Downloads

Surfing the Web for new music, video and MP3 downloads can be a serious time investment. Tips from Times staff and contributors will help take the drag out of click-and-drag music choices. Some downloads may contain explicit lyrics. All are free, except as noted.

-- CASEY DOLAN

“Thunder on the Mountain”

Bob Dylan

www.slate.com/id/2155056/

A collage of film and video extracts from the life of one of the most minutely documented performers of the last 50 years make up this video premiered on the online magazine Slate. Every chapter of Bob Dylan’s career is represented -- the tousled-haired Greenwich Village folkie enraptured by the verses of Dylan Thomas; the white-faced image of death from “Desire” in the mid-’70s; the surrealist Mad Hatter of “Blonde on Blonde”; the riverboat gambler with the pencil-thin moustache. The song begins with intimations of a Chicago blues but segues into an easy Chuck Berry-like shuffle that lopes along with all pistons running. He presents some startling images: “Gonna raise me an army/Some tough sons of bitches/I’ll recruit my army from the orphanages/I been to St. Herman’s church/Said my religious vows/I’ve sucked the milk out of a thousand cows.”

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“Cosmia”

Joanna Newsom

music.aol.com/artist/joanna-newsom/559376/main

Beginning with a pellucid ostinato on harp and Newsom’s odd voice, a mixture of child’s wonder and old woman’s wisdom, “Cosmia” transports the listener to a personal world unlike any other, the mark of a great artist. Soon, the wistful strings and accordion of Van Dyke Parks enter and the two pastoralists are conversing on rivers and night and the shine of porch light. Parks’ arrangements have the elegiac curve of Vaughan Williams or his beloved Percy Grainger, but odd chromatic passing tones and syncopation remove it from mere pastiche. You have to pay for this, but it is worth every penny. Cost: 99 cents.

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“Crazy”

Ray LaMontagne

www.thecouchsessions.com/media/ray_lamontagne-crazy_gnarls_barkley _cover.mp3

LaMontagne takes the Gnarls Barkley hit, changes some of the chording but keeps the lyrics’ intent on this acoustic guitar version, making it even more personal (intense emotional delivery is his trademark). Nelly Furtado, the Zutons, Charlotte Church and the Kooks have recorded the song. The Raconteurs and Billy Idol have played it live. Even Paris Hilton is said to be doing a version. Are they all crazy?

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