Dylan is one of my all time favorites. If you listen to a lot of his songs, you have to wonder why all the peaceniks were so enamored with him. Cardgames, gunfights, fighting, all were prominent in Dylan songs. The Dead to a lesser extent were the same way. I have always thought Dylan was a closet conservative..
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.
The communists saw them all as "useful idiots" and hijacked them and their symbols and presumed them within a larger communist global revolution.
I still, frankly, cannot see how a generation, who had rightly looked upon an intrusive, overreaching government, rife with laws, rules and regulations, as the beast to be fought, tamed and rendered marginal so we could lead lives of freedom; can now seek to employ that same (but infinitely larger and more powerful)intrusive, overreaching government, rife with laws, rules and regulations, as a mechanism to impose their morality on others.
THAT was what they had fought so hard against back then...and today, they have become that which they had so hated...
Abby Hoffman was probably correct! "Never trust anyone over 30." The ageing hippies are now all over 30 (by a lot) and they have become authoritarians! (But, of course, they view themselves as "good hearted" authoritarians...and who could be against that?)
I can almost buy into this, .... except when I hear the lyrics of 'Masters of War' in my mind. That song strikes me as stridently, and naively, anti-war.
Any comments?
-- Joe
You could put together a great poker playing mix with just the songs that mention cards from those 2.
It sounds like you're a Blood on the Tracks guy. Before Lilly Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts there was the times they are a changin', and blowing in the wind.
I don't think he is closet about it. Liberals have just turned his phrases to their own liking. I have been a fan a long time and in his interviews he always reflects my take on things. He has said for years he is not a the sheepish bleeding heart type. Compassionate yes, as all of us conservatives truly are, but not a liberal.
The Dead would have had to be more libertarian though -- they were definitely into the freedom to choose drugs. I saw them in Louisville in 88 or 89 (?) and you could buy anything you wanted on the parking lot. The size of the bogey that went down the row I was sitting in woulda made Willie Nelson's eyes bug out. It's a whole different world. I'm glad I went and saw what it was like, just so I know, but man was it odd!!