Richard Hogan: From Bob Dylan to Boyzone — what I've learned from music documentaries

Richard Hogan: More of a folk troubadour than a squeaky-clean vocal star

I have had many contradictory experiences in my life. There was that time I went to the Michelin Star restaurant Chapter One and grabbed a McDonald’s on the way home.

Another time, as a recalcitrant teen, I took part in a ‘Meat is Murder’ march while clad in my cool leather jacket and 14-hole oxblood Docs.

More recently, in traffic, I thought a woman was trying to tell me that she loved my latest book. She was mouthing something to me from her car. 

I was nodding graciously, ‘Thank You’, but, in reality, she was telling me the lights had changed. Vainglorious lout!

Last Sunday night was probably one of my most confounding experiences. I went to see A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic. Then, when I got home, my wife put on the Boyzone documentary, No Matter What.

Like most Irish people having to be convinced of a second cup of tea, I pretended I had no interest and sat down and started to watch it. I mean, I had just watched a movie about a musical genius; a Nobel prize winner.

So how could I endure this Louis Walsh fantasy nightmare rubbish? The man whose self-confessed favourite song is the ‘Hucklebuck’?

I’m a musical snob. I know this about myself. I have worked hard on self-improvement. Nothing seems to take.

My wife has long been a fan of ‘the boys’. I have often looked at her, incredulously, as she belts out all the lyrics to some early Boyzone muzak, “I keep working my way back to you babe, with a burning love inside”.

A spice bag will do that to you! But I’ll get to ‘the boys’ later.

I have been a fan of Bob Dylan ever since I snuck into my eldest brother’s room, and stared at this mercurial-looking guy in a tanned suede jacket and clutching the arm of some girl walking down a New York street.

I remember placing it carefully on the turnstile, the needle crackling and then the voice: Sand and glue. Like the dirt under a farmer’s boot.

It reached out to me and whacked me in the rag-and-bone shop of the heart. And, quite simply, I have never been the same since.

Few things have done this to me in my life. TS Eliot’s Prufrock: Same deal, whack.

“Let us go, then, you and I

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table.”

My god. I read those lines over and over again.

No one has ever spoken to me so directly. The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger: Same thing. Of course, everything John Lennon sang.

As the Danish Prince jokes; “Words, words, words”. I have always loved them. Always taken them very seriously. Shakespeare, too: My hero.

Dylan was like the alchemy of all these things I loved. There was Shakespeare in his words: Drama, love, chaos, and humour.

I loved John Lennon’s voice, but try to sing ‘Mr Postman’. It’s impossible. But Dylan? I could give it a go. 

And another thing about his songs: When you sat down to play them, the simplicity of what he was doing was magical.

I still remember hearing those first few songs on the Freewheelin’ album: ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ and ‘Girl From the North Country’. Once again, whack.

Those opening lines:

“If you’re travelling the north country fair

Where the wind hits heavy on the borderline.”

Beautiful. It has remained one of my favourite songs through life. Timothee Chalamet does an incredible job as a young, self-obsessed Bob Dylan, heading straight towards the bright lights of destiny.

A Complete Unknown was magnificent. And then I watched the Boyzone documentary.

David Brent’s dance for charity on The Office television show probably wasn’t as cringe-inducing as that clip of them dancing on The Late Late Show.

I have long been a critic of shows like X Factor. Oh, I have watched them, like everyone else. 

But my hypocrisy aside, I have often contemplated the toll these shows take on young, everyday children who are offered a glimpse of paradise.

Simon Cowell and Co, shovelling muzak down the gobs of eager teens and making money in the process: That’s what it’s about.

But what about the collateral carnage when it all goes belly-up? When the dream is over. Which, in most cases, is pretty quickly.

Longevity is found in meaningful songs, not in chip wrapper. Cowell and Walsh suck the marrow and then move on to the next musical travesty.

Like one of those hostile company takeovers, they acquire the attention of children for a brief moment, bleed it dry, and then: ‘Next’.

I’m thinking of HearSay: 20 months and then gone. I was struck by Boyzone member Mikey Graham, and the impact the whole experience had on his mental health. 

I have often wondered about all those teens who were put on television and given their dream for about two hours and then are back stacking shelves in Tesco.

Were there any mental-health and welfare checks on those children, shoved in to the limelight for a brief moment and, then, obscurity again? 

The recent, tragic death of Liam Payne brings it all in to focus. It was hard to watch Graham talk about how he was treated by Walsh, who had zero interest in him, because the money was somewhere else.

The sincerity of the boys, the innocence and honesty of them, juxtaposed with the manoeuvring of Walsh was fascinating to watch.

The emotion the boys displayed talking about Stephen Gately’s forced public declaration of his sexuality made for difficult viewing. 

It was juxtaposed with the venal and disgustingly insensitive delighted Walsh displayed at Stephen getting the front page. I found it very unsettling.

There might not have been a Nobel prize-winning songwriter among them, but they had their own thing going on and they were decent people. Maybe that’s enough.

Maybe making people happy is enough. Maybe my snobbery is gone.