Tharmas
Veteran Member
In a post in the General Religion section Steve Bank includes the following opinion. I told him I’d like to start a dialogue on the topics of pop music and Dylan in particular. So here it is:
I’ll parse the above opinion in a bit, but first as one of those “60s counter-culture types” I want to say a few words about the folk music renaissance, which was really a 50s movement. Folk singers researched and performed traditional folk songs. You weren’t considered authentic if your band lacked a washtub bass and washboard percussion. This is the environment Dylan, as well as Joan Baez, came up in. As a teenager Dylan acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of folk music. His first album contains only two original songs; one was a tribute to Woodie Guthrie, which Dylan claims was the first song he’d ever written.
Dylan worshiped Guthrie and literally sat as his feet when he made his frequent trips to see Guthrie in the hospital. It’s more accurate to say that Guthrie mentored and inspired/encouraged Dylan to write his own songs.
I’m not sure what you mean by “incoherent lyrics.” Consider these song titles, off one early album:
Blowin’ In the Wind
Girl From the North Country
Masters of War
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
Oxford Town
Corina Corina
That’s a short list from the album. Which ones are incoherent? Some are definitely rooted in folk traditions. Others clearly reflect social and cultural concerns. Clearly.
I don’t think my generation turned Dylan into a prophet so much as a spokesperson. Some of his songs became marching songs of the Civil Rights movement. Others were anti-war and anti-military-industrial complex. These were not controversial opinions. But Dylan rejected all attempts to pigeonhole him or make him a leader of anything. I just write songs, they don’t mean anything, he says in a 1965 interview with a Time magazine reporter (from the documentary “Don’t Look Back”). He goes on that people come to his concerts to be entertained, and he’s essentially an entertainer.
The fact is, Dylan is/was a very private person who resisted being made into a spokesperson, and like many other serious writers before and since, he resisted all efforts of people to discover the “meaning” of what he wrote. In one interview, when asked why he wrote what he wrote, he answered “news sells.”
I don’t think that makes him a hypocrite. I don’t think he “sold out.”
Steve, a bit later in the religion thread you expand on your thoughts:
I’ll get back to you on this when I have some more time.
steve bank said:
I’ll parse the above opinion in a bit, but first as one of those “60s counter-culture types” I want to say a few words about the folk music renaissance, which was really a 50s movement. Folk singers researched and performed traditional folk songs. You weren’t considered authentic if your band lacked a washtub bass and washboard percussion. This is the environment Dylan, as well as Joan Baez, came up in. As a teenager Dylan acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of folk music. His first album contains only two original songs; one was a tribute to Woodie Guthrie, which Dylan claims was the first song he’d ever written.
steve bank said:
Dylan worshiped Guthrie and literally sat as his feet when he made his frequent trips to see Guthrie in the hospital. It’s more accurate to say that Guthrie mentored and inspired/encouraged Dylan to write his own songs.
I’m not sure what you mean by “incoherent lyrics.” Consider these song titles, off one early album:
Blowin’ In the Wind
Girl From the North Country
Masters of War
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
Oxford Town
Corina Corina
That’s a short list from the album. Which ones are incoherent? Some are definitely rooted in folk traditions. Others clearly reflect social and cultural concerns. Clearly.
I don’t think my generation turned Dylan into a prophet so much as a spokesperson. Some of his songs became marching songs of the Civil Rights movement. Others were anti-war and anti-military-industrial complex. These were not controversial opinions. But Dylan rejected all attempts to pigeonhole him or make him a leader of anything. I just write songs, they don’t mean anything, he says in a 1965 interview with a Time magazine reporter (from the documentary “Don’t Look Back”). He goes on that people come to his concerts to be entertained, and he’s essentially an entertainer.
The fact is, Dylan is/was a very private person who resisted being made into a spokesperson, and like many other serious writers before and since, he resisted all efforts of people to discover the “meaning” of what he wrote. In one interview, when asked why he wrote what he wrote, he answered “news sells.”
I don’t think that makes him a hypocrite. I don’t think he “sold out.”
Steve, a bit later in the religion thread you expand on your thoughts:
steve bank said:
I’ll get back to you on this when I have some more time.
