It’s kind of amazing, when you think about it, that it even needs to be said that there is a “profoundly Jewish thread woven throughout Dylan’s life.” Isn’t that pretty hard to miss? But then the Jewish experience in America includes the phenomenon of those who try to run away from their Jewishness, in a variety of senses, and Dylan has given some reason to believe that he might be doing this at different times.
So it is: Self Portrait is a joke wrapped in a joke, wrapped in a joke. The latest joke is that over forty years later, they’ve released the outtakes from this almost-universally-despised album, and people all over the place are writing long intellectual-sounding treatises on how wonderful it is. You truly can’t make up this stuff.
Happy Easter, again! Today, May 5th, was Easter Sunday for those Christians following the Eastern Orthodox calendar (a not inconsiderable number). Reaching around in the muck of my memory for a song to reference in celebration of this fact, I thought about the big concepts of Easter, and thought of various songs about “rising again” …
If you’ve read the whole interview, you’ll know that Dylan goes off on a big tangent about a notion of “transfiguration”: his own, somehow connected with the death of another, different Bobby Zimmerman in a motorcycle accident in the early 1960s (mentioned very briefly in Chronicles, page 79). Rolling Stone unabashedly makes this the centerpiece of the article, highlighting it in the intro as a story “much more transformational than he has fully revealed before …
In the end, it’s his business. Some people pick up on it and some don’t. Yet, people continue to be curious. Many people go to Google and type in “Is Bob Dylan still a Christian?” and similar queries. I know because some of them happen to end up in my website statistics after doing so, because they hit upon something I wrote on the subject in the past. (Others have written plenty too.)
Why make up quotes from Bob Dylan? There are few figures in popular culture of the past 50 years who have given as many lengthy and fascinating and amusing interviews as Dylan has. I guess the obvious answer is that you make them up if you want to have Dylan expressing a thought he never …
Continue reading “Writer made up Bob Dylan quotes; resigns from New Yorker“
This style of argument over whether we can believe in an omnipotent and loving God given the reality of evil in the world has been going on a long time, of-course. And it will echo down the corridors of history for the rest of the time allotted to history. But, in my view, it arrives nowhere. It ultimately becomes, I think, a game of ghoulish numbers, attempting to delineate a certain quantity or frequency of evil acts and events that are permissible while still accepting the possibility of the existence of that all-powerful and loving God.
Thanks to Bob Cohen for referring me to Dierks Bentley and his bluegrassy version of Bob Dylan’s song “Senor.” I hadn’t heard it; it’s very fine, and Bentley seems to be an estimable musician in general. “Senor” is featured on his album Up on the Ridge. Dierks Bentley singing “Senor” Checking Dierks Bentley out on …
Continue reading ““Senor” – Dierks Bentley sings Bob Dylan; thoughts on Street Legal“
Today, many Christian churches following the most common Lectionary would have featured a particular segment of the Sermon on the Mount as the Gospel reading: namely Matthew 5:38-48. This is the part which includes Jesus’ admonition to his followers to “turn the other cheek” in response to being slapped in the face, which is one …
Continue reading “On Turning the Other Cheek: Bob Dylan et al“
However, his choices also raise a question, which has surely been raised before regarding these recent highly-vocal advocates for atheism (the most high-profile being Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins). The question is this: How many of them would really like to live in a world where everyone agreed with them that there was no God (or that if there was a God that he must be either evil or entirely unknowable)?
This tension of the competing narratives of Christmas is felt, inevitably, in the songs of Christmas. There are on the one hand the hymns about Jesus and Bethlehem, and then there are the songs of Santa and his reindeer and his lists of the naughty and the nice. Treading the middle ground are secular songs of the season such as “White Christmas” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Yet every time that someone records an album mixing these various Christmas songs together, the implicit question for the listener is this: Which is it?
On the current tour, Bob Dylan’s shows have not included an opening act. That will change for the final three (or four?) nights of the tour in New York City. The opening act on those nights will be the artist concisely known as Dion. Most famous for his big 1960s hits The Wanderer and Runaround …
Former President Jimmy Carter (who once described himself as a born-again Christian) is reported to have given up his affection for the music of Bob Dylan when Bob himself became “born-again” (I know Bob disputes the term but that’s a whole other kettle of hair-splitting). The report is in a new book about Jimmy Carter …
Continue reading “Jimmy Carter “abandoned” Bob Dylan with Slow Train Coming”
Paul Westphal has enjoyed a storied career in American basketball. As a player, he was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1972, and earned a championship ring with that team in 1974. He went on to play six seasons with the Phoenix Suns (leading them to the NBA finals in ’76), and continues to rank
Robert Spencer’s bio at Jihad Watch states that he “has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth since 1980.” Since September 11th, 2001, he has been one of a priceless few whose knowledge of and clear speaking to issues surrounding Islam, jihadism and terrorism has helped the rest of us catch up (although …
Actor, writer, economist, etc: Ben Stein is difficult to label, as all good Bob Dylan fans should be. He had a famous turn as a teacher in the film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” He hosted Comedy Central’s quiz show, “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” for five years. His most recent book is a collection of writings …
They call it “Bob Dylan Like You’ve Never Heard Him Before.” There are five audio clips at that link of Bob talking to Jann Wenner, as part of a series of interviews with various stars to mark the occasion of Rolling Stone’s 40th anniversary. They seem to be in a hotel room while Dylan is …
Continue reading “New interview with Dylan at Rolling Stone by Jann Wenner”
I believe the interviewer’s name is Bob Brown. I include the voice-over (v/o) statements of the show, in order to fairly provide the context of what was a highly edited segment on a magazine program, and also because assertions are sometimes made during the voice-overs that seem to refer to things that Dylan said during …
Continue reading “Bob Dylan’s 1985 interview on the ABC TV show 20/20”
Collected posts relating to Chronicles and the world’s response to it (in chronological order, first to last) New Morning … 09/26/2004 Chronicles is excerpted in Newsweek. My own reaction to reading Bob’s narrative is just plain joy and amazement. It is absolutely direct. From the liner notes to the Jimmie Rodgers tribute album to …
Continue reading “Chronicling Chronicles (reactions to Bob Dylan’s autobiography)”
I was deeply saddened to hear that Paul Westphal passed away yesterday, at the age of 70, having been diagnosed with brain cancer last August. He was a legend in the world of basketball, but, as the remembrances currently flowing out everywhere are indicating, he was also legendary in a much more important way: that …
This metaphor inspired some person, sometime, to compose what has now become a traditional gospel song, known alternatively as “Gospel Plow” or “Keep Your Hand on the Plow” or simply “Hold On.” I first heard it and automatically think of it via the version that Bob Dylan recorded on his debut and eponymous LP in 1962.
