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Dylan

Ain’t talkin’ / just walkin’
Eating hog eyed grease in a hog eyed town
-Bob Dylan


I’ve never been a huge fan of poetry outside of songwriting. Something about my innate, nonlinear orientation makes it difficult for the form to stick without a back beat or chord progression. “If you must keep talking, please try to make it rhyme,” says Mose Allison. My capacity to understand poetry drops off precipitously after Robert Burns. But at least I get that much.

While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

“Mosses, waters, slaps and styles” is good stuff, and no wrath-nurser worth her salt could fail to relate to that last line. Which takes me to Bob Dylan (another big fan of all things Scottish.) I saw Bob perform at Prospect Park in Brooklyn last week. My neighbor and old pal Mark Street is perhaps the biggest Dylan fan I know. He’s remarked on Bob’s refusal to bow to expectation. Whether plugging in (to Pete Seeger’s chagrin) or touring Israel while strumming his Christian tunes, “I’m Bob Dylan” has always seemed sufficient justification for whatever catches his fancy. He was offering no explanations in Brooklyn, either, as his band put down a sublime and restrained back beat for the bluesy cuts from “Modern Times” and he chopped and reconstructed melodies and interpretations of early works. There were some old hippie grumblings among the widespread cheers about the way he “mangled” Blowin’ In The Wind and other early sixties chestnuts. This has always seemed curious to me, how these folks who claim some exclusive right to an artist are the same ones who haven’t seen him perform in the last twenty years. Who goes to a Dylan show with a checklist? 

For a lesser talent this refusal to be categorized could be mistaken for posturing. But the boy could always flat out write. “Time Out Of Mind” and “Modern Times” are both deceptively great albums and resonate with a dark and forlorn feeling. At sixty seven Dylan seems thankfully more intent on musing about this stretch of road as opposed to contemplating that already traveled. He also appears to be having a good time on his own terms. I enjoyed the pockets of cheers coming from the crowd when he sang “I’m the oldest son of a crazy man / I’m in a cowboy band.” It summed it up nicely and he’s surrounded himself with some talented gunslingers. There’s been discussion about the derivative nature of Modern Times and how Dylan has adapted many cuts from older, well-known compositions. This is true, but so what? Van Morrison creates in similar fashion. Like Dylan, whatever he does becomes distinctly his own.

 

I was happy to read the Times review of the show the following morning and see that it made prominent note of something that stuck with me. After the encore, Dylan came to the front of the stage and as his band stood stoically behind in black western suits he formed his hands into pistols and fired silently and deliberately into the crowd. It wasn’t just the gesture but the way he appeared to be taking his time and savoring it. Despite the dim stage lighting, you could see it in his eyes. Here’s to a guy who was never destined to be a greatest hits act.  

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