Posted on 05/24/2021 6:33:34 AM PDT by NOBO2012
“Every songwriter after him carries his baggage. This lowly Irish bard would proudly carry his baggage. Any day.” – Bono
What does it mean when “your generation’s” preeminent poet/tunesmith turns 80?
It can only mean one thing really, the one thing that Boomers never thought would be true: we have grown old along with our remaining icons. By all rights, we should be the wise ones but as has always been the case you don’t just wake up at 70 and find yourself to be wise, it requires a life’s work as well as some innate intelligence to begin with. Bob Dylan, nee Richard Zimmerman, is such a man, famous by age 21 he used the experience of the intervening years to hone his intelligence into wisdom.
Although his early songs remain the most well known and popular the real genius of his songbook emerged slowly over the years and requires a degree of cerebral effort to fully appreciate – hence the reason the greater popularity of the earlier songs which people though they understood - quite well, thank you - in the context of the political, social and cultural milieu of the time. In truth a true understanding of Dylan’s songs has always demanded more than a surface hearing of the words. Which is why of all the 20th century songsters out there Dylan will be remembered long after the likes of the Rolling Stones, any of the Beatles and Elton Johns who are simply tunesmiths.
Dylan is timeless, if you understand him, which many don't. For example take this lyric from 1962’s A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall: a lot of people today of all generations think its “timelessness” can be translated to refer to the earth’s impending doom due to global warming:
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my song well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall
A bit of research and they would discover that what he’s really referring to is disinformation, presumably even that about global warming:
In a 1963 radio interview Dylan said, “In the last verse, when I say, ‘the pellets of poison are flooding the waters’, that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers”
And while there’s nothing particularly unclear about this, from 1983’s Sweetheart Like You -
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king
There's only one step down from here, baby
It's called the land of permanent bliss
What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
the unwise wags amongst us will think he speaks of the likes of Donald Trump, not Joe Biden and Company. It is the burden of the unwise to politicize everything.
Rebel with a cause, but he suggests you find your own
One could write volumes about Dylan, but I’ll just wrap it by saying happy birthday Robert Zimmerman – you did your generation proud. And thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Please post your favorite Dylan tune from his 60 years of recordings.
Make that 60…and counting
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
Like a Rolling Stone.....................Keith Richards..............
But we thought he would be forever young...
Saw him in concert after Slow Train Coming in the early 1980s. It was a mix of his Christian stuff and the older stuff. Great show.
Listening to Judy Collins’s cover of “Mr Tambourine Man” you begin to understand his (and her) genius.
Happy Birthday Bob -
"You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray.
You may call me anything but no matter what you say
You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed..."
That line always cracked me up. Zimmy, haha.
What a poetic and musical genius... in so many different musical genres. I remember the folk rebellion when he first went electric.
Since then he has released 38 more studio albums (some of them double-sets), 19 compilation/Greatest Hits albums, 20 box sets, 15 "bootleg" volumes and 12 live albums.
His last studio album was released just about a year ago at this time (which means he's about due for another).
Then you have the thousands of cover versions of his songs. Practically every major rock artist of the past half century has covered a Bob Dylan song at one time or another.
That is an amazing amount of output from just one person.
The USA’s most successful music POSEUR of the last 60 years
It's ROBERT.
Have been a fan of Dylan since the ‘60’s, and one of my favorite lines of his is from “The Sounds of Silince”:
“In the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening...”
Seems like a perfect description of Antifa and BLM!
The “Sounds of Silence” was written by Paul Simon.
Still have my original “Desire” album bought when it first came out - replaced “Nashville Skyline” as my all-time favorite Dylan.
He really nailed that song.
Oops-—
Well, guess I just proved I’m a “child of the 60’s!
But, never did drugs, just got OLD!
But still (a VERY little) younger than Dylan
{8<)!
Bob Dylan and Johnnny Cash
“Girl From The North Country”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je4Eg77YSSA
Also, am happy I still have at least one of my old Dylan albums—”Blonde on Blonde”.
If I still had all the earlier ones I bought, I’d never have to worry about becoming
“stuck inside of Nashville with the Memphis Blues again”:)!
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