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Happy
Birthday, Bob
By
Wade Hudson
How
can one who has been so denigrated by so many detractors for so long now be so
revered? Whatever the reasons, the ironic elevation of Bob Dylan is a source of
hope. If a voice such as Dylan's can enter the mainstream, other victories are
possible as well.
When
Dylan sang "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues," a satire of
anti-Communist hysteria, at the rehearsal for the Ed Sullivan Show in the early
Sixties, Sullivan forbid him to sing the song. Dylan walked away, never to
appear on prime time for decades. During the Persian Gulf Massacre, however, he
sang "Masters of War" live on the Grammy Awards show and no one said a
word.
One
critic once advised Punk Rockers who thought that they were Angry Young Men to
listen to early Dylan if they wanted to see anger expressed in music.
"Masters of War" is one such example of Dylan's rage. This song
concludes:
Let
me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
...
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
Dylan
often performs "Masters of War" during his concerts. On his last tour,
his appearance in San Francisco coincided with the War on Afghanistan and he
unified the show with anti-war themes. Contrary to appearances, Dylan has
remained remarkably consistent throughout his career.
The
enduring magic of Dylan may be rooted in the fact that over time, he seemed to
go through various "stages" in more or less the same sequence as did
so many people of his generation, articulating their thoughts and feelings for
them during each stage, thereby helping them make sense of life. Through it all,
he's reminded everyone that "he not busy being born is busy dying."
His
early political period is expressed most forcefully in his third album,
"The Times They Are A-Changin'." This album is relentless. No humor
lightens the mood, as was the case with his first two albums.
In
a prescient insight into what became a torrent of runaway factories, "North
Country Blues" laments the closing of a mine.
They
complained in the East,
They are paying too high.
They say that your ore ain't worth digging.
That it's much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing.
"Only
a Pawn in Their Game" addresses the underlying economic interests that
manipulate racism.
A
South politician preaches to the poor white man,
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
The
entire album drives home one powerful point after another.
In
his next album, "Another Side of Bob Dylan," choosing not to be a
predictable mouthpiece for the Movement, his work moved into a more personal
realm. He announced, "I'd become my enemy/ In the instant that I
preach," and rejoiced in feeling, "I'm younger than that now,"
harkening back to Jesus affirming that only those who are like children shall
enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Many
politicos renounced the album, but the Sixties feminist movement adopted
"It Ain't Me Babe" as the title of its first newsletter, for that song
vehemently renounced traditional gender roles.
You
say you're lookin' for someone
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe.
Many
listeners never grasped the unorthodox take on love reflected in that song. When
Johnny and June Carter Cash sang the song at the Madison Square Garden tribute
to Dylan on the 30th anniversary of his first album, one critic expressed
puzzlement at why and how a happily married couple would sing such a song!
The
next year, 1965, with "Bringing It All Back Home," Dylan went
electric, returning to his high-school roots in blues-based rock-and-roll. The
electrification alienated more fans.
With
this album, Dylan gave voice to the underlying spiritual force that had
motivated him from the beginning. With incredible poetic beauty, he affirmed
creative self-expression rooted in mystical awe, often drug-induced - again
reflecting cultural trends. The album opens with the searing "Subterranean
Homesick Blues." "Twenty years of schoolin'/ And they put you on the
day shift." "Maggie says that many say/ They must bust in early May/
Orders from the D. A./ Look out kid." The rejection of "straight"
life is even more clear in "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no
more."
Side
Two of "Bringing It All Back Home" may be the most incredible sequence
of songs on all of Dylan's records. It begins with the ecstatic joy of "Mr.
Tambourine Man."
Then
take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
"The
Gates of Eden" is a lyrical affirmation of rooting one's beliefs in a
utopian vision.
Relationships
of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden
"It's
Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" may capture Dylan's spirit better than any
other song.
Advertising
signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
...
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
...
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But
I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
During
the post-Watergate era and President's Nixon's resignation, Dylan toured with
The Band and would bring down the house with what seemed to be the prophetic
line "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," "Even the president
of the United States/ Sometimes must have/ To stand naked."
As
is often the case with Dylan, he concludes "Bringing It All Back Home"
with a song, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," that sums up the album.
And the last stanza sums up the song.
Leave
your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Dylan's
biggest hit, "Like A Rolling Stone," was the single from his next
album, "Highway 61 Revisited." But once again, he apparently chose to
make his strongest statement with the last song on the album, "Desolation
Row," which affirms the value of being vulnerable and willing to endure the
risks that result from living "outside the Law," among misfits and
rebels.
Now
at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
...
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
In
"Blonde on Blonde," Dylan led his audience more deeply into the joys
and risks associated with drug-induced abandon. "Everybody must get
stoned" (a double-entendre not missed by all Protestant ministers).
"Louise holds a handful of rain." "An' like a fool I mixed them/
An' it strangled up my mind." "I filled up my shoe."
"I never asked for your crutch,/ Now don't ask for mine."
At
a concert in Berkeley prior to the release of this surrealistic album, the
audience responded most strongly to the following phrase from "Visions of
Johanna," which humorously refers back to the "hard traveling" he
affirmed on his first album in "Song to Woody."
Inside
the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
In
"I Want You," Dylan continued his critique of conventional notions of
romance, with the line:
Now
all my fathers, they've gone down
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.
As
has happened a number of times when other performers interpret a Dylan song and
apparently can't handle the strong content, Tori Amos once simply deleted this
line when she performed the song. Leon Russell, for another example, excluded
the challenging conclusion of "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall":
Then
I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin'...
As
would happen so often in that era, Dylan's manic trip crashed in a near disaster
-- a serious motorcycle accident. In 1966, he recuperated by "going to the
country," as did legions of others in the late 60s and early 70s. This
period produced a series of Country-influenced albums that in turn gave a major
boost to Country music. Many fans once again fell by the wayside, puzzled by
this latest twist, unable to appreciate that rock-and-roll was a fusion of blues
and country music and Dylan was merely amplifying his roots.
The
greatest shock was yet to come. In 1979, Dylan booked a two-week series of shows
in the relatively small Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, opened with gospel
music, and sang only new songs that were filled with Christian imagery. Toward
the end of the series, the theatre was no longer sold out. Dylan reportedly was
a born-again Christian.
Many,
probably most, of his fans simply could not relate, even though his band was as
tight and spirited as any of his bands ever have been. They failed to appreciate
that although Dylan once again changed the form, the essence remained the same.
Dylan's
work had always been spiritual. His first album, in particular, included a
number of gospel tunes. And he concluded his early Poem For Woody Guthrie with:
Where
do you look for this hope that you know is there
...You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown
Dylan's
consistency is also reflected in the fact that he retained strong social
commentary during his Christian period, for example lamenting in "Slow
Train":
People
starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it.
And
the third of his three Christian albums, "Shot of Love," included
perhaps his best song, a tribute to Lenny Bruce.
Never
robbed any churches nor cut off any babies' heads,
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds.
...
They said that he was sick 'cause he didn't play by the rules
He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools.
They stamped him and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts,
He fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts.
Lenny Bruce was bad, he was the brother that you never had.
Clearly,
Dylan was no stereotype of a right-wing, born-again Christian if he penned lines
like these.
Since
then, the form has continued to evolve, and Dylan has continued to articulate
personal, spiritual, and political themes in all of his albums that have
provided solace and inspiration to millions.
But
his distinctive singing style continues to irritate and confuse people, partly
because at times, Dylan has employed a "mellow" voice. One critic
quoted him as saying he had stopped smoking when he recorded "Nashville
Skyline." But Dylan's statement was probably tongue-in-cheek (as Dylan
loves to do with reporters), for he's used a more conventional style at other
times as well.
Dylan
likely sings the way that he sings because he wants to sing that way. In the
early 60s, in a poem on the back cover of a Joan Baez album, Dylan commented on
his initial reaction to Baez's voice:
"A
thing a beauty" people said
"Wondrous sounds" writers wrote
"I hate that kind a sound" said I
"The only beauty's ugly, man
The crackin' shakin' breakin' sounds're
The only beauty I understand"
Traditional
black blues and white country singers who influenced Dylan often sang with a
nasal twang similar to Dylan's. As another critic commented recently, his voice
is "evocative." It's a way for him to communicate pain, and all of
Dylan's music is rooted in the blues, as he indicated once by introducing John
Lee Hooker as the "godfather of our music." Or, as he quoted the black
country-blues great Robert Johnson at a recent Grammy Awards show, "Our
music will bust your brains."
Through
it all, Bruce Springsteen may have summed up Dylan's legacy best at Dylan's
induction into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame. "Dylan did for our minds
what Elvis did for our bodies," he said. "After Dylan, we could write
about anything."
Wade Hudson is co-editor of Inlet.org.
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