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The Cinch Review

From the Complete Rolling Stone Interview: Following Up On Dylan & God (etc)

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Bob Dylan Rolling Stone Interview God

The new issue of Rolling Stone containing the full interview with Bob Dylan by Mikal Gilmore has now hit the streets. It is a riot: a wildly entertaining romp, in my opinion, and well worth handing over a few of Caesar’s coins to the newsagent in order to read in full. To what extent it is more than merely entertaining is going to be a matter of debate. Dylan is capable of giving very thoughtful and sober interviews; you can dig out the books and read them. This one, by and large, didn’t turn out that way, I think, although it has a few moments, especially the interlude regarding the U.S. Civil War.

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,” etcetera, etcetera. Well, you be the judge. Personally I’ve never seen anything that is more clearly a riff, a lark, and big fat red herring. I mean, I have no doubt Bob was struck when he first read about that other Bobby Zimmerman who also liked motorcycles, but as to the rest of the meaning of it … let’s just say that if I’d been eating anything when I read it I would have joined young Bobby Zimmerman in the afterlife by now.

In any case, I started something with a previous post on Bob’s seemingly easy and offhand expression of faith in an early excerpt of the interview, and it behooves me to follow up on that subject. Specifically, that was when he was complaining about being called “Judas” for playing an electric guitar, and he remarked: “As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified.” Continue reading From the Complete Rolling Stone Interview: Following Up On Dylan & God (etc) →

Bob Dylan Jesus Mofos

Bob Dylan: “I still believe in Jesus, mofos!”

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Bob Dylan Jesus Mofos

Well, how could I be expected to resist a title like that?

When I first read the excerpt of Bob Dylan’s interview in Rolling Stone yesterday, I didn’t much remark on the line where he complains about being called “Judas” for playing an electric guitar, and then says: “As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified.” But naturally you don’t refer to Jesus as “our Lord” and speak in that way about him unless you believe in Jesus as “your” Lord. Hearing him speak in the language of a believer was, however, unsurprising to me: an awareness of God is throughout his songs, after all, and I’ve never been of the crew who insist he “rejected” his more particular belief in Christ; quite the contrary, in fact. Bob Dylan is a Jew, and he’s clearly very serious about his Jewishness, but he also clearly enough sees no conflict with that and his belief in Jesus. He’s not alone in this, but due to our various baggage and traditions, many of us can’t get our heads around that. Especially, people in the rock press have never been able to get their heads around the whole “religion thing,” and have concocted theory after theory to make themselves feel more comfortable. Dylan for his part has never given the impression he much gives a damn what anyone thinks; he has just plowed his course, a course that has included Jewish observances in the company of the Chabad Lubavitch folk, and recording a Christmas album that includes hymns of faith, sung with as much angelic devotion as his crusty vocal cords could muster. And there have been other indications, literally too numerous to mention, of a man serious about faith in the God of the Bible, both the Hebrew and the New Testament.

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.)

The curious thing about this Rolling Stone interview excerpt is that Dylan is talking about the “plagiarism” subject, and then seemingly out of the blue recalls being called “Judas” in the 1960s, and then just slips in what amounts to a profession of faith. Again:

These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified.

It’s sorta hilarious and somewhat typical that he does it in this indirect way. But nonetheless he is stating his faith in Jesus as “our Lord” and therefore “his” Lord—and also, by the way, his belief in the historicity of the gospels. (This is not unusual: it’s a belief common to most ordinary Americans, after all. What’s unusual is the endless analysis given to it in his case, because he is who he is.) Continue reading Bob Dylan: “I still believe in Jesus, mofos!” →

The Cinch Review

Bob Dylan on the Cost of Slavery to America

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There are more attention-getting quotes from the Rolling Stone interview with Bob Dylan (on newsstands on Friday). These are highlighted by the Associated Press. They say that Dylan describes America as shamed because it was “founded on the backs of slaves.” Further from the AP:

“people (are) at each other’s throats just because they are of a different color,” adding that “it will hold any nation back.” He also says blacks know that some whites “didn’t want to give up slavery.”

The 71-year-old Dylan said, “If slavery had been given up in a more peaceful way, America would be far ahead today.”

And asked if President Barack Obama was “helping to shift a change,” Dylan is quoted as saying: “I don’t have any opinion on that. You have to change your heart if you want to change.”

Although these quotes about slavery might set people off in various ways, I don’t see how you argue with Bob on it. He’s taking a long view, as he is wont to do. There’s a difference between America how we’d like to see it, and how it should be, versus how it is in practice. There are ingrained problems and fissures in American society that are easily traceable back to slavery and its consequences. Where you identify the problems might depend on who you are. Continue reading Bob Dylan on the Cost of Slavery to America →

The Cinch Review

“Wussies and pussies”: Dylan goes off in Rolling Stone interview

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The forthcoming issue of Rolling Stone will have an interview with Bob Dylan, from which we already have seen excerpts, and there’s a new excerpt published today, where Dylan is asked what he thinks of critics who allege that he doesn’t cite his sources properly when he makes use of words from the works of others. Read it all (although be warned that it contains a rare bad word from Bob’s mouth—beyond the one related to cats—sometimes abbreviated as “mofos”).

But the gist of his response is this:

And as far as Henry Timrod [civil war-era poet —Ed] is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who’s been reading him lately? And who’s pushed him to the forefront? Who’s been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it’s so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff.

And he goes on:

These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified.

Well, it’s good that Mikal Gilmore asked Bob Dylan plainly about this, and got a plain answer. Anyone who thought Dylan wasn’t paying attention or wasn’t bugged by the criticism he’s received from various quarters on this subject now knows different. Continue reading “Wussies and pussies”: Dylan goes off in Rolling Stone interview →