Tag Archives: Jack Beck

Make You Feel My Love–

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Jack gets in over the wire again in time – –

I thought I’d heard most all of Bob Dylan’s songs, but one seems to have escaped me.

Regular readers of this blog or listeners to my weekly radio show will know that I’m a big fan of Mr. Zimmerman and have been ever since his first album appeared in the early 1960s.

I was always aware that he adopted British folk song melodies as the carriers for many of his most popular early songs, and that’s partly what first intrigued me about him. But then I heard ‘Blind Willie McTell,’ where he adapted the melody of ‘St. James Infirmary’ to make my very favorite song by him. That was a twist because the origins of ‘St James’ were in Britain!

I love that like many Americans he was able to re-invent himself and has continued to do that throughout his life.

His guitar accompaniments were very basic back when he arrived in New York, but they have become much more sophisticated since then – which brings me back to this song – –

A good friend suggested I should listen to “Make me feel your Love,” sung by Joan Osborne, and I was astonished. I had never heard of her, but it was great. Then I saw it had been written by Bob! The chord sequence behind the words is incredible – a descending series, but not predictable.

Portrait of American singer-songwriter Joan Osborne, Haarlem, Netherlands, 26th March 2018. (Photo by Paul Bergen/Redferns)

The lyrics are very different from anything else I have heard from him and seem very heartfelt.

As someone once said – ‘The answer, my Friend – – –

Take a listen…

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack

All That Glisters Is Not —

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Jack just makes it again – –

Wendy and I had a dear elderly friend whose son lived with her. After she died, he discovered she had been regularly scammed on the phone. A charitable thing, donating to a worthy cause again and again over time, had swindled them out of almost all her hard won savings.

But things are much more sophisticated now, and there are many more doors to be opened!

A few weeks ago we decided to reclaim our Netflix account so we could watch a few things. Then a couple of days ago I got an email, supposedly from them saying that I needed to update our payment details.

Something I have learned is to check two things – the title of the email subject carefully and the email address it came from. So I did –

Netflix doesn’t have three capital letters and they don’t normally email from a church office address! The return address literally said centralbaptist.

Bad form, scammers. Or perhaps some choirboy sneaked into the office or someone else created the email address randomly?

There are many vulnerable folks out there just ripe for the pickings, and I worry about them. Wendy and I got scammed a couple of years ago on a Black Friday deal—although we got our money back when we realized our amazing deal was never coming.

So if you see any signs of this going on within your family or friends pass on my advice – check and double check, or just ignore. Hover over the sending email. Compare spellings. And if anyone is Fed Exing a check instead of using the post office, stop right there. (Scammers who use the US Mail face felony penalties.)

It’s a silly world full of nice people and scammers out there. Know the difference.

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack