The poet laureate of rock ‘n’ roll. The voice of the promise of the ’60s counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock, who donned makeup in the ’70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse, who emerged to ‘find Jesus,’ who was written off as a has-been by the end of the ’80s, and who suddenly shifted gears and released some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late ’90s. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan.”
I am a big fan of Mr. Dylan. I like his early stuff. His folk singing. And his beat poetry. Particularly his beat poetry. He brought some depth to pop lyrics. He really thought about it. I like that.
But I don’t listen to his early stuff much at all.
The Dylan I’m really crazy about is this one. The one releasing some of the strongest music of his career. The one that makes music based on threes. The one that made Time out of Mind, “Love and Theft”, Modern Times, a lot of Together Through Life, most of Oh Mercy, and big swathes of Under the Red Sky. The one who staked his future on a hell of a past. The one that growls on World Gone Wrong, croons in Brownsville Girl, and admonishes in Silvio.
I’ve seen him a few times since 2005. Most recently in early May of this year when he came to Dublin. His shows always attract an interesting audience. A lot of people are there to see a superstar. The way people go see Eric Clapton play because he’s Eric Clapton. Or Paul McCartney because he’s a Beatle.
Another chunk of people are there to relive something special from the early sixties. I don’t know what exactly; I wasn’t there. I’ll probably do the same in the 2040s. This was particularly evident when I saw him at Bethel Woods in 2007. You could smell the nostalgia in that audience.
Here’s my point: a big chunk of the audience is there to see Bob Dylan, not his music. And then I overhear their complaints after the show. I’d really like to berate the whole thing: It’s not advertised as anything but what it is, so don’t complain if you don’t find something that was never meant to be there. The 60s are, in fact, over. It’s the sort of people that are there to see the legend that’ll hear that absurd introduction (printed above) as an earnest declaration.
And then when they hear Mississippi, they zone out. And when they hear Don’t Think Twice, they object to the disparity between the 1962 recording and this live performance 45 years later.
Bob Dylan hasn’t been particularly quiet about the various revisions he’s made to his songs. He can’t sing ‘em like he used to. He doesn’t want to sing ‘em like he used to. He doesn’t want to play ‘em like he used to. Because he’s a spiteful bastard? Maybe. It also might be because he’s simply not who he was when he wrote those songs. If he were, his recent albums would all sound like The Freewheelin’. It’s an unfortunate quirk of the language that disappointment must ‘be’ done to them. Because, really, whose fault is it? People there for the superstar are bound to be disappointed.
So what is he offering? Well, he’s doing what any touring musician does. He plays music. He has a really great band. And the band, himself at the forefront, are constantly experimenting with arrangements. And for those of us that really like this era of Dylan, and this band, it’s a delight. More than a delight, it’s like being in on a joke. If you’ve really listened to his last few albums, hearing him play with meter and elocution becomes a real game. So hearing him take old tunes, and having fun with their delivery is an extension of that game. It is not butchery of the canon.
And, being in on the joke, that grandiose introduction of his is recognized as tongue-in-cheek.
It’s only my opinion. After all, people think they know, but they’re all wrong.
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