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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
You know, I have to say... he's not dead yet. Isn't it a bit tawdry to be mythologizing him this way?
Somewhere there is an alternate universe where the sun rises in the east, where the Chicago Cubs keep winning the World Series, and where there is a critic who will knock Bob Dylan.
He wrote some good songs, but I know of no other artist where there is such a large gap between the cogniscenti and the average person. No other artist where, if the cogniscenti didn't know it was Dylan, they'd look at the lyrics and say, "What is this crap?"
Dylan has been mythologizing, and re-mythologizing, himself since the early sixties. That's the point of the film.
Is that one might say about individual pieces that each piece is crap, but when one considers the whole, the huge pile of it, the size and the variety and the length, it simply trancends crap.
My favorite scene in the film is when "Dylan" comes tumbling onto the screen with the Beatles in an obvious homage to Richard Lester and the early Beatles films. Dylan (Quinn) then has to tear himself away from his friends and get back to the business of being a legend. His confrontations with the media, as epitomized by Bruce Greenwood's Mr. Jones, are the stuff of myth. It takes another genius to understand a genius. Mr. Jones can only "know there's something happening," but he can't know what it is. Dylan and the Beatles are "song and dance men" (to quote Dylan in another context) who happened along at just the right time to musically define an era. We can love or hate them or both (both Dylan and John Lennon were called the devil), but we can never understand them, anymore than we can understand God.
This
My love she speaks like silence,Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.
In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.
The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.
The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers' nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
Versus this:
Well, its one for the money,Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.
But dont you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.
Well, you can knock me down,
Step in my face,
Slander my name
All over the place.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Dont you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.
You can burn my house,
Steal my car,
Drink my liquor
From an old fruitjar.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Dont you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.
You really liked it didnt yu? I was able to see Superstar, hmmm at my age of course....yikes...and I have ever been a fan since. That and the fact that Cate Blanchett is just mesmerzing. Ill be there. After reading this I think it will be damn near erotic. Thanks.
It's whatever you want it to be.
Yet keep going for another 40 years. Don't get me wrong, I love him and a lot of his music, but for fuck's sake, boomers! Haven't you already ruined the Beatles for me?
"We can love or hate them or both (both Dylan and John Lennon were called the devil), but we can never understand them, anymore than we can understand God."
All I can say is: OH PLEASE!
the appeal or value of BD to me.
He whines instead of singing. So ok, some singers sound even worse. Macy Gray comes to mind somehow.
He is supposedly a good poet. That's one thing he has for him, but Springsteen, Neil Young and many others are as good or better.
He did that switching-out-the-acoustic-guitar thing. People pull such stunts all the time. "We are out of bagels today, do you want a bialy?"
My best guess is he is a good marketer.
He plays both muse and clown artiste.
He leaves everything open to interpretation by others. He acts passive, like Warhol, to cement his reputation in his fool followers' minds.
He acts like the star, the ultimate star. But in this world of followers who follow based not on substance but on image, what else to expect?
In this way his followers remind me of those who worshipped Nazi Germany even after WWII ended. They lost their own personalities once they cleaved to their leader. So they had nothing left to go back to.
Ultimately, a case of right place, right time.
I do like Hendrix's version of All Along The Watchtower though.
But really, Prince is a much more talented export from Minnesota.
AND Salon's own Garrison Keillor! Both great Minnesotans. (I know Salon does not OWN Garrison, but part of him resides on here)
Every decade they have something else to yip about, don't they? "He can't sing." "He's irrevelant." "He did all of his best stuff in the 60s." "He's soooo boomer." "He's propped up by the critics." ("I don't get it, bwahhhh!")
100 years from now they will still have their spiky little teeth locked onto his pant leg. It is their fate. And not a bad fate as fates go, because Dylan will be timeless.
"The Cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies
I'm preachin' the Word of God
I'm puttin' out your eyes
I asked Fat Nancy for something to eat, she said, 'Take it off the shelf -
As great as you are a man,
You'll never be greater than yourself.'
I told her I didn't really care
High water everywhere"
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
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