Musical Provenance

I've been listening to music for a little while. Not as long as some, but long enough to realize that the more you know, the more you know that you don't know, if you're familiar with the expression. It seems to me that hit songs tend to go back a long way. When someone records a song, and in so doing makes it famous, it's attributed to them in the popular imagination. It's interesting though, that to a certain extent, the talent of writing a good song and that of achieving acclaim with it as a performer are exclusive of each other. The people who can do both deserve everything they can get their hands on.

I've said on at least a couple of occasions (probably to people who weren't terribly interested in hearing my opinion) that about any great song can be traced back either to the Beatles or Bob Dylan. If the two entities were to have been in the same place to co-write something..