Posted on 09/27/2004 5:38:26 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
It's not easy being a counterculture icon - just ask Bob Dylan.
The unwitting voice of the Make Love, Not War Generation has written a memoir chronicling the agonies of fame, which include a plague of peaceniks so intrusive that he kept guns in his house and "wanted to set fire to these people."
In an excerpt from "Chronicles, Volume I" published in the current Newsweek, Dylan bemoans the consequences of writing "songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities."
"I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of," Dylan writes.
In fact, Dylan says he had two pistols and a rifle in his upstate Woodstock home to protect his family from his rowdiest fans.
His home was once a quiet refuge, but after his success, "road maps to our homestead must have been posted in all fifty states for gangs of dropouts."
"At first, it was merely the nomadic homeless making illegal entry - seemed harmless enough, but then rogue radicals looking for the Prince of Protest began to arrive - unaccountable-looking characters, gargoyle-looking gals, scarecrows, stragglers looking to party, raid the pantry," he writes.
"Not only that, but creeps thumping their boots across our roof could even take me to court if any of them fell off. This was so unsettling. I wanted to set fire to these people."
All he ever wanted was "a nine-to-five existence" - not to be some "Big Bubba of Rebellion."
"In my real life I got to do the things that I loved the best and that was all that mattered - the Little League games, birthday parties, taking my kids to school, camping trips, boating, rafting, canoeing, fishing," he writes.
But his genius for penning songs that spoke to a generation torn apart by the Vietnam War apparently turned him into "a scapegoat - someone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire."
For Dylan, 63, the soon-to-be-published book seems to mark the recovery from what he describes in Newsweek as a 25-year "downward spiral."
He spent three years writing this first installment, but says he didn't enjoy the process.
"I'm used to writing songs," he tells Newsweek, "and songs - I can fill 'em up with symbolism and metaphors. When you write a book like this, you gotta tell the truth and it can't be misinterpreted."
And your father to your sister he explains
That your tired of yourself and your machinations
Wont you come and see me Queen Jane..?
LOL. Shouldn't men not guilty of the crime they are in jail for be assisted in getting out of jail? We're not talking about Mumia (sp?) in Philly.
Or do you just figure he was guilty of something and should stay in prison anyway?
My next post was going to mention the Jack of Hearts!
EVERYbody has the potential to sing. Some folks just have developed their potential more than others. You do run across the occasional completely tone deaf person, but they are extremely rare and most of the folks who claim they're tone deaf aren't. Usually they just have a natural range that isn't near a standard melody key - so they get frustrated trying to sing the National Anthem at ball games or hymns in church. (They aren't alone in getting frustrated at singing the NA! Most ball game organists start the darned thing too high.) Get 'em in the alto or bass section and they do fine.
But Dylan sounds like a tenor to me.
Comparing Nsync to Sinatra is a little like comparing Kenny G to Louis Armstrong.
__________
Have you heard Richard Thompson's "I agree with Pat Metheny"? Skewers Kenny G for recording himself over top of Louis' material.
Google it. It's hilarious.
People change.
Yusuf Islam openly advocated killing Salman Rushdie for the crime of writing a book.
Pat Metheny napalmed Kenny G.
CANNOT get past that whiny nasally voice.....for that period, give me David Ruffin or aretha Franklin any day!!!!!
One "peacenik" who didn't turn Muslim - ping.
I read the piece on Pat's website, and have seen RT perform the tune a couple of times. Oh wait, RT's a muslim.
Still gonna see him both nights at the birchmere come late october (if he's playing solo).
Who is RT?
BUMP FOR BOB!
The first I ever heard of Jews for Jesus, some years back, was because of Dylan's involvement with it.
I've seen a video of that. Both as drunk as hoot owls!
Johnny was a great defender of Bob when the folkies started ragging on him. Wrote a letter to "Sing Out" magazine, that Bob mentioned was one his most treasured possessions, when John passed on.
Tnx for that little jewel.
"Of Bob Dylan"
There are those who do not imitate,
Who cannot imitate
But then there are those who emulate
At times, to expand further the light
Of an original glow.
Knowing that to imitate the living
Is mockery
And to imitate the dead
Is robbery
There are those
Who are beings complete unto themselves
Whole, undaunted,-a source
As leaves of grass, as stars
As mountains, alike, alike, alike,
Yet unalike
Each is complete and contained
And as each unalike star shines
Each ray of light is forever gone
To leave way for a new ray
And a new ray, as from a fountain
Complete unto itself, full, flowing
So are some souls like stars
And their words, works and songs
Like strong, quick flashes of light
From a brilliant, erupting cone.
So where are your mountains
To match some men?
This man can rhyme the tick of time
The edge of pain, the what of sane
And comprehend the good in men, the bad in men
Can feel the hate of fight, the love of right
And the creep of blight at the speed of light
The pain of dawn, the gone of gone
The end of friend, the end of end
By math of trend
What grip to hold what he is told
How long to hold, how strong to hold
How much to hold of what is told.
And Know
The yield of rend; the break of bend
The scar of mend
I'm proud to say that I know it,
Here-in is a hell of a poet.
And lots of other things
And lots of other things.
-- Johnny Cash
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