My interest in Dylan *increased* by his "confession" rather being
diminished by it, I downloaded the three best albums of what is
generally considered his best songwriting period ("Bringing It All Back
Home," "Highway 61 Revisited," and "Blonde On Blonde") and listened to a
few faves again, to immerse myself again in their *imagery*, as opposed
to any "meaning" they might have held for me.
And y'know...many of them held up over time. Especially this one, which
couldn't be a more striking example of images and words used just for
the hell of it, but which nonetheless was ranked by Rolling Stone as
#187 in their 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time. (The Bobster also holds
position #1.)
The song was called "surrealist" when it came out, and that's as good a
description as any. The listener is *bombarded* with images from all
over the metaphorical, allegorical, and symbolic map, but NONE of them
are metaphors, allegories, or symbols. They are what they are...images,
strung together in such a way as to paint an incredible visual
dreamscape. And what a cast of characters there are in this painting:
Cinderella, Cain & Abel, Quasimodo, the Good Samaritan, Noah,
Shakespeare's Romeo and Ophelia, Einstein (disguised as Robin Hood),
Casanova, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and of course Dr. Filth himself.
The song still moves me to this day, my suspicions that it never "meant"
anything confirmed. Part of what accomplishes that is Charlie McKoy's
masterful guitar backup, of course, which has actually been described in
terms of painting: "While Dylan's panoramic lyrics and hypnotic melody
sketch out the vast canvas, it is McCoy's fills that give it their
shading." Dylan himself described the song as a "marathon," so if you
don't have the full 11 minutes to invest, don't bother listening to the
clip. But if you do, the lyrics are thoughtfully provided.
For a guy who wasn't trying to say anything in particular, he managed to
say a lot...
http://vimeo.com/11222889
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote:
>
> As chance would have it, I discovered this article *while* listening
to
> an old Bob Dylan song. Still tripping on the near god-like 1960s
pairing
> of Dylan and Joan Baez after hearing her "nostalgia song" about him
> recently, I thought I'd look up his 1965 "goodbye song" to her. So I'm
> sitting here at the computer, listening to the following lyrics, and
> thoroughly enjoying imagery of lines like:
>
> King Kong little elves
> On the rooftops they dance
> Valentino-type tangos
> While the make-up man's hands
> Shut the eyes of the dead
> Not to embarrass anyone
> Farewell Angelina
> The sky is embarrassed
> And I must be gone.
>
> ...and synchronistically, at that very moment, I click on the
following
> article. It caused no cognitive dissonance in me, because I've *never*
> plumbed Dylan's lyrics for "meaning." Since Day One, I've been
convinced
> that he was writing *imagery*, not symbolism. To me, he always just
> painted "sound movies" that were to be enjoyed because they were
> beautiful, not because they "meant" anything.
>
> But try to imagine how many people who have argued far into the night
> over Dylan's lyrics and what they believe (and assert with forceful
> intensity) they "mean" are going to react to this. My bet is that they
> won't believe it, any more than they would believe that the "meaning"
> they see in platitudes repeated by their spiritual teachers of choice
> may not really be there. "Of course it's there...*I* see it there."
>
> Bob Dylan Acknowledges 50-Year-Long Hoax: My Lyrics Don't Make Sense
>
> [Bob-Dylan]
> Rock and roll legend, Bob Dylan, acknowledged in a recent interview
> that he has perpetuated an elaborate hoax on the public for more than
> fifty years. "I can't sing, half of the time I don't even
> say real words, I just mumble, and my lyrics make no sense."
> Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, said it began innocently in a concert
at
> the New York Coffee House, "The Bitter End" in 1962. "The
> audience was so stoned that when I started to play `This land is My
> Land' for the eighth time, I started to mumble sounds. The audience
> went crazy. The critics said I was the `future of rock and
> roll' so who am I to disappoint them? I was just giving the people
> what they wanted. "
>
> Dylan, often referred to as a "poetic genius", claims he never
> knew what people were talking about. How profound is `don't
> want to be a bum, you better chew gum. The pump don't work
> `cause the vandals stole the handles'?" I just made up
> simple rhymes. Any child could have done what I did."
>
> The Rolling Stone interview was a promotion for the star's recent
> autobiography "Buy This Book and the Charade Will Continue".
>
> The confession has had no apparent impact on the singer's
> popularity, with his new book topping Amazon's best-seller chart
> this week.
>
> "Apparently, Lincoln
