Bob Dylan, Part 1

Despite a lot of hesitance, I finally went to see the Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown, partly because of outstanding reviews written by Scott Johnson over at Powerline.  My hesitance was based on growing up in the time period, having a certain recollection of what it was like, what Dylan was like, and doubting that the movie could capture that.  But the acting was superb, the actor playing Dylan was understated and captured his mysteriousness without being overly dramatic and the actress playing Joan Baez has a phenomenal voice.  The events are related fairly accurately, covering the period from his arrival in New York through the turn away from folk music at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 although I don’t believe stuff was actually thrown at Dylan during that festival.

Newport 1965 was one of the seminal events in Dylan’s career.  Pete Seeger saw him as a leader of a leftist revolution, if he just kept pumping out what were thought of as folk-based protest songs.  When Dylan came out and played I Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More on electric instruments, that was his answer and everyone should have understood what Maggie’s Farm was, and if it wasn’t clear, the follow-up with Like a Rolling Stone should have been the ultimate wake-up call.  When he returned for a couple of acoustic numbers, one of which was the phenomenal anthem to personal freedom Mr. Tambourine Man, he capped the message with It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.

The theme of many of Dylan’s songs from his late teens to early 20s was people’s lack of self-awareness, particularly of how they were locked into certain behaviors and beliefs, and the same people’s desire to put others into boxes with similar labels.  Dylan quickly rejected all that, some times playfully, sometimes meanly.  While he thought his destiny was to be a great musician and songwriter, he was clearly not happy with the trappings of fame.  And he has constantly sought to find meaning in a variety of religions and other sources.  Carnival America, the back roads, the back streets, the odd, the weird always true him and were sources for many of his most memorable lyrics.

Two critical things to understand about Dylan are found, as usual, in his lyrics.  In one he writes “he not busy being born is busy dying”, from It’s All Right, Ma.  Above all else Dylan seemed to hate being pigeon-holed, being labeled as on this side or that side, being described as a prophet, a leader, a poet or whatever.  He wanted to be free to evolve and to be appreciated for whatever he was doing then, not in the past.  And the second is “but I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now” from My Back Pages.  That song, whose lyrics I encourage you to read in full, was written by a very young Bob Dylan who had already come to understand the “lies that life is black and white”; that “In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand At the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I’d become my enemy In the instant that I preach.”  The level of self-awareness and understanding of human behavior in one so young are beyond impressive.

I simply can’t grasp the full genius of this man, the incredible profusion of songs and teachings that flowed almost unbidden from his mind.  The analogy is likely Mozart, who died so young, after a similar flood of revolutionary music in a short time.  As noted above, Dylan says it was his “destiny” to be this prolific songwriter and musician.  I think that is all he wanted to be recognized for.  He has spoken of his artistic process as “magic”, and that magic went away after the early burst while he was in his twenties.  He has written some outstanding songs since, but according to Dylan the process is different, they don’t just flow out like they did.  I am very grateful to have been alive to witness and hear what he has produced.