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."
Yeah, Idiot Wind is a favorite. and I listen a lot to Love and Theft, it is a good one. Still mostly listen to the old stuff. something about it re-anchors me when I've been knocked off my game, ya know? lol
Hey, CG
Is there a FReeper songbook? It would be great to collect the various FReeper tunes in one place as an on-going project.
Yeah, there were definitley some weird people that followed the Dead. And there were a lot of drugs. At least the Dead kept their politics to themselves, unlike a lot of others..
I been following Bob off and on for nigh on 40 years. You have to understand that I am fairly jazzed about this book!
"...You can take issue with the clarity of his expression in the song - obviously it does strike most people as a simple anti-war song - but that wasn't his intent."
OK, here's the song...
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
Ummmm, the lyrics, esp. the 'sure that you're dead' part, seems pretty intensely anti-war. BUT, I also can accept the need for artistic license, and the need to express a feeling / concept fully.
So I can be open to Bob Dylan not being as anti-war as the song he wrote. But he shouldn't complain too much about people misreading his intent.
-- Joe
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 wish I could make that my new tagline.
Yeah.
All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities.
This is critic speak. I've read (the rare) interviews with Dylan, and he never speaks this way. Besides cramming 3 clichés into a single sentence, it's hard to imagine Dylan defining his own output as expressing "powerful new realities". Lame. That's usually the way to define other people's works not your own. It sounds like a record company marketing slogan, or talking points. Unless, he (Dylan) has trouble writing prose style (also hard to believe, since his lyrics are so cliche free.) Enough. I'll walk over to Barnes&Noble later and read the whole thing.
Kevin Welch and Kieran Kane are the opening act. Killer lineup.
Doug from Upland, Mudboy Slim, others, and I do song parodies. Putting together, would require coordination. I have all mine bookmarked, if someone wanted pull them all together.
Gotta love the Man in Black!!!
Thanks for the list. Since this is a Dylan subject, such a list is perfectly fitting IMO. Most have no idea how much he has penned, of value, in his lifetime. I do, but I access his lyric list often.
Is it barely possible that Dylan turned his work over to an editor? Punch it up and whatnot?
There is enough in the short exerpt to convince that the thing is not ghost written.
Wouldn't surprise or disappoint me if he did have a ghost writer. As he explains -- he thinks, as many poets do, in symbols and metaphores. And, as he says in the article, it was difficult but important that he write this book with a limited interpretation of its contents. It is important to him to be very clear about what he is saying in the book.
Not necessarily punched up or even turned over, but maybe assisted, for the Dylan impaired?? lol but, help or no help, the book is what he is wanting to say, as he approves it.
see my post at #115
Hey cat, I will hafta read this book too. It's a must. ;)
I just love listening to him sing. Most of his songs are disappointing to me sung by someone else. lol It is like this -- you hafta relax, and let him lead, like a dance. If you aren't expecting a perfect two-step, you'll enjoy the waltz. If you don't expect the perfect pitch, you won't be disappointed. ;)
Very funny. I wrote a bunch of Kerry Parodies. It is too easy to be fun. Here is part of my Kerry Library.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1163131/posts?page=11608#11608
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185436/posts?page=82#82
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1185436/posts?page=87#87
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185436/posts?page=20#20
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185436/posts?page=112#112
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1199056/posts?page=21#21
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1198809/posts?page=69#69
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185436/posts?page=79#79
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185436/posts?page=100#100
HEY!...That old man has still got a couple of good tunes left in him. I will carry the colors for him as long as I am able.
God love Bob Dylan!!
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