Starbucks to release Bob Dylan bootlegs

MSNBC.com ^ | 6/28/05 | AP

[Michael.SF.]

From your post # 44:

The fact that he pretended to be a Christian for awhile, almost all the while carrying on as he always had, then later denying Christ, is what I am standing opposed to.

From your Post #60:

I said that my beef isn't about whether he's a Christian or not,

Page me back when you make up your mind.

[savedbygrace]

No inconsistency at all. As I said in the last post, the Christianity is one example of his changeableness. Yes, I am opposed to the fact that he has turned away from the Lord Jesus Christ, but that isn't the only factor that goes into my decision to not buy anything Dylan. In fact, I had made that decision BEFORE I was born again.

You have to read all my posts on this thread, and put them in the context of the post that I replied to in each case, to analyze my position. I wasn't going to repeat myself in every post just so you, or someone like you, couldn't later pull quotes from individual posts to try to box me into a single-sided opinion.

Go ahead and continue your love affair with Bob Dylan. I don't care who or what you worship. Apparently I stepped on your sore toe, and your automatic reflex is to strike back. Go ahead if it makes you feel better.

[Michael.SF.]

Go ahead and continue your love affair with Bob Dylan. I don't care who or what you worship. Apparently I stepped on your sore toe, and your automatic reflex is to strike back

I never attacked, struck back or insulted you, though I could have, I thought previously it would have been inappropriate.

I was defending Dylan for the same reasons I defend others who are being attacked based on false impressions, judgmental mentalities, ignorant assumptions and prejudiced beliefs.

Now go away, you have become boring.

[savedbygrace]

You now claim: I never attacked, struck back or insulted you

From #40:

Your original comment was dripping with anger, hate and contempt for both Starbuck's and Dylan. I could give a rats ass on how you feel about Starbuck's, but your comments on Dylan seemed to reflect a lack of knowledge, beyond the superficial, regarding a man, whose works I admire.

From #43:

Yes, he is popular with a segment of society that you no doubt have much contempt for and you have lumped him together as being either "one of those" or as a leader of that group.

From #59:

But I do believe you are a lesser person for much of what you have projected in this thread.

Those statements sure sound like you were striking back.

[Michael.SF.]

[don-o]

Oh, and the idea that he rejected Christianity between 1981 and 1983, or any other time, is completely wrong.

It's really funny - these charges that Bob quit Christianity. It only supports exactly what he makes crystal clear in "Chronicles." He is not a spokesman or role model for anything. That is a hard thing for most of us lesser mortals to wrap our brains around.

Because, at least me, I imagine if I were that famous, well, I would get some mileage out of it.

Those who would sit in the judgement seat and declare that Bob has rejected Christianity are just way out of bounds from even a simple reading of the Gospels.

"Who art thou, to judge another man's servant?"

[Michael.SF.]

Those who would sit in the judgement seat and declare that Bob has rejected Christianity are just way out of bounds from even a simple reading of the Gospels.

Amen to that.

[savedbygrace]

Nope, you're off in your analysis, don.

I discerned Dylan's character, based on his own statements, but I never judged his eternal salvation.

In fact, you are misapplying scripture, sir. It is a person's eternal salvation we are not to judge. But discerning a person's character, that we are supposed to do. We are instructed to know that. Paul tought that in a number of places. Surely you've read these instructions, haven't you?

[Max Flatow]

46. Talk radio. Jazz. Country. Led Zepplin.

[Max Flatow]

I think Dylan is a burned out rag who never could sing a note just like Mick Jagger.

[Max Flatow]

Google Bob-Dylan-drugged-upped-burned-out-has-been. Watch out.

[Merciful_Friend]

The idea that Dylan has been this constantly-changing chameleon is also way over promoted by mainstream media types who need a tag to hang on him. Since they always perceived him as wiggling out of whatever label they originally tried to put on him, they've settled on this "man of many faces" thing. While it's understandable if someone unfamiliar with his work would be taken in by this, I think that people who've lived with his art for many years (and especially conservative types) are likely to hear a consistent thread throughout.

It's too much to get into in a Free Republic post (which is why I also write on a website at http://www.rightwingbob.com ) but consider, just as one example, a lyric he sang on his very first album:

Well, in my time of dying don't want nobody to mourn All I want for you to do is take my body home Well, well, well, so I can die easy Jesus gonna make up, Jesus gonna make up Jesus gonna make up my dying bed.

... and the final lines of the last song on his most recent album:

Just as sure as we're living, just as sure as you're born Look up, look up - seek your Maker - 'fore Gabriel blows his horn

Those lines bookend a career of songs that constantly draw from scripture, sometimes at the most unlikely moments. Yes, he's changed musical styles, which has kept his music interesting, but he's rarely gotten far away from an unflinching insight into human nature, an ever-present sense of mortality, and a respect for Biblical truth.

Often people are originally drawn to Dylan's music for reasons that have more to do with his caricature (leftist politics, anti-war, whatever) but sooner or later, if they stick with it, and as they get older, they have to come to terms with the real essence of his body of work, which I think is those elements I mentioned above. In this way, Dylan's work is ultimately not so much a part of the "counterculture," as it is subversive to it. You might arrive to his songs as a 16 year old looking for protest anthems or music to smoke pot to - but if it really gets under your skin, it will one day lead you nowhere so much as right back to the Bible, and to values that outlast the latest fads and styles.

On one level he's just a rock'n'roll singer - and on another his work has been an anchor in a deadly sea and has helped save more than one or two souls. I should have shut up long ago, but I just couldn't let the canard of the "no consistent philosophy" lie. It's been lying long enough.

[jwh_Denver]

"but a musical genius"

No way. A lyrical genius? Yes.

[savedbygrace]

tought = taught

[don-o]

I'm sure you are right. I recognize posters who ore 100% correct and usually learn nothing from them.

You win. I quit.

[don-o]

"but a musical genius"
No way. A lyrical genius? Yes.

Read your history of rock and roll. When Dylan came out with electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, that changed music.

[Michael.SF.]

You say that as if I am defending his singing ability. I never did.

[Michael.SF.]

The idea that Dylan has been this constantly-changing chameleon is also way over promoted by mainstream media types

To even criticize someone for "changing" is a bit absurd when you really think about it. At what point are we not supposed to be influenced by others, or by our surroundings?

Should we not all learn and benefit as we mature? How many of us are the same at 19 as we are at 23? Or compare 27 to 50?

How many of us are the same after our first child was born, or after our first parent may have died?

We all change, usually for the better as we get older. Too bad that is not always the case.

[jwh_Denver]

"Newport Folk Festival"

And I see that the audience wasn't pleased until Dylan came back with an accoustic.

The music had already changed by 1965. Folk or folk/rock may have changed with the electric guitar but it did not change all music.