Donna Tessitore wrote this article.
On April 7th, Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize, the first rock and roll artist to receive this coveted award.
At the risk of being pummeled by the mass of folks who think Bob Dylan is a genius -- a mere notch below the big guy upstairs -- I'm going to come clean.
Somewhere along my journey, I've had a disconnect with Dylan, the man who moved a generation and secured a rock solid spot in the history of music.
I get Woodie Guthrie, Chuck Berry, Joan Baez, Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and a slew of highly underrated musical artists. It would take too long for me to explain why I connect with these various musicians and not Bob Dylan.
Sorry, Mr. Dylan. I'm not going anywhere with you!
I don't seek to dislike Bob Dylan. He has spoken and continues to speak for many people. He just hasn't spoken to me, personally.
Perhaps it's my sporadic, poorly-timed history with Bob Dylan that has much to do with my perception:
My first exposure to Bob Dylan occurred when I was a young lass. I can't recall the exact age.
I heard Lay, Lady, Lay sitting in the back of my father's VW Fastback. I thought to myself, "God, please don't let any man ever sing that song to me!" That song made my skin crawl. It still does.
I have no way of explaining the queasy feeling that comes over me when that song hits the airwaves.
My next brush with Dylan -- like so many people -- was through Blowin' in the Wind. I discovered this song rather late. I was around fourteen, and this was a fairly simple ditty to sing and play on guitar.
I admit that Dylan almost had me at hello with those strong interrogative verses. However, he lost me at the flimsy chorus. Great questions, Mr. Dylan. Lousy answer!
Yet Blowin' in the Wind remains a classic song and has been covered by dozens of musical artists. Folks are still playing this song.
I'm just not sure anybody's listening!
The next time I ran into Dylan was around 1980 when he won a Grammy for Gotta Serve Somebody. At seventeen, I was not interested in serving anyone.
The spooky voice of Bob Dylan was not going to change that!
Now as a social worker, wife, and mother, I'm serving a whole lot of people. I just don't want to be reminded of that!
I had another unexpected encounter with Dylan during my first year at college. I was assigned a project about the sixties for an art history class. Of course, Dylan's name came up in my research of the period.
So I immediately went to the public library and checked out the only record of his left in the stacks. I brought the record home and excitedly placed it on the turntable. I listened to a live version of Maggie's Farm through loud, clunky speakers. I was baffled as Dylan sang, We're going to Maggie's Farm over and over again.
It was neither profound nor poetic.
Since I do pride myself on being an open-minded lady, I was still willing to give Dylan a shot decades later.
I bought his Modern Times CD last year right around the time he won a Grammy for it.
I listened to the opening song, Thunder Road. That song sounded so much like Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode that it tainted the entire experience for me. I also found the mention of R & B songstress Alicia Keys in the lyrics to that song -- a reference that everyone was talking about -- not at all interesting and quite transparent.
I nonetheless moved onto the next song on the CD and experienced deja vu once again.
It has taken me over a year to figure this one out. With a faster tempo, Spirit on the Water sounds like Santa Baby. I can almost hear Eartha Kitt singing Dylan's song.
Strange, I know!
In brief, I was not impressed with Modern Times and found the music familiar, repetitive, and undeserving of all the praise.
Still, I like that Bob Dylan is keeping busy. He's a senior citizen, a grandfather, and on a continuous world tour.
The AARP should give him something for that!
I admit that I am likely unprepared for the onslaught of folks who take in the word of Bob Dylan much like it is manna from heaven, and who will likely come to his defense.
I can only say that I have dabbled here and there with Dylan. I've sought out and sampled the so-called masterpieces. I've seen the interviews and documentaries.
Nothing about him or his music makes me long for more.
I do, however, enjoy a good biography.
Dylan's memoir is touted as poetic and one of the best in its genre. So I finally snagged a hard copy of Chronicles: Volume I at my local used bookstore for eight dollars.
Dylan does a fantastic job of throwing out names and places in his chronicles, but poetry never entered my mind.
When Chronicles: Volume II comes out, I will pull out my torn and tattered Pocket Book of Modern Verse and remind myself who the great poets really are: Dickinson, Rossetti, Whitman, Cummings, and Frost to name but a few.
To borrow a line from the wonderful singer-songwriter, Carly Simon: I haven't got time for the pain. That is, I haven't got time for the pain of listening to Bob Dylan and all the hype that surrounds him.
Now Carly Simon. There's a girl who's all about the poetry.
I'm a big, bad, Dylan fan, Donna!
I think his Pulitzer Prize points to the monument of his genius as a singer and songwriter.
Dylan's legacy is threefold in the least:
1. Bob Dylan took an entire musical genre from acoustic into electric. He alone brought Guitar Folk into Electric Rock. He founded a movement and is the sole lynchpin from one generation of music to another. I can’t think of anyone else in the history of music that so wholly owns that sort of place. He was not only aesthetically talented –- he was a technical genius as well.
2. Bob Dylan was one of the first protest songwriters to find popular purchase in the mindset of Americans and others worldwide. Singing his songs made it safe to rail against the wrongs of a country and a world in mourning in melodious tones. He led us into the moral righteous way of freedom and liberty and salvation when we were utterly lost and when our government was foundering, deceitful and wounded.
3. Bob Dylan took the personal and made it universal. He taught us how to publicly bleed and mourn and find joy in ourselves and in others. He made it okay to be imperfect. He made it all right to be an outsider. He led us to appreciate the small things that can join together to make up greater things like ideas and realizations and to create world-changing events through words and not swords.
The Pulitzer isn't enough of an honor for the Bob Dylan. He deserves the Nobel and so much more and that includes our eternal thanks for being brave enough and honest enough to show us the way out -- demons and all --from the dark and vicious wind of repression and state-sponsored killing falsely proclaimed in the name of justice and religion. Dylan is dangerous. Dylan inspired ideas in others that changed the world as we know it.
David--
You too, Boles!! It's a Stepford community of Dylan followers and its downright scary!
But seriously, I appreciate your commentary and what he means to you and others, but this man has been elevated to a status that is incomprehensible to me.
I think it's time to move on. He did'nt invent folk music, he didn't invent the electric guitar. He didn't invent songwriting.
There are brilliant and talented musicians struggling everywhere and it's an insult to continue to honor him for average work.
Modern Times was not deserving of all the accolades it received and he should not get rewarded for a mediocre derivative record because of past work.
Yes, he broke ground, but he was no Martin Luther King. Now that was a man who captured my imagination as a young third grader, put himself out there, and whose words should get a Pulitzer!
When you pull the curtain, the Great Oz is simply a man who walks among us! And while many adjectives could be used to describe Bob Dylan, genius is inaccurate.
Interesting link about Dylan that contends the Pulitzer's exploited him.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid={B86F3210-E696-49DF-876D-57F2C7624316}
Donna --
I didn't say Bob Dylan invented the acoustic guitar or electric guitar. I said he was the bridge between the two. He was the living meme.
Great people don't always have to be great. Orson Welles only had to make one movie to prove his genius now and forever. Bob Dylan has created his genius niche over and over.
I think it's a good thing the Pulitzer Prize woke up a little bit and looked to its more recent history to honor our modern geniuses.
Blowing in the wind always confused me because I always took it too literally. :)
I contend that Bob Dylan was many things but he was and is no genius. I think his chronicles debunks the whole Dylan genius thing.
He was resourceful, persistent, clever, creative, extremely well-read and immersed in the music.
He was a wiseacre for sure!
The music was so important to him that he hunted it down.
Let's not forget he was and continues to be a great borrower!
But I would say he's more a scholar of music and literature than he is a genius.
His success and genius status is in large part due to a perfect storm of events and a world that was very vulnerable and hungry for answers.
Musically and melody wise he was not a genius. The complexity was not there musically and he recycled.
Lyrically he was a very clever man, but a clever man does not make a genius.
Hi Gordon--
As I said, he lost me at the chorus. The verses come right at you.
There's been alot of debate about what that chorus means.
Dylan probably thought of the chorus when the wind blew the cap off his head.
People say it's a timeless song but it feels dated to me. It's been done over and over again and the lyrics are a litle too overly dramatic for my liking. I haven't played it on my guitar in decades.
Sort of like The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. That's how it's always felt to me.
David--I know that you didn't say he invented the electric guitar or anything of the sort. But my point was that people act like he did! That's all I meant by saying that.
By the way, I was barely born during those times.
So I'm at a distinct disadvantage because I was not there. So I can only evaluate from my vantage point.
I can understand the passion if you were there firsthand. That would make a huge difference!
I don't understand what being "there firsthand" has to do with anything, Donna.
The inventions of the steam engine and cotton gin were genius ideas that changed the world and I share the same passion for them as I do the changes Bob Dylan brought to the world.
I wasn't alive when steam changed industry and mechanized cotton changed agriculture, but that doesn't change my passion for their influence.
If we only learn through direct experience and not the historical living of others -- then I think we risk shallow lives instead of enjoying the deep thoughts and passions of those who plowed the same ground before us.
The bottomline is that music is a very subjective emotional experience and I'm not moved by Mr. Dylan's music which for me is an entire package--the voice, the music itself, the lyrics, and the person behind the music.
He's had an impact for sure because why would we still be talking about him after all these years?
I'm not even a fan and I'm talking about him!
Smart man, indeed.
Donna!
i love many of dylan's songs. i think he has done very important work through his music. i haven't kept up with his work though. carly simon too has made some great music!
i agree with david that one of his most important contributions is that he took the personal and made it universal.
I'm not really debating whether he deserves the Pulitzer for his long and deep body of work.
That's fine. Yes, his work was important and important to so many people. The specific to general. I'll go with that, but the great poets did that all day long.
I do maintain that Modern Times and Chronicles were not masterpieces and there were even some very specific claims of plagiarism in those works.
Because he's Bob Dylan everything is brilliant and permissable even if he borrows lines and melodies.
"Lay Lady Lay" was and still is one of my favorites - but has very special memories for me - as do most of his recordings - all part of growing up for me.
Ms. Demmie--
I don't know what it is about that song that I despise it so much.
As I mentioned, I heard it as a young girl so I wasn't quite ready for that sort of thing.
And that schoolgirl reaction stayed with me unfortunately.
What I will say is that his voice is stunning in that song.
He wasn't known for his vocals but vocally this was well done.
Thanks to Gordon's link to Madonna slideshow, I stumbled across this article where once again someone's trying to dissect Bob Dylan via his radio show.
No doubt Bob Dylan junkies will eat this right up!
Here's the link:
http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/04/dylan.html
Donna,
I am a die hard Dylan fan - I was just mesmerized after listening to "Blowin in the Wind"...I heard him pretty late...in early '80s...
the magic was too strong...can't help!
I still don't know why I like him...actually "liking or disliking can't be dissected" - I guess...you just feel it.
Katha--
When you feel the music it is a truly magical experience. I understand completely.
Bob Dylan obviously has that effect on people.
Last summer I went to see Bruce Hornsby in a solo concert. When that man plays the piano I'm speechless. It's magic. He literally brings me to tears, especially one song he wrote called Lost Soul. To me he's a musical genius, brilliantly bringing together intricate piano work and melody with gorgeous emotional lyrics.
As you so nicely said, you just feel it. It's as simple as that.