Bob Dylan is 70 today (Did you know?)

I’m not big on birthdays, to be honest. What difference does it really make that on one day you are technically one age, and the next day you’re technically another age? You’re as young as you feel, and the older I get, the more it pleases me to think so.

There’s predictably been enormous hoopla over Bob Dylan turning 70, and at least 30 new books have been added to the groaning shelves of tomes analyzing, documenting and distorting his music and/or life. I should talk — I’ve written untold thousands of words around those topics, albeit in shorter forms.

It seems to me that the nicest thing to do on Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday is just to give him kudos for being out there in the way that he is, at his age. What peers or contemporaries of Dylan can do as he does — touring constantly, revisiting many of the same places year after year, playing sets that are top heavy with songs from the last decade or so, and filling those seats with fannies time after time? And not all aging 1960s types — not by a long shot. His shows have loads of people under 30, under 25, even under 20. Sure — you always hear complaints from some about him changing the songs, or being indecipherable, or whatever. I’ve been to enough of his shows to know that sometimes complaints can be justified. I hate the bad or too-loud sound at too many of the venues he plays. But the numbers don’t lie. On balance, the man delivers, and gets people to come back, while doing it completely on his own terms, and keeping it fresh for himself. This doesn’t happen in popular music, as a pretty good general rule. Dylan has achieved something that very few others have. Ever. And the older he gets, the more astounding it is.

It’s not the first time I’ve stopped to point to how amazing this is, but the pride he himself takes in this was evident in that unprecedented statement he made about his gigs in China. Maureen Dowd et al aside, he was obviously irritated by some things he had read about there being a lot of empty seats, and that the concerts were attended mostly by ex-patriot types. NO, he said. We almost sold out, the attendees were almost all Chinese, and, what’s more, they were young! I’m willing to buy Bob’s version, given the pile of distorted lies that the media gives us on any given day (and not only about Dylan). Bob may makes up stories about shooting heroin and kicking it, but it’s my belief that he doesn’t lie about the important things. He deserves to be proud of his success as an entertainer, doing it in the way that he likes to do it and giving the customers what they obviously like at the same time. It’s a helluva thing.

Cannot find this on YouTube but here’s one of my all time favorites (from “Infidels”)

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

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