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."
Are you guys SURE this is what he was saying? Back in 1984, when I first started palying guitar, I tried to do a couple Dillan songs. I had to play the album, stop, scribe the words, then play more.
"Rainy Day Women" was the only one I could understand.
I suspect he was taught English at a McDonald's drive-thru speaker, and the the teacher was Charlie Brown's teacher.
"Wa wawa, wa waa wawa."
Up on the white veranda, she wears a necktie and a Panama hat...
I have heard that is wasn't the negative reaction of his audiences (and it was vicious), but the reaction of fellow Christians that caused Dylan to "clam up."
He immediately became the spokesman for millions of people who were eager to use Dylan to do their witnessing for them.
He was a baby Christian, learning about his new faith, and Christians who should have known better tried to force him to speak for them and to serve as a celeb icon of their beliefs.
Up on the white veranda, she wears a necktie and a Panama hat. Her passport shows a face from some other time and place - she looks nothing like that...
how about - it's like comparing the Rolling Stones to the Beatles.
Comparing Nsync to Sinatra is a little like comparing Kenny G to Louis Armstrong.
Springsteen ain't that bad, he's just no Dylan.
LOL.
Under The Red Sky?
Dylan has always held some level of contempt for his fans.
Bye and bye, I'm breathin' a lover's sigh I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time I'm singin' love's praises with sugar-coated rhyme Bye and bye, on you I'm casting my eye I'm paintin' the town - swinging my partner around I know who I can depend on, I know who to trust I'm watchin' the roads, I'm studying the dust I'm paintin' the town, making my last go-round Well, I'm scufflin' and I'm shufflin' and I'm walkin' on briars I'm not even acquainted with my own desires I'm rollin' slow - I'm doing all I know I'm tellin' myself I found true happiness That I've still got a dream that hasn't been repossessed I'm rollin' slow, goin' where the wild roses grow Well the future for me is already a thing of the past You were my first love and you will be my last Papa gone mad, mamma, she's feeling sad I'm gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more I'm gonna establish my rule through civil war Gonna make you see just how loyal and true a man can be-- Bye and Bye, copyright 2001
Yeah, Neighborhood Bully is a great and righteous song about Israel and the Jewish people, as timely today as when it was written in '83, and it'll probably still be timely 50 years from now ... unfortunately.
Her passport shows a face
from another time and place
she looks nothing like that........
This is a joke, right?
Not quite as bad as the others I menioned, but almost. The song "God Knows" is a good one. .....and I also like "Handy Dandy."
If there is a better opening line to a song, I haven't heard it.
Thank you!
We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
The Brady Kids are better.
Yes, that's a real problem. Chrsitians need to grow at their own rate, and sometimes well-meaning brethren just need to leave them alone to do it.
He's a good lyricist and a good musician, but good lord the boy can't sing. Hurts to listen to him wandering all over and nowhere near the key.
I love that song. Great fiddle, Emmy harmonies, and what an apocalyptic story!
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