Bob Dylan turns 70 today.
I’ve been rediscovering him lately; I’m pretty literate on some of his first-generation descendants, but for various reasons I never really marinated my head in Bob Dylan.
Yet.
So – may it please the unjustifiably-self-righteous Brian Lambert, here he is.
Included mainly because I couldn’t find a Dylan version of “Ballad of Hollis Brown”.
(Lambert’s bout of madness? I’ll dispose of that tomorrow).
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I don’t like politics being injected into art, even when the art itself appears on the surface to have a political theme. Thus, when Springsteen, Bono, The Dixie Chicks, whoever, use their bully pulpits to broadcast a message outside the context, I get turned off. Not that I don’t understand the temptation. I think they are trying to hard. If their ideas are that powerful, the music ought to be enough to turn the hearts of the opposition. It shouldn’t be necessary to turn a concert into a political advertisement.
BL doesn’t grasp that it’s possible to appreciate artists and their work without agreeing 100% with their politics. Look at DW Griffith and Michael Moore, two talented film makers with polar opposite politics. It probably hasn’t happened for a while in our PC world, but when I attended uber liberal Carleton College, my film class watched “Birth of a Nation,” not because anybody thought Reconstruction was a good idea, but because the guy had such a command over his art. I’d watch any of Moore’s films if I wanted to learn the most effective way to create an agit-prop movie.
I get really tired of cynics like BL that assume every dimension of the world has to be broken sown into its political components. “Ars gratia artis” is a philosophy widely ignored.
Unfortunately, I have a very hard time with any “artist” that spews a liberal politcal message, while enjoying the benefits of conservatism. The blatant hypocrisy exhibited by those people, especially Michael Moore, prohibits me from taking any of them even remotely seriously. Consequently, I won’t waste my money either watching or listening to any of their “work.”
I’m not a fan. The only album he made I can listen to is Blood on the Tracks. Bob has a voice fit for pantomime.
My wife literally hates “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Consequently, I have it on my iPod and play it whenever I’m p o at her.
I still say Bob never was a flaming liberal, but he is a talented businessman. In the early 60s he sang the songs about what the trendy types wanted to hear.
bosshoss429 Says: “My wife literally hates “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Consequently, I have it on my iPod and play it whenever I’m p o at her.”
I want to put that on my wifes Droid as the ringtone for my incoming call.
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