The knockin' on Dylan's door drove him nuts (Bob Dylan: hippie-hating gun owner?)

All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P. ^ | Originally published on September 27, 2004 | BY JANE H. FURSE

[Drango]

Republican wannabe.

[don-o]

Right Wing Bob done told this.

rightwingbob.com

[rhombus]

I may have to take another look at him.

I think it's worth another look. Lots of symbolism and metaphors... Of course the problem with symbols and metaphors is they are not obviously concrete. They can be co-opted to mean just about anything anyone wants which of course is the problem with poetry... or sometimes even "Mission Accomplished" banners. To some the banner praised the hard work of air craft carrier personnel while to others the banner represented well, just about anything Kerry (or Michael Moore, or Dan Rather) happened to be thinking at the moment.

Dylan's answers were always "blowin' in the wind" and it took even him many years to try and understand what he really meant. That's fine, part of the territory with poetry. Likewise, it's part of the process of aging. He was "...much older then but he's younger than that now". As are we all.

[Mr. Mojo]

"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.

Get me a cabin, in Utah.
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout.
Have a bunch of kids who call, me, 'pa'.
That must be what it's all about.

- Bob Dylan, "Time Passes Slowly," New Morning (1970)

[Skooz]

"Shot a man named Grey, and took his wife to Italy...?"

She inherited a million bucks
and when she died, it came to me
I can't help it if I'm lucky..............

[Casloy]

unaccountable-looking characters, gargoyle-looking

I love Dylan, but let's face it, he probably wants to avoid making comments about how other people look.

[gunnygail]

Dylan? Ain't he the moron helped to get Hurricane out of jail? Must be a huge dose of white liberal guilt there.

[MeekOneGOP]

Gee, you'd almost think he was a closet Republican...
I bet a lot of aging hippies are getting deeply depressed even as we speak.

Yeah, really. Who'd have ever thought the guy that wrote Mister Tambourine
Man would be like that??? .....

[Mr. Mojo]

All three of his "Born Again" albums are terrific. .....although I didn't start to appreciate them until I got a little older. Saw a show on the Slow Train Coming tour in '79, and I remember being disappointed that he didn't play any of his classic stuff. I wish I could go back in time and see it again.

[Aquinasfan]

I always thought his music was basicly devoid of meaning

Yeah, I never got it either. It all sounded very pretentious to me.

It's funny that the press hailed Springsteen as the new Dylan, but it wasn't until Bruce shook off the Dylan influence that Bruce became listenable.

Maybe "Born in the U.S.A" is what Bob could have been if he threw off his own pretensions and wrote about what really mattered to him 8-)

[cardinal4]

The best Dylan song, "Idiot Wind". Check out the live version from the live album "Hard Rain", recorded in '76. My favorite Dylan album. Check out also, "Love and Theft" a recent release..

[Alberta's Child]

Dylan's "Positively 4th Street" is an all-time classic. That song reflects a lot fo the sentiment he shows here in this interview -- he wrote it as a "farewell" of sorts to the hippie culture in Manhattan's East Village after he lived near them for long enough to realize that they were the most useless people he had ever met.

[Red Badger]

"....I thought it was mostly meaningless rhymes."

You apparantly were correct. Mr. Dylan seems to have been in it for the money (good reason) and not for the philosophical BS that was so prevalent at the time. My friends were so into Dylan and Thoreau and every other type of anti-establishment type, Jerry Rubin, Mao's red book, etc.... I couldn't take it any more! and joined the MARINE CORPS!!!!!!!

[cardinal4]

White liberal guilt? Wasnt Hurricane innocent?

[Skooz]

I used to have a room mate who thought "Blood on the Tracks" was Dylan's best album. I argued for "Desire," and it made for many good-natured debates.

He played "Idiot Wind" over and over. Great song. Great album.

[Mr. Mojo]

"Time Passes Slowly," New Morning (1970)

Actually, that song is "Sign on the Window." .....on New Morning.

[Kleon]

Bob is no closet Republican. He sang at Clinton's first inauguration, and he supported Al Gore's campaign, calling him his buddy.

But he is a gun owner. Like he said in his film Masked and Anonymous, "I gotta lot of respect for a gun."

[Red Badger]

...if he threw off his own pretensions...

Apparently, the pretensions were everyones Else's, not his....

[MrLee]

Guilty as sin AND Dylan played pretty loose with the facts in his lyrics.
And don't forget "George Jacvkson"- 2 versions!

But, hey, it was the times and nobody's perfect.

A legend in his own time.

[Alberta's Child]

I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes,
And just for that one moment I could be you.
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes,
You'd know what a drag it is to see you.

"Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan