Well what I am contesting really, is his position as untouchable shaman-auteur (in No Direction Home, Ginsberg really made me squirm when he said that Dylan was "a pure column of air . . . almost like a shaman". The random thing that comes into my head is Hedi Slimane's overblown appreciation of Pete Doherty, more sexual than objective one suspects... but also political and commercial. Anyway let's not go into that, especially as I am a great fan of Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams et al)
But first I must deal with Mullet's point about politics (I can't see the light either! Providing my meaning isn't altered, mods are free to edit this). I agree that people tend to polarize the political positions of those in the public eye. If you are leftist, then they will cast you as a communist and if you are economically right, then they will assume you are fascist when the two have nothing much to do with one another. However, do you see this happening with any other significant artist? I very much believe that a good proportion of the image that comes across is your own doing. Has Patti Smith ever ever being called on her integrity? Never. Has Springsteen? Never. Has Neil Young? Never. And it is not that they are all of the left. There are many right-wingers who have never been told that they are selling out. There is something about the way Dylan does it, that stinks.
If it was a case of Bob Dylan occasionally outing wrongs but keeping politics firmly hidden, that would be one thing. But it his numerous snide (humorous, whatever!) remarks whilst still expecting to be seen as above politics. During Vietnam: "Are you going to anti-Vietnam protest tonight" *sarcastic* "I'm kind of busy tonight"
Recently: Dylan was asked about the absence of any song about the current war on his own latest album, Modern Times. "Didn't Neil Young do that?" he jokes . . . "What's funny about the Neil record, when I heard 'Let's Impeach the President,' I thought it was something old that had been lying around. I said, 'That's crazy, he's doing a song about Clinton?'"
So are you going to talk about politics or not Bob?
And if you really really believe that he has no particular ideologies but goes as they wind takes him, don't you think that is irresponsible, not as an artist but as a human being? It is like those people who say that they are above politics. It is the most nonsensical argument. If you are 'above' politics then you are above human life, which is not really possible unless you are pure. Really what they mean is that they don't have the intellectual stimulation or the will to care. Which is nonchalance at its most dangerous. Apathy is one of the worst things you can suffer from and not using a vote when you have one is along the same lines. I don't mind people making mistakes or changing their minds but as long as they are honest in what they do. And regarding his behaviour in recent years, the adverts and the music videos, the cinematic vanity project that is Masked And Anonymous... are these the actions of a man with artistic integrity? They aren't scandalous acts but it has certainly been mismanagement and bad intentions somewhere along the line.
Somebody posted the following online, which though a little more agressive than I would be towards Dylan, does have some interesting points on how derivitive Dylan can be. Why do we worship him when Guthrie was amazing, when Seeger was amazing when there are some beautiful recordings by black inmates in US prisons from the early part of last century?
So the point now is to prove how terribly shakespearean he is, is that
it? ram him into universities, another crap noble prize, more books
on elusive lyrics where we're all supposed to trace down the sources.
he quoting the bible here, he quoting joan baez' t*ts here, he quoting
his hat here and he quoting dante there, he be quoting mctell there and
so on. supposed critical analysis justifies itself in a quoting
complexity that's damn lame and always leads to one great goal, a goal
that's already been proven before the reason began, that dylan's a
genius. and that all those academic people, all those guys who work
their ***es off with systems and essays and get damn little
acknowledgement are inferior to the gododylan, and all because we're
supposed to suspend our disbelief and allow him poetic licence, coz
he's incompetent, too ambitious and wants to make a fast buck he doesnt
have the honesty to write essays and justify what he says, he resorts
to poetry where all is allowed, a complicity between his fans and him,
both want the easy way out; quoting, to hell with honesty, systems and
justifying the crap we say, quoting allows for pseudo complexity,
lacking in the honesty and thouroughness of post-maoist godard, whose
je vous salue marie beats the crap out of all those carribean farts.
ppl say he's recently resorted to postmodernism, but perhaps he was
like that all along, just another lame quoter.
I guess it IS a criticism of postmodernism. It began before The Waste Land but it was Eliot's work I suppose that made allusion such a hot function in art. Eliot does it perhaps effectively (or does he?) but it has got to the point where deliberate obscurity seems the name of the game. Poetry is all about putting up barriers to straight comprehension which due to the additional levels of effort required, will yield far greater understanding. This is where poetry is not a newspaper article. However, it is certainly not obscurity for obscurity's sake. I think every musician or poet nowadays would love to be called enigmatic, and indeed that is a work that is oft-used in Dylan exegeses.
For example, a song that as Doherty's Girl will assure you, has been on my record player for the last month as I try to unravel it, is Changing Of The Guard. It is a song that entirely enraptures you with it's evocative, romantic imagery (dog soldiers, ebony maids, black nightingales) but above all it is the music that enchants you. With all my reading of Dylan's lyrics, I cannot understand why his songwriting that is cast above all else. Sure anthems like Blowin' In The Wind reach dizzying heights because of the understanding of the simplicity required, but you can't judge based on a few anthems. His lyrics are by no means god sent (there are many artists who are more eloquent that he is) but his musicianship is. Without that, it would be nothing.
So music, in the way it sways you (perhaps this is the only way in which Dylan is shaman-esque) and gets in you, is very much propaganda... after all, there are words infecting you as the notes lubricate you. Which is why I am so concerned with artists being frank about where they stand, even if they are liable to change. If they are not, it is not only an oversight of the dangers of the media and the age they live but a collusion with far worse propaganda machines.
On the other hand, it mustn't be political correctness either. But I think it has become politically correct to venerate Dylan, politically correct to idolise the 60s and that is when you get all sorts of falsehoods. I don't want Dylan to be something he is not. I am sure none of you will be surprised to know that I am a leftist liberal but it is not a necessity for me that Bob be one too. I just want him to be decent and honest, but I don't think he is. Anyway, in the vein of false criticism, someone posted the very funny following analysis of the lyrics of Love And Theft somewhere in hyperspace:
You kiddin'? "L&T"'s chock full of offensive or at least dubious language, just
waiting to be altered or expunged:
"His Master's voice is calling me,"
Gender-biased religious discourse
"Sky full of fire, pain pourin' down"
Too traumatic post-911
"Got a long haired woman, she got royal Indian blood"
"The ladies down in Darktown, they're doing the Darktown Strut"
Racist
"I got eight carburetors, boys I'm using 'em all"
"I'm forty miles from the mill - I'm droppin' it into overdrive"
Pro-global warming
"Gonna break the roof in - set fire to the place as a parting gift"
"I'm gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more
I'm gonna establish my rule through civil war"
Violent and arsonistic
"Papa gone mad"
"Sugar Baby, get on down the road
You ain't got no brains no how"
"The Siamese twins are comin' to town"
Insensitve to the handicapped and mentally ill
"Don't know how it looked to other people
I never slept with her even once"
"Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard"
Sexual harrassment
"I asked Fat Nancy for something to eat"
Weightist
"There ain't no limit to the amount of trouble women bring"
Misogynist
"I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered
I'm gonna tame the proud"
Imperialist-jingoist-militarist
"I catch a lot, sometimes too many"
Overfishing
"There's a new grove of trees on the outskirts of town
The old one is long gone"
"You can smell the pine wood burnin'"
Clearcutting old-growth timber
"I left all my dreams and hopes
Buried under tobacco leaves"
Big Tobacco product placement
"All the rest of them rebel rivers"
Glamorizes the Confederacy (let's not even get into "Cross the Green Mountain")
"My grandfather was a duck trapper"
Heartless bastard!
Anyway so I have rabbled on for some time now, probably not being very coherent, but I would love to have my opinions on Bob Dylan changed but much as I love his music, I can't seem to see him as an artist.
a lot of sadness, anger, and jealousy.
]...if you're not republican, then people automatically understand you're democrat or this or that, I dont think they're really interested on seeing a middle-ground or just a zero ground!, in seeing the problematic of different social levels and being in disagreement with that, which, more than a position of a 'rebel', it should be seen as the obligation of a commited citizen. 
Dylan fascinates and revoltes me at the same time.
