be struck down by a bolt of lightning if they approached his material with even a touch of playfulness. Both strategies yield strong results on the compilation, but the single best cut is most certainly Sonic Youth’s take on the long-unreleased title track. The band edit and tighten up Dylan’s rambling original, giving the piece a slightly more urgent pace and a more linear progression from verse to chorus.

I’m fairly convinced that this is one of Thurston Moore’s greatest performances as a vocalist, mainly because the song’s lyrics allow him to play up this thing that’s always been in his voice; this sound of a totally cynical guy getting stunned not just by some amazing thing, but also by the fact that he’s so amazed in the first place. The crucial moment here is when Moore sings the words “her smile is contagious, I was born to love her” with this beautiful, confused sincerity that is totally heart-breaking every time I hear it. It hardly matters at all what he felt when he actually sang it, but it sounds like pure sonic truth to me. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

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