On Understanding Dylan

The trouble with ninety percent of the articles on Bob Dylan is that they treat him as though the writer were an arrogant surgeon who has every right to cut, probe and analyse — to treat Dylan's songs as some sort of code (rain in Dylan's later songs probably means smack) which must be broken to enjoy the song, who make constant references to Dylan as a leader of youth, which he rejected even when he was singing political songs ten years ago.

In a world where commercialism has stripped western society of any culture other than Hamburger stands and Coco-cola Dylan was just a particularly talented middle class teenager going through an identity crisis.

Coming from a small mining town, his early songs have a certain black-and-white naievity about them. What shows through them is not so much the message but Dylan's talent at putting it across.

With his acid experiences his political songs came to an abrupt end and in 'another side of Bob Dylan he scorns his earlier attitudes, calling them 'Lie that life is black and white" (My Back Pages).

His next album 'Bringing it all Back Home' further offended his earlier audience by getting into rock music, but it also gained him the support of just about every freak in the Western world.

Just as Dylan became disillusioned with political' scene, he rapidly became disillusioned with drugs, and about the time of 'Highway 61 Revisited' he was probably a Junkie ('I don't have the strength to get up and take another shot, and my best friend my doctor won't even tell me what it is I've got' —Just like Tom Thumbs blues).

He then realised that there is no simple solution to all the fucked American and general capitalistic society and faced with total disillusionment he started to cling towards trying to find happiness through relationships with other people and his next album 'Blonde on Blonde' contains a number of songs about his relationships and their general failure.

Two weeks after 'Blonde on Blonde' was released, he had an accident on his Triumph motorcycle and while his body and head were recovering be went into seclusion for 18 months and at the end produced the really beautiful 'John Wesley Harding' album. He explained that he was just another guy trying to get on, that he didn't really want to be a superstar anymore and that he couldn't really say what life was for, but could only live it and the last song he sings 'Kick your shoes off, do not fear, bring that bottle over here'.

This was the direction he took and his next album 'Nashville Skyline' was full of country songs.

Still, people wanted a Messiah, so to destroy his image he put out 'Self Portrait' which is filled with second rate other people's songs.

The quality of his work seemed to go down as he became more involved with his Zen Buddhist wife and it looked like Dylan was on the way out until his tour and resulting album in 1974 after which he broke up with his wife and put out his incredible new album 'Blood on the Tracks' which is typical Dylan with its ambiguous title (does he mean railroad tracks, needle tracks, record tracks, or what)? and its tines like 'the hanging judge was sober — he hadn't had a drink' and is a must if you want to know about Dylan.

Dylan is still too far ahead of his time for wankers like Anthony Scudato to understand him so there's not a hell of a lot of good stuff to read about him, but easily the best book about him is 'Song and Dance Man' by Michael Gray (Abacus) and if you want to get into his lyrics you'll need one of his many word books such as 'Writings and Drawings'. All his records are good, but the best one to give a cross-section of his work is 'Greatest Hits Volume 2'.

If you're looking for a performer you can relate to then it is worthwhile remembering that Dylan is the only 'superstar' that really cared about his music rather than his royalty-cheques.

Ten years after he sang 'Blowing in the Wind' and he's still in there telling it like it is. Keep it up, Bob.