chaos to creation the enigma of bob dylan (part 2)

8/10/2019 Chaos to Creation the Enigma of Bob Dylan (Part 2)

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Chaos to Creation: the enigma of Bob Dylan (Part: Two)

Dylans radical spell lasted for a brief period between January 1962 and November 1963. While his music was beenconsidered as the definitive proclamation of the sixties folk revival and its radical political thought, Dylan had clearlyindicated that he is not the conventional folk singer who is just adapting traditional material for a new context, neither

a political artist committed only to socio-political causes. Along with the situational songs, he was writingdistinctively personal lyrics marked with private references of grief and anxieties, songs about relationship, about thenuances and contradictions of love. He did not hesitate to include a confounding and abstract composition Boots ofSpanish Leather in his most politically charged album The Times They Are A- Changin . Many decades later hecomplained in Chronicles , As far as I knew, I didnt belong to anybody then or now [] the big bugs in the presskept promoting me as the mouthpiec e, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation [] I had very little in commonwith and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.

Dylan was apparently getting frustrated from the demands of organized activism and was impatient to get himself freefrom the restricted boundary of a particular group or movement. He also came to realize a bitter fact that politicalactivism enforces its particular objectives and principles on individuals and demands strict regimentation. From early1964, he consciously started to renounce his one- dimensional Prince of Protest image, refused to be a spokesman ofthe counterculture or to play the limited role of a politically committed artist. Expressing the discord he wrotein Maggies Far m:

Well, I try my best

To be just like I am,

But everybody wants you

To be just like them.

Being part of a simmering political milieu of the sixties had certainly helped Dylan to prosper as a voice of protest alabel slapped on him by the critics and viewed by him with disgust in later years. Peter Doggetts detailed narrative ofthat tumultuous time There's a Riot Going On argues that the sixties counterculture borrowed his name and his workwithout permission, and then hounded him for a declaration o f solidarity until he finally (and briefly) gave way. ButDoggett misses an essential point. Though Dylan had disclaimed having any curiosity in the political process, exposedhis discomfort with absolute positions and withdrew himself from protest movements, his role as a social and politicalcritic which had challenged the existing socio-political chain of command is undeniably the fundamental reason

behind his popularity and the iconic stature he had attained during that period. He is associated with this identity eventoday. His songs have achieved its brilliance and transcended the political preoccupations of their historical point oforigin not by disregarding the political contexts, but by intensely embracing all its deeply entrenched complexities.

All I can be is me - whoever that is

Dylans rupture with Left politics came out in open even before the release of The Times They Are A- Changin . OnDecember 1963, he appeared at the leftist civil-rights group Emergency Civil Liberties Committee s annual ly held Billof Rights Dinner to receive their prestigious Tom Paine Award for his services to the civil-rights cause. Dylan wasuneasy from the start since people who came with him were not allowed to enter the venue. They werent dressedright, or somet hing, he allegedly told Nat Hentoff later. The well -dressed elder audience irritated him further since he

perceived them as people who were once involved with the Left in the thirties, disconnected now from grass rootreality but still striving to change the world from the safer haven of civil- rights politics. It is not an old peoplesworld. It has nothing to do with old people. Old people when their hair grows out, they should go out, he said in a

notoriously offensive speech. Dismissing the older gene ration Left as people who havent got any hair on theirheads he further declared not to allow them to act as guardians and protectors of his mind anymore. Grounding histirade against the veteran civil-rights campaigners, many of them sitting in the aud ience, as people who have taughtthrough the years to look at colors, he affirmed during his speech that I just dont see any colors at all when I lookout. He was also critical in his speech about the suit wearing Negroes he saw four months ago on the platform at the


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Great March on Washington, and said in an acerbic tone: My friends don't have to wear any kind of thing to provethat theyre respectable Negroes.

Dylans controversial comments offended many of his friends within the radical fraternity . They werecritical about his inappropriate and flawed perception of the people who were genuinely involved inprogressive causes and struggled for right to free speech. The criticism obliged Dylan to send a confession tothe ECLC clarifying his position. In a remarkable message addressed to all fighters for good things that I

can not see Dylan wrote that he was feeling uncomfortable at that night because of the attention aimed athim. Thinking something else was expected of me but not knowing what should I say he decided to just be honest. When I speak of bald heads, he explained, I mean bald minds. When he spoke of Negroes,he was speaking on behalf of his Negro friends, the ones that dont own ties but know proudly they donthave to. Admitting that his suggestion to old people was a betraying thought, Dylan tried to fix thedamage by saying those that know me know otherwise and asked not to blindly follow his explodin words as the effort will invariably lead to misunderstand him. ( Source )

Dylan reached the pinnacle of his creativity during the next fourteen months with a trilogy ofalbums Another Side of Bob Dylan , Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited . As his mindturned elusive and aloof, the vocabulary, structure and tone of his lyrics also turned introspective, personaland obscure. He started to introduce issues that have little to do with politics. Beat and French symbolistpoetry started to reflect prominently in his works. He craved to escape into the phantasmagoric worldof Mr. Tambourine Man through the smoke rings of his mind. As if to define his own terms, Dylanconspicuously made a populist turn to embraced the riotous form of electrified rock & roll, although, in hislifetime he could never entirely end his relations with traditional folk music. The long narrative of hisradical songs that used to speak about the suffering masses, now started to explicitly depict messages fromhis private universe, his alienation, suffering and grievances.

In the song My Back Pages on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan , Dylan tried to articulate whyhe distanced himself from the regimented politics of the Leftand moved towards a new

direction. Renouncing many of his earlier political convictions as romantic facts , he aimed his fury againstthe Left movements visions and ideals. He now doubted the conservative and superficial lessons he hadreceived from the corpse evangelists and belittles their phony jealousy. He denounced the dogmaticmethods of memorizing politics / Of ancient history and the simplistic preaching of the self -ordainedprofessors tongue. Expressing regrets he disclosed that by taking a soldiers stance to moralize thetutored ideals, he unknowingly got detached from life and became his own enemy. He spurns his former selffor beingdeceived by abstract threats / Too noble to neglect and for perceiving I had something toprotect. The refrain of every verse repeats: Ah, but I was so much older then / Im younger than that nowexpressing how unconfined he now feels after writing-off his own past and moving away from the stiflingcaptivity.

All I do is protest

Cynically interpreting his own achievements, Dylan had also claimed later that political songwriting wastoo easy for him as he just picked up what was in the air, and gave it back to people in another form. Ifhis words are to be taken at face value, then we have to acknowledge that one of his best-known anti-warprotest songs Masters Of War was written because it was what the people want to hear and he knew it would sell! Whatever he might have been saying in public, his rebellious inner core remained absolutelyintact. One of his most provocative works Its Alright Ma (Im Only Bleeding) released on the nextalbum Bringing It All Back Home accurately reveals Dylans defiant state of mind. Sung using only anacoustic guitar, this electrifying twenty verses long masterpiece is perhaps the greatest protest song Dylanhas eve r written. The song begins with an allusion to Arthur Koestlers Darkness at Noon novel, but, in asharp contrast to Koestler who was criticizing communism in the novel, Dylans song targeted capitalism.David Baldwin has suggested that, Nearly everyone and everything in the songs world is connected in a web of corruption in which money is the only real value. Through an unremitting flow of imagery, Dylansfiery words ripped open the depravity and hypocrisy of the capitalist system. He attacks the authoritarianhuman gods who Make everything from toy guns that spark / To flesh -colored Christs that glow in the
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dark, and considers that creativity is Nothing more than something they invest in. Depicting thepowerlessness of people through his complex figurative language Dylan talks about how propaganda cheatspeople by tempting them to think that they are the one That can do whats never been done / That can win whats never been won. With ruthless sarcasm he unleashes his anger against a society that push fakemorals, insult and stare / While money doesnt talk, it swears. Directly criticizing the social and politicalconditions for suppressing an alienated individual through its totalitarian rules, Dylan declares:

Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

In his absorbing book Chimes of Freedom , Mike Marqusee writes that the song is a sweepingcondemnation of a society in which the holiness of life is denied [] a society dominated by commodities,all public discourses has grown corrupt. Dylan also didnt spare futile activism that claims to challenge thiss ystem. He uncovers that To understand you know too soon / There is no sense in trying, just becauseYou follow, find yourself at war, and end up discovering that youd just be one more/Person crying.Being the product of that society, the critical voices also cannot escape from its corruption and emptiness.

The political point of view expressed in the capacious song is absolutely stunning. Theres a magic tothatIts a different kind of a penetrating magic, an apparently proud Dylan told Ed Bradley in 2006.Then, with a definitive tone he concluded: And, you know, I did it. I did it at one time.

Chaos is a friend of mine

In the next double album Blonde on Blonde , Dylan shifted his focus away to more abstract ideas. Brilliantlytravelling around areas of deeper insight previously unexplored by popular music, he took his music to alevel where others dare not risk going. The songs of Blonde on Blonde are heavily embroidered with flashingimages expressed through a reflexive surreal-romantic language and his magnetic voice the thinwild

mercury soundmetallic and bright gold as he himself has defined. Tracing a folk heritage, Dylanaccumulated many of its precious elements especially from the blues, cleverly deconstructed the olderforms and styles and mixed them with a unique interpretation of life and history to offer the listenerssomething absolutely poetic and original. The parodied declaration about speculative criticism of theopening track Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 , the opaque sensuality of Visions of Johanna , the strikinglyrhythmic I Want You , the hilarious imagery of Leopard Skin Pill-box Hat , the graceful yet cryptic lovesong Just Like a Woman , the gripping melody and feverish lyrical allusion of the eleven minutes and twentyseconds long Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowland has made this album one of Dylans greatest achievements ofall time. One of the most fascinating aspects of the songs is that they never sounded like something comingout from a high priest of learning, despite the fact that his music had actually turned highly sophisticated innature.

The folk fraternity was genuinely upset with Dylan for his denial to conform their beliefs and expectations.Quite expectedly, he was booed by some of the folk purist audience at the 1965 Newport Folk festival after afeisty presentation of Maggies Farm with an amplified rock band. As if to counter them, Dylan chose toend his performance with a solo acoustic presentation of Its All Over Now, Baby Blue :

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.

Forget the dead youve left, they will not follow you.

The vagabond whos rapping at your door

Is standing in the clothes that you once wore. Strike another match, go start anew

And its all over now, Baby Blue.


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Dylans complicated relationship with the real music of folk was immortalized when a disappointed andirate fan shouted at him Judas! at the Royal Albert Hall, Manchester in May 1966. Denying any guilt hepromptly responded, I don't believe you, youre a liar. On 29 July 1966, after returning from a nine -month world tour, an exhausted Dylan got in an accident on his motorcycle near his Woodstock home. He wasthen at the peak of his popularity and influence but at the same time under extreme pressures to fulfill theexpectations involved in being Bob Dylan. From the day he moved to New York City at the age of twenty in1961 till the next five years, his life was moving extremely fast. Tired of all the attention and constantscrutiny, Dylan now wanted to get out of the rat race, to escape from the pressures that had built uparound him. They expect him to be who they interpret him to be, wrote Suze Rotolo in her recentlypublished memoir A Freewheelin Time . The very mention of his name invokes his m yth and unleashes aninsurmountable amount of minutiae about the meaning of every word he ever uttered, wrote, or sang.Dylan was having a family now and was dreaming for, as he wrote in Chronicles , a nine -to-five existence, ahouse on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard. The mysterious accidentgave him a much-needed break from his hectic lifestyle. Dylan withdrew himself from the public only toreappear again sixteen months later to perform at the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall inNew York City. He also did not tour for the next seven years.

There were tears in my bed

The contradictions and conflicts within Dylans art virtually symbolized the ambiguous relationship between music and political activism. His growing political pessimism had outraged many of his radicaladmirers and friends like Joan Baez who admitted openly that his refusal to show a political conscienceextremely disappointed her. He even squabbled with Phil Ochs and bluntly told him Youre nothing but a journalist. Ochs, unlike Dylan, had deliberately embraced political and social causes through his music andnever deserted his protest roots. Dylan also refused to share what he thought about the Vietnam War.Instead, when pressed for a political opinion on Vietnam in his first post-accident interview in Sing Out !Dylan shot back: how do you know Im not, as you say, for the war? When asked why his songs arent associally or politically applicable as they were earlier. Dylan respo nded, I no longer have the capacity to feedthis force which is needing all these songs. I know the force exists, but my insight has turned into somethingelse.... Also in the same interview he had categorically refused to take any position on political issues sincehe felt that It doesnt necessarily mean that any position must be taken. He told Christopher Sykes in1986, I don't know which of my songs was ever political. When Sykes referred to Masters Of War , Dylansaid, I dont know if even Masters Of War is a political song. Politics of what? If there is such a thing aspolitics, what is it politics of? Is it spiritual politics? Automotive politics? Governmental politics? What kindof politics? Where does those word come from, politics? Is this a Greek word or what? What does it actuallymean? I dont know what the fuck it means. [] If you listen to that stuff you go crazy. You dont evenknow who you are anymore. It dont make any sense to me.

Despite his repeated denial that he was motivated by political impulses, it was quite impossible for Dylan to

shed his political conscience. In October 1971, he recorded George Jackson , his first protest song since1963. The song was his tribute to the black convict George Jackson who became a Marxist and a member ofthe Black Panther Party in prison. Jackson spent twelve years of his life behind the bars after he wasconvicted of stealing seventy dollars from a gas station when he was only eighteen. Dylan had readJacksons prison letters Soledad Brothers and was passionately motivated by the book. In a spurt ofemotion, he penned the heartfelt ode after Jackson was murdered on August 21 at the age of twenty-nine bythe prison guards at the notorious San Quentin prison yard, allegedly while trying to escape.

The song follows a simple narrative recounting Jacksons troubled life, blamed the authorities who hatedhim because He wouldnt bow down or kneel and Because he was just too real. It describes the prisonguards who cursed him / As they watched him from above and were frightened of his power and scaredof his love. In the final verse Dylan conveyed a fascinating revelation:

Sometimes I think this whole world


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Is one big prison yard. Some of us are prisoners

The rest of us are guards.

Dylans passionate homage to a martyr of institutional racism, however, failed to escape controversy. Whileappreciating her son being subject of a Dylan song, Jacksons mother had expressed that she would be morecontented if she had received a portion of the royalties Dylan has earned from the song. Peter Doggett hasfound that in Dylans reading, the moral difference between the oppressor and the oppressed has been blurred out they were both us, both trapped in the prison yard. Doggett further complains, He hademployed the same ambiguity nearly a decade earlier, in Only a Pawn in Their Game , undercutting themoral simplicities of the folk protest movements. Now he was mythologizing a hero of the movement whilesubverting the heros philosophy. Rolling Stone magazine commented that the song immediately dividedDylan speculators into two camps: those who see it as the poets return to social relevance and those whofeel that it's a cheap way for Dylan to get a lot of people off his back. Indeed, Dylans urge to sing forJackson is contrary to his earlier stand when he had refused to stage a benefit concert for the Black PantherParty and contributed just $40 for the partys legal defense fund.

Five years later he will come back again with another aggressive topical ballad Hurricane , describing blackmiddleweight boxer Rubin Carters false trial and conviction under a racist American power structure.

(To be continued)

chaos to creation the enigma of bob dylan (part 2)

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