Expecting Rain

Can anyone stop the time?

So you would say he didn't make a calculated efford at reaching fame through building legends around himself?

The good news Johanna is that the superficial trivia that attracts you - the look, the sound, the paintings, the fame, your name in a song, are all great stuff too. But you are totally missing the most important part, and even dare declare it as false. Unbelievable.

Of course he embellished his story. It's just another amazing aspect to his life. But to say he faked his way to fame is absurd - people aren't that dumb. His immense talent took him to where he is today - nothing else. Like all heroes, he has his flaws and tragedies.

I wouldn't put that beyond him. He's enjoyed self-pity throughout his career.

As for songs from his latest records that I think are written from experience, I'd say there are more than enough. You can obviously pick stray lines out of just about any song to prove your point, and I could do the same to prove mine.

You mean there's a more important part than enjoying and appreciating the parts of his art I'm naturally drawn to? It's a pretty self-righteous way of thinking that I should not do so.

Ah, y'all have said a lot while I was babysitting!

Some people are just more in tune to suffering. That is a fact. You don't have to be born in a poverty shack to care about the plight of those who have less or have suffered rejection, humiliation, abuse, scorn. Nor does acquiring wealth necessarily remove you from genuine concern and feeling for others. It seems like to me both ends of this spectrum try desperately to discredit the Bob that they don't approve of, so they can exalt the one they love. It's all the same Bob. He's been saying the same thing from the sixties to the present. Watch Masked and Anonymous. Bob sees the dark side of things all too clearly.

I could care less if he fabricated some details of his early life. That means nothing to me. He inhabits those songs on his first release. How? He put himself there. Empathy.

M&A is one of his works that I consider perfectly honest and truthful. I'm not kidding, I totally think he actually is Jack Fate.

Nah, it's a total load of crap that film. Jack Shit, more like.

You are exasperating! I mean, that made me laugh so hard.


But it's a great film

I'd like to read the novel they made that film from. Alas, I don't think it exists.

As reported by Tony Glover, but never confirmed by Dylan himself. Even if he did say that to Glover, I believe that's just a machismo throwaway exchange between friends, that has nothing to do with how the song got written. The song got written by a young man, mature beyond his years, who was tapping into the zeitgeist of the times before the pupa had even broken out of its cocoon. If you understood Dylan better, or at least demonstrated some humility in trying to understand him better, you wouldn't toss these random 'facts' around as though they're law, and you're the one that's in the know. Dylan has demonstrated time and time again that the very last thing he'll do is give his audience what they want- not that they were consciously aware of wanting TTTAAC. Here's a reference to your little 'nugget', that then goes on to quote Dylan and the real genesis of the song, from the Biograph liner notes:

"Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. 'The Times They Are a-Changin' had yet to be recorded, but Glover saw its early manuscript. After reading the words 'come senators, congressmen, please heed the call', Glover reportedly asked Dylan: 'What is this shit, man?', to which Dylan responded, 'Well, you know, it seems to be what the people like to hear'.

"Dylan recalled writing the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the moment. In 1985, he told Cameron Crowe: 'This was definitely a song with a purpose. It was influenced of course by the Irish and Scottish ballads . . .'Come All Ye Bold Highway Men', 'Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens'. I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time.'

"The climactic lines of the final verse: 'The order is rapidly fadin'/ And the first one now/ Will later be last/ For the times they are a-changin' have a Biblical ring, and several critics have connected them with lines in the Gospel of Mark, 10:31, 'But many that are first shall be last, and the last first.'

"A self-conscious protest song, it is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s. Dylan, however, disputed this interpretation in 1964, saying 'Those were the only words I could find to separate aliveness from deadness. It had nothing to do with age.' A year later, Dylan would say: 'I can't really say that adults don't understand young people any more than you can say big fishes don't understand little fishes. I didn't mean 'The Times They Are a-Changin' ' as a statement. . . It's a feeling"

His prescience, in writing this momentous, truly great song just one month before Kennedy's assassination and the turbulent sixties, Vietnam et al kicking off in earnest is extraordinary. You should try and get to know and understand your hero better, and not traduce a huge song from his early career to the output of a Brill Building short order songwriting chef.

Like Joan Baez remembers reading Bob's new lyrics, interpreting them to him, and Bob mumbling, "I don't know WTF it's about, but people are gonna go crazy about it." But well, I guess Bob never confirmed that, either. So I could go dig out some interview quotes, and the next thing one of you would do is saying I shouldn't take his words as gospel.

Well said Mr. Train. The blindness of JP is astounding. That someone supposedly dedicated to Bob Dylan would continually trivialize his biggest accomplishments is truly incomprehensible. And she openly laughs at and ridicules those who differ with her. I think part of the problem is that being a moderator has mistakenly made her think that that title automatically endows her with wisdom. Wow.

A few people in this thread must not have mirrors in their homes....

There is no blindness.... there is no right or wrong when it comes to enjoying art. Who are you that you should form my opinion for me?

Oh yes, and you forgot to show me his anti-war songs.

She knows the price of everything but the value of nothing, Mr horse.

It's not worth anything anyway. Bob Dylan said that.

I'm not claiming that I should form your opinion. I just don't understand how you could possibly come to them.

For example, if Bob Dylan was a fake in regards to his civil rights commitments, why then was he honored by the NAACP(National Assoc. for the Advancement of Colored People) and years later invited by President Obama to play at the White House with other veterans of that era? Are you telling us he put those people to sleep???

Blindness or denial - it's one or the other.

You are correct in saying that "there is no right or wrong when it comes to enjoying art". That's not the point. You are calling one of the greatest human rights, activist, artists, that ever lived, a fake.

Look, I never denied he wrote those songs and I never denied they did good in the world. He withdrew from taking any kind of responsibility in any of these causes pretty soon though. To paraphrase Joan Baez again, he didn't march with the protesters, but he gave them his songs as verbal weapons. He is a great artist, but I would not call him a civil rights, human rights, anti-war activist. It was just one short period in his career. He wasn't Bob Dylan - protest singer any longer than he was Bob Dylan - gospel singer. The former just happens to be what brought him to fame. Joan Baez is an activist to this day, she still gets involved in all sorts of issues. Bob on the other side, while still performing some of the songs from around 1963, has not been in public an activist for any cause in a very long time.

Obviously, there are many mysteries in the universe. Like, how could one who claims to love him so work day and night to lessen him? I'm not that good. I have no idea.

In what way does the above paragraph I wrote lessen him? It doesn't. He is not an activist period. It's a fact. I don't know how elevating him into saintliness does him any more favors than taking him for what he is, I don't.... I guess that's why I still like him.

To me there's no need to tear down his early work in order to praise his later material, although some people do put it on a pedestal while ripping everything he's since, which is ridiculous and might bring out that response.

My mistake. That paragraph was posted while I was writing my post, so I didn't see it until after. I was talking about your long running, general attitude regarding that era. In symphonic music, they call it "theme and variation", a tune carried by different instruments etc. Your theme is that these protest era songs were merely smart marking moves, because that's what what was happening then, and you point out quotes from Bob, Joanie, or others to back up your theme. Yesterday you posted a link to a Joanie video as a star witness. A while back, you had a whole thread about why the modern era is so much better, etc., and we went back and forth the same way. You are not alone - many share your view.

Sorry for the confusion. I hope this explains it better.

I've lost track of what the real argument is here. Does it boil down to just an ego thing? It was fun for a while, but it appears to be in spin cycle at the moment.