"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."

brightstar, WTF are you talking about? Dylan as fascist leader?

There's a rule-of-thumb in blogland: the first person to bring up Hitler loses the conversation. They must have been thinking of you when they dreamed that one up, because this is even stupider than when Bill O'Reilly does it.

I swear to Almighty God, if I read or hear that flat-headed, ignoramusism one more time someone is goin' to the boneyard. 'Cause you know what, Tommy L.? There are assholes, and then there are Towering Asses of Power.

Allow me to elucidate. Ready? Then step aside.

You see, boys and girls, there are INFORMED opinions and UNINFORMED opinions. Taste counts for something. And there are those who have taste and those who like to pour tobasco sauce on filet mignon. The first one has an opinion worth heeding when it comes to cookery, the second one DOESN'T. Period; solly Cholly.

As to Bob Dylan in particular, all of you waxy-eared wonders who disparage his contributions to WORLD musical culture should do this, just once:

Go into the bathroom - usually the only room in the house with some acoustical quality unless somebody was dumb enough to lay down a carpet - and repeat the following out loud but without singing it or thinking about either Hendrix or Dylan's version...

There must be some way up out of here, said the junky to the thief.

Now repeat it again. Notice anything? There is, in that arrangement of words, proof positive of Dylan's brilliance. Those words, all by themselves, have natural rhythm and melody, something incredibly difficult to achieve in either poetry or song. And to "hear" it, all you have to do is repeat those words, in sequence, even in your own head, as a plain sentence. That's genius, folks, and those who can't recognize it have neither taste nor an opinion worth listening to.

And to those (I'm looking at you, Sally Wolfsbain or whatever your lycanthropic handle is) who would chide Dylan for doing a Victoria's Secret commercial and "selling out" (gee, where have we heard that phrase before in relation to Dylan? Hmmm...) "The Times They Are A Changin'" to a bank commercial, I say "Grow up."

I'm sure the Victoria's Secret commercial was a goof designed specifically by Dylan to piss off people just like you. And that legendary anthem is completely and utterly meaningless in the modern era, something I think Dylan knows better than the rest of us.

In fact, it would be a giant ha-ha if Dylan officially changed the lyric to "The Times They WERE A Changin', So Will Y'all Just Get the Fuck Over It Please? Thanks!"

And thank YOU, and goodnight!

Your post regarding Springsteen and Dylan was one of the most ignorant things I have ever read. Way to set the bar high for all who follow.

I've truly heard everything now.

"I stopped listening with both ears after 'Blonde on Blonde'." -- John Lennon

Dylan was most important figure in rock, he turned it away from just silly love songs to...everything and anything. Don't believe me-ask the beatles.

I don't care if people don't get it cause I did and still do.

sally werewolf, both your posts are boring; didn't even make it through the second one.

I enjoyed your notes--no, really, I did! Taliesin, I have NO problem with folks working for a living---but JUDAS PRIEST!!! Is Mr. Zimmerman so hard-up he's got to make asinine undie commercials? Sell his "times are a-changin," apparently his huge youth-anthem, to an effing BANK? This phony liar is the fellow considered some kind of legend?

"I am an orphan from New Mexico who travelled with the carnival." In other words, fuck you, mom, dad, Minnesota, anyone who gave a damn about me when I was a sourpuss kid.

Apparently he got upset if people brought up his Jewish heritage. Why? Cuz he was a converted Christian? (Or was THAT just a passing dilettante fancy? He sure didn't act very Christian, even to his fans, whose heads he had a tendency to bite off when they told him how much they..well, LIKED him! Well, okay, he was nice to the Pope.)

And hey! What's wrong with Ronco? At least Boxcar Willie didn't make g-string ads; he hung around in boxcars doing...well, hobo things (correct me if I'm wrong, though. And I guess the Victria's Secret folks wouldn't have even been interested in Boxcar Willie or Roger Whittaker, or even the heartwarming magic of Jim Nabors. But sheesh, any of them would have been an improvement on Romero-movie-extra-looking creepy Bob!)

This guy is some kind of legend??

Go into the Bank of Montreal! Pull the panties over your head and SMELL THE BOB!

Whew! What an excoriation! Just don't get me started on Wilford Brimley...

"into the Dylanesque self-invention of Springsteen's onstage self-mythologizing (all those stories about taking "the Big Man" out to the end of a desert road to find God, etc.), the Dylanesque rejection of pop godhood that Nebraska represents, the blatantly Dylanesque move of The Seeger Sessions, the Dylanesque literariness . . ."

This is the kind of asinine worship I'm talking about.

"The Big Man" out to the desert: no, that's inspired by Jesus being tempted by the Devil, and any number of cops and robbers folk songs.

"The Dylanist rejection of pop godhood". . . no, that's Woody Guthrie-ist, if anything. Or the many, many cases where a pop star decides to go folk (true of the Beatles, though NOT of Dylan).

"The blatantly Dylanesque move of The Seeger Sessions" . . . no, that's, um, Pete Seeger!! When exactly did Dylan do anything "Dylanist" like this??

NONE of these things owe anything to Dylan. And I don't think any of his songs will survive the generation that idolizes him.

Now, though we're supposed to be closing at three the day before Thanksgiving, I'm working past five, because there's work to do. I'm a rebel but I'm pissing off the rebels by making the Man think I'm on his side. How Dylanist!

My parents want me to get some soda for tomorrow's big family get together. I'll get soda but some wine too. How Dylanist!

My initial comment had a mistake in it (I meant to say, "the sun rises in the WEST") but I didn't immediately correct it because you KNOW what I meant. . . How Dylanist!

Yours in Dylan,

captcrisis