How would you breathe in this sing (subterranean homesick blues)

This is like a rap song. I can't take a break big enough for the verse, and I can't breathe quickly enough between lines.

How do you do it?

[video=youtube;O2ir7yWfTmE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2ir7yWfTmE

Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine

I'm on the pavement, thinking about the government

The man in the trench coat, badge out, laid off

Says "He's got a bad cough, wants to get it paid off"

Look out kid, it's somethin' you did

God knows when but you're doin' it again

You better duck down the alley way, lookin' for a new friend

The man in the coon-skin cap, in the big pen

Wants eleven dollar bills, you only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot face full of black soot

Talkin' that the heat put, plants in the bed but

The phone's tapped anyway, Maggie says that many say

"They must bust in early May, orders from the D.A"

Look out kid, don't matter what you did

But walk on your tip toes don't tie no bows

Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose

Keep a clean nose, watch the plain clothes

You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

Is this YOU? Sounds great!!!

I don't hear any specific problems with running out of breath. Great work--keep dong this stuff.

no no it's not me. the original dylan isn't on youtube - guess it was pulled for copyright. this was the only version i could find that was similar to the original.

Oh, okay then. With a song like this I think you need to do three things, in this order:

1. Take the lyric sheet and talk through it, noting where you will take breaths (mark up the sheet, so you can see the breathing spots)

2. Practice taking very small, quick breaths (someone recently posted here about Enrico Caruso's comment that you should feel as though you are taking a thimble of breath into your lower back--that's the quick breath feeling)

3. Memorize the lyrics (the patterns must live in your head, so that you feel the rhythm internally)

This can be done,but it requires a different approach. I do Springsteen's Open All Night in my solo shows, which is another quick talking blues, and it took me a while to get it under control.

Yeah, what Jack said! I watched an interview with Sinatra once and his whole point was about how singing is learning to vocalize, or learn the songs properly so you can find the breathing points in the breaks so it seems to people like you are never even taking breaths.

Now a days singers take breathing for granted with software that can create multiple takes and even remove harsh breath intakes from the recordings...then you go see them live and they sound poorly and breathy. I hate when I see a "good" artist doing intimate acoustic sets and you hear that breath in between phrases in the microphone! Learn to breathe already!

A good example of poor breathing technique is that song "What I got", when they go to the "rappy" part of the song, they overdub in the studio so one voice covers the other, then you see them live and that whole part sucks!!! It kills me!

Rod

I was gonna say, WOW! That's IMPRESSIVE Duke! Shame it's not you but you COULD do it. We thought it was you afterall, eh? lol

It IS hard to find spaces to breathe...but can you hear when the guy's doing it? Can you just copy him? That's what I've always done...

I tried singing along with this one, as I do know it pretty well, and I was fine until "the man in the 'coon skin cap" when I ran out of air for the first time...but yeah, you don't need to be an amazingly technical or accomplished singer to do this...Bob did it, ya know? Not to diminish his great Bobness, but we all know he's not a hugely trained opera type, of course.

Not possible, not possible. No one can diminish his Bobness. It is grand, it is eternal, it is a beacon of hope in this processed, autotuned world.

i dont like robert zimmerman's acoustic stuff. I like his electric stuff - highway revisited, hurricane, maggies farm. I don't like his songs about women either. But his angry songs are {censored}in angry man. I'd say they're angrier than Rage Against the Machine for sure.

maggies farm, hurricane...woah, u can hear the hate and loathing ooze from those tunes.

i also enjoy his existentialist songs like watchtower, tangled up in blue

I like Tangled Up in Blue...I DO like some of his songs about women...Visions of Johanna...even Lay Lady Lay although it is SO different from his other stuff. lol

LOL@Jersey, so true!