Talk:John Brown (song)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 09:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Making a start. Initial comments to follow shortly. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Comments
First read done. Clearly in good shape: a few points of clarity and MoS which, I hope, won't take too much doing. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:23, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : I'm not totally sure what included in sessions for... means. Obviously, it wasn't released on any of these albums, but are we saying that Dylan never played it with a band at all?
 * He didn't record it in any of the sessions for his own albums. He did record it for Witmark, but as our article on The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 puts it, "The recordings for the Leeds and Witmark demos were never intended for public consumption, but were made to sell Dylan's songs to other artists." The 1960s live recordings were issued much later (2005 and 2018, I think.) BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:03, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Might be clearer to frame the sentence in the positive: talk about when he did play/record it, rather than when he didn't? UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I've reworded and rearranged. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks better: any reason not to use the active? (rather than, to write "Dylan used a pseudonym ... issues; he...") UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Re-re-worded. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Separately, could easily cut "it" from "it was released".
 * Done. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:03, 21 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : not ideal to start a paragraph with a pronoun: paragraphs are meant to be self-contained ideas, but starting in this way makes the paragraph depend on the one that preceded it.
 * Reworded and rearranged. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : this could be more concise: e.g.
 * On which: I'm not clear on what "Reuben's Train" is (a folk song?) or what "the longer version from..." means in this context.
 * Amended to try and address the two points above. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Is it spelt Reuben or Rueben? Article and biblio disagree. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The redirect from "900 Miles" to "500 miles" threw me at first. I see the EFN now, though missed it in the sea of blue on first read. It's a little out of scope, but suggest adding that information to the article on "500 Miles" so that readers don't think they've been sent to the wrong place?
 * I added something there. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:10, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * On which: could the SFNM template be used for consecutive SFNs, to improve readability?
 * Never heard of that before. Used in the place I could. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : I would give a little context to this song (e.g. date and genre).
 * Per MOS:SLASH, when using / to mark lines of poetry, we put a space on each side:
 * : comma after America.
 * Amended per the two points above. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : can or should the Vietnam War be worked into this somehow?
 * I looked again at Margotin & Guesdon, Heylin (2009), Beviglia, Shelton, and Harvey, and, somewhat surprisingly, none of them refer to the Vietnam War. Marqusee wrote that "Dylan told the story of Ron Kovic—disabled Vietnam veteran, antiwar Crusader and author of Born on the Fourth of July—some seven years before Kovic lived through the nightmare and drew the lesson of the song from his own experience" but I tend toward not mentioning the War in the article. 22:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I think it's tricky either way: it seems like an obvious thing to put in the Background section (that the Vietnam War happened and that Dylan was/became known as an anti-war singer), and the reference to "a contemporary soldier" is slightly puzzling unless readers know that there was a war on in which such a soldier could be maimed. On the other hand, if no secondary source has actually made the join, there's an OR/SYNTH concern. It sounds like your solution is reasonable given the sources available. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:35, 27 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The article seems quite inconsistent as to who gets an introduction ("authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon") and who doesn't ("In a live May 1963 radio interview with Studs Terkel").
 * : perhaps out of scope, but that seems... not exactly kosher.
 * : comma after album, but this sentence might be better split for readability anyway.
 * : I know it's Dylan, but given that we generally assume song lyrics to be reasonably fixed, would this be better phrased the other way: something like "that Dylan maintained a consistent set of lyrics, with the exception of the eighth [and final?] verse [which...?]"
 * I've pretty much used your suggested wording, and added in that Dylan frequently reworks his songs both in the studio and in concert. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : as its subject is the soldier, I assume we mean it (that is, he said the song was like the novel), or else to the protagonist of... (that is, he said the song was like a character in the book). Could we introduce that novel and the points of similarity a little?
 * Amended. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : reads a bit oddly, and I notice that we haven't included "bluegrass" in the genres of the song. We also haven't mentioned the Unplugged album in the body text yet.
 * Amended. I'm not sure that one critic's comment on a particular version deserves adding to the infobox for genres, but I do tend to be harsher on the incusion of genres than many pther editors. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * : it might help to have that final line or final verse quoted somewhere.
 * I've added a mention of the content of the line; just quoting "And he dropped his medals down into her hand" probably wouldn't add much, but I'm always open to ideas. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * One option would be to put the last verse into a quote box, which would effectively add an illustration to what is a fairly sparsely illustrated article. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Could wikilink British Army, jingoism and pathos (separately, but I'd read that article).
 * : as we've had a lot of nouns, better as "The website lists..."
 * : is he Garcia or Dylan?
 * Credits: as in your recent FAC, I'd suggest reworking into simple citations for each individual.
 * I bet got tired of that joke.
 * In the sources, we normally capitalise the first word after a colon: e.g. . A few other oddities: e.g..
 * I've amended the articel per the points from the six bullet points above. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Image checks nicely; could consider adding another one further down, perhaps under "Live performances".
 * I couldn't find another image that felt very relevant. There are no free-to-use pics from 1987 or from shows where he performed the song, as far as I can tell. There are a couple of pictures available from 2012; maybe the one of him and the band with a caption that this was the most recent year he has perfomed the song? BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't hurt; see comment about medals verse above. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Spot checks
Could you please provide the original source material to support:


 * (Margotin & Guesdon 2022, p. 142)
 * "At the time, Dylan commonly enriched his writing and composition by borrowing from the vast reservoir of traditional songs. 'John Brown' was no exception." BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * (Trager 2004, p. 84.)
 * "Broadside Ballads, Volume 1 Various Artists Folkways Records LP FH-5301. Released 1963."; Under the cover of his 'Blind Boy Grunt' moniker for contractual reasons (he was signed with Columbia Records at the time), Dylan performs a few early rarities: 'John Brown'..." (the book is available for loan for registered users on archive.org) BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * (Beviglia 2013, p. 15.)
 * "'John Brown' is a paradox in that it is a tale told brutally and without restraint, yet in so doing it ultimately displays the empathetic qualities of its creator." (Actually p. 25 in the edition available on archive.org; I've amended the ISBN for that edition and the page references. Noty sure if I just mis-typed them or had looked at a different edition.) BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Happy with all of these: are there any other citations to Beviglia that would be worth a check? I know I often copy-paste references when writing, so a mistake or typo in one can knock on further down the article. <b style="color:#7F007F">UndercoverClassicist</b> T·C 10:06, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

It's taken longer than I expected to find the time to address your comments,. Hopefullly the article is getting there. Let me know about anything that needs further work. Many thanks. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I think we're probably there; I'll do a proper check against the criteria over the next few days. <b style="color:#7F007F">UndercoverClassicist</b> T·C 21:12, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Criteria
Good Article Status - Review Criteria   		A good article is&mdash; <ol> <li>:</li>
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Review
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Result
{| class="wikitable" ! Result !! Notes
 * || Excellent work: another article that takes us through one of Dylan's less well-known works, but no less interesting or authoritative for that. <b style="color:#7F007F">UndercoverClassicist</b> T·C 13:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)|}
 * || Excellent work: another article that takes us through one of Dylan's less well-known works, but no less interesting or authoritative for that. <b style="color:#7F007F">UndercoverClassicist</b> T·C 13:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)|}