Expecting Rain

So whenever he speaks, he's in denial, and whenever he writes / sings a song, he means what he says?

He's well known for misleading people in the press and anyone who asks what his songs really mean. An expert like you should know this. It's a very old story in these parts.

And some of his songs, I doubt he even knows what they mean - some of his songs. And that's part of the beauty. The variety of turf he has traveled is in itself astonishing.

You know, he talks to people who are not with the press.... some of these people have talked / written about what he said. That's well known, too. Do you really think he's lying to everybody?

Yes, correct she did..... and when he made the jump to rock and roll she did not like it...... but later she did do a more rock album.... trying to follow him over because she figured out what he had already known...... that the folk scene was never gonna be playing in the same way that the rock and roll scene was going to be..... she was and is a very big figure on the world stage..... but she is not on the same level as him, but then very few are.....

If there is any reason that he has not spoke out more politically I think it would not be because he does care about issues, but because he knows what a little thing from him at this point would mean..... He is getting nailed right and left even at this point for things he said 40 years ago.... can you imagine what they would do with a clear political statement if he made one now? He did not want to be the "voice of a generation" then or now....

As to who he talks to.... his curtain of silence is much more effective than you can imagine....a friend ran into Charlie at a place here in Austin last fall..... you could not have pulled info out of him with a crowbar.... nothing, not even on the smallest matter...... I tried to get something out of someone else not too long ago here in town..... they just give you a little smile and said "I have no idea what you are talking about"...... people close enough to know stuff respect him and his accomplishments enough to respect his wishes and the curtain stays down...

The civil rights movement in the early 1960s not only was NOT the way to establish yourself as a commercial artist - there wasn't a big enough audience. It was also risky. Dylan might have vanished out of there without a trace. Also, those were the days when the F.B.I. kept files on anyone involved in any civil rights or anti-war protests. Being involved in the civil rights movement got a lot of people killed. I don't think Dylan got into that lightly and can't imagine that Dylan was capable of writing a song about the murder of Medgar Evers in order to make a career for himself. As far as how "out on a limb" Dylan crawled in terms of personal risk, there was that very unfortunate remark he made in 1963 at the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee where he made a public comment that "I got to admit that the guy who shot President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald.....I saw something of myself in him." Dylan didn't mean he was capable of shooting the president, he seemed to mean that he could find a way to sympathize with how far outside of mainstream acceptance of the status quo Oswald had drifted. Even when he articulated it miserably, Dylan did not ever seem to be playing some part but rather saying (or trying to) what he really believed, no matter how objectionable. But back in those days, remarks like that got the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and it's almost a miracle that comment did not kill off Dylan's career right there. And as I said, people who said far less inflammatory things were blackballed and unable to work, hounded and spied on by the F.B.I., and sometimes injured or even killed. People who weren't there don't get how much the early 1960s in the U.S., especially the civil rights movement, found people on both sides playing for keeps. I don't think there are very many people who got involved in that who did it to make a career from doing it. Way too risky in almost every way.

As far as Bob only having been involved in that as a way to get a foot in the door as a musician, to me it's not credible. His history belies that. He was arguably the most revered and admired modern musician in the U.S. when he released "Slow Train Coming," a great album that actually had the effect of marginalizing him, earning him tremendous ridicule and as far as 'the market' went, knocking him off balance for many years. Yet if he believed it, he did it. I think the one thing about Dylan is whatever it was, at the time, he genuinely meant it. It ignores the entire way he's lived his life and conducted himself to believe he ever took on any particular "stance" or "attitude" or "political beliefs" as a way to advance his work commercially. I'm one of those people who really don't think he ever cared what anyone else thought about his work. I love that phrase "Who are you that I should have to lie?"

^^^^ @Lily Rose
You could say they're employed by him - they have contracts. They'll not piss him off by talking about him if they can avoid it. Why would I not be able to imagine it? I've been on tours, I've talked to band members and crew members. It's no big secret as to why they don't talk about their boss.



This. He's an artist - not an activist, not a spokesman.

Nice encore Rev - you nailed it again. Perfect.
You remind me here of the classic speech by Gregory Peck at the Kennedy Center awards for Bob Dylan -

""When I was a little kid in La Jolla, California, which is a very
small town, we had a parade on the 4th of July and I remember clearly
the sight of Civil War veterans marching down the main street, kicking
up the dust. The first time I heard Bob Dylan, it brought back that
memory. And I thought of him as something of a Civil War type. A kind
of 19th century troubadour. A maverick American spirit. The reediness
of his voice and the spareness (?) of his words go straight to the
heart of America.

Some time ago I bought a new Dylan album and I was listening to a song
called Brownsville Girl (come on now...are we really to believe that
he just happened to listen to it?) and I heard these lines:

There was a movie I seen one time. I think I saw it through (sic)
twice. It starred Gregory Peck. He wore a gun and was shot in the
back. I just can't get it out of my head.

Dylan was singing about a picture that I made called The Gunfighter
about the lone man in town with people comin' in to kill him and
everybody wants him out of town before the shooting starts.

When I met Bob, years later, I told him that meant a lot to me and the
best way I could sum *him* up is to say - Bob Dylan has never been
*about* to get out of town before the shootin' starts. Thank you, Mr.
Dylan, for rocking the country...and the ages.""

now you're speaking my language!

I think the prez awarded him this award b/c deep down he secretly believes Bob Dylan is a sexy hot fox...

cue another Al Green song.........

Yes, Charlie does work for him...... but I don't think anyone would really be able to say that his loyalty to Bob is based on a pay check..... as to the other..... he in no way was an employee of Bob's.... now or ever.... just someone that knows him.... or at least I think he does, could not even get that much out of him for sure....

@ Milky.... isn't it nice to know we all think the same way, you, me, the other ladies of ER, the prez.....

i'd like to dedicate the entire applause offered at the Buenos Aires shows to Rev's posts.

I wasn't at the Buenos Aires show. Just how bad was that audience reponse?

As the awards keep on coming, the deniers keep on denying. Amazing.

Mrs. Obama carries a lot of influence. Lookit the way she watches him in the White House thing.

Nobody's denying his cultural contribution.

What about the prestige of playing with Bob Dylan? That's some showcase that'll continue to help him out after Bob quits. I know I know, he's well-known in some circles, but still.

???????

He probably didn't mean it when he said the NET was going to end one day, I can see it now.

Bob has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom because he wrote the best, most influential and most meaningful songs of the sixties that played a part in shaping history and popular culture.

I am really shocked to see that an honor such as this can be turned into an argument to further an argument about which Bob is the real Bob. My God.

I already summed up WHY he got the award... sheesh

doesn't anyone read anything around here?

I prefer to think he's getting the honor for all of his life's work, that's all.

The folk, the protest, the finger-pointing, the electric, the thin wild mercury, the country, the basement, the crooner, the outlaw, the husband, the father, the divorcee, the Vegas, the preacher, the disciple, the oldie, the born-again, the Deadhead, the NET-head in all shapes, forms and voices, the actor, the songwriter, the screenwriter, the novelist, the poet, the grandpa, the bluesman, the pianist, the guitarist, the harp player, the traveler, the searcher, and lots of other things.... and lots of other things.

WTF johanna... I fixed it for you... YOU'RE WELCOME

you forgot, ...some of the guys.... YEAH!!! it's awesome...freakin awesome