Bob Dylan - "Republican" .....
Posted on 09/27/2004 5:38:26 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Yep, all three Nashville-recorded albums - John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning - really freaked out his old fan base. Bad trips galore. Great albums, though. .....as well as his "basement" work with The Band.
Thanks. ....looking forward to reading it.
My peeps ;-)
I know musical taste is about as subjective as you can get, but damn, Aquinas, you've got it bass-ackwards. Springsteen couldn't hold Dylan's jock.
Bob Dylan - "Republican" .....
I was trying to think of a way to say that.
It ain't even close. It's like comparing NSync to Sinatra.
Dylan sang at Clinton's inaugural because he was invited - it was an honor (of sorts), and a gig. He'd sing at Bush's if invited. He did not endorse Al Gore. That remark calling Gore "my buddy" was part of a mumbled joke at a concert, where Al Gore had showed up backstage to pester Bob. The fact that liberal Dems embrace Dylan is nothing new - but he's never embraced them back like they would like him to. Still, why should he shirk a compliment if offered? Life is short.
It's sad that on the whole conservatives have not given this great, peerless and very American songwriter the credit, attention and honor that is his due. However, I do think that this is slowly but surely changing, as people more and more realize the breadth of his work, and the fact that the media largely created and perpetuated this image of him as a lefty protest singer.
Sen. Norm Coleman (R) Minnesota is a big fan. Maybe he should spearhead a campaign to get Dylan invited to Bush's inaugural in January '05. I think I'll write him a letter ...
Does that mean you prefer Self-Portrait?
Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, Start Here:
http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/carter-h.htm
Probably the best pro-Israel song ever:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.
Then that is my question. If he's a gun owner, why vote Democrat?
Dylan apparently sees his naive leftist songs from 1962-1964 like Masters of War and Blowin' in the Wind as embarrassing juvenilia.
Lyrically, they are the tritest and lamest songs he ever wrote and he's painfully aware of it.
I'd like to hear more about the Christianity he professed in the 1970's - and why he refused to comment on it after recording three albums filled with music about Christ. I was very young then, but I've been told that he was abused unmercifully by his audience which rejected his Christian lyrics, and after that he just clammed up.
"Well I was blinded by the devil
Borned already ruined.
Stone cold dead
As I stepped out of the womb..."
and
"He's the property of Jesus
Resent him to the bone
You got something better
You got a heart of stone..."
He's never endorsed a Dem or anyone else for election. He's on-the-record admiring President Eisenhower. See my post #68.
That's what I want to hear more about. Why did he stop talking about it?
Heard of google,com?
Lot's of stuff out there.
Highway 61 Revisited was my theme-song baby.
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