"...it wouldn't know what to do with the fact that "Dixie" was Abraham Lincoln's favorite song."
"The kinship Dylan brings to the song is the fellow feeling of someone who sings as an exile in his own country. He treats "Dixie" as a lament for an America that has been lost, and a lamenting of an America that is struggling not to be defined by the worst in itself. The sweetness that makes its way through his cracked, aged voice is the sound of someone who has seen the worst and still can't turn his back on his country.
For Dylan "old times there are not forgotten" is a way of connecting us back to the promise of America, even if that promise is beyond keeping. The vision he sets forth in the scant two minutes and twelve seconds is rueful and expansive, and it dwarfs the puniness of those who can only hear that line as a curse."
Very nice article, bourbon.
Thank you for posting it.
I see that lurking isn't going very well for you. ;o)
Dixie Ping
I'm a failure; it's true. :-(
I see that lurking isn't going very well for you. ;o)
"Hello my name is bourbon and I'm a Freeper"