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
Though, it is not the worst thing. That song is directed at the ones who never get their hands dirty, but do "increase their wealth at somebody else's expense."
"Masters of War" was written in '63 during his folksy phase, which ended quickly ......before the Vietnam War began. But for some reason he's defined by this (very) short period in his career more than 4 decades ago.
Dylan apparently sees his naive leftist songs from 1962-1964 like Masters of War and Blowin' in the Wind as embarrassing juvenilia.
Lyrically, they are the tritest and lamest songs he ever wrote and he's painfully aware of it.
Dylan has always held some level of contempt for his fans.
"Masters Of War" is one of the very few songs where Dylan has come out and taken issue with people's interpretations of it. He's said directly on a number of occasions that the song has "nothing to do with being anti-war," (most recently in Rolling Stone November 2001 issue) but was inspired by Eisenhower's warning about the military/industrial complex.
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. Somehow his protestations to the contrary have always been swept under the rug. Helps keep the image of him intact as a knee-jerk lefty balladeer - which is what the good old mainstream media want to preserve. It looks like his book is going to make that harder for them ...
Everyone has written an antiwar song, even Black Sabbath! Keep in mind, Dylan wrote over 300 songs, and Master of War is the only one I can think that is radically antiwar..