Dylan the American Left, and What We Have Lost

[Mark Kohut]

Millions of people not as old as (most) of us writing and reading this.
And, as an artist with creative ambiguity and not much of a movement
follower --or spokesman--as he himself said--
he rose above most literal political endorsements, so to speak.

And I think Thomas is also right in the media coverage not accenting that
Dylan, the fountainhead from which
I see him. But I'm nobody.  I have read a lot of the coverage, my weakness,
and the leftist sixties roots as the lens I cannot change seeing him
through (yet) are
not accented as much as I thought they would be--when his whole life is
what is written about.

In some sense, maybe, in his self-created individuality as as artist, we
might call him anarchic? In the way
 it is often intended in Pynchon's work: against statism and almost all
forms of "authority" guiding one's life.
(That God-and being-a little-missionary-about-it phase, not so much)

Having seen him in performance just a few times; having heard some of his
different performances
of his own favorite songs, it has just occurred to me, because of the
Award, to see them as 'readings', as
when we can have so many of the subtly different (yet ultimately major)
readings of Shakespeare or Pynchon.
That fascinates me.

I once tried writing about two performances of the same songs to accurately
capture their emotional emphases
and differences with the same words. But I have a tin ear along with other
weaknesses.



On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 10:06 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> What idiot doesn't know Dylan was a major voice of the Left in the 60's?
>
>
> On Saturday, October 15, 2016, Thomas Eckhardt <
> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>
>> Am 15.10.2016 um 20:14 schrieb ish mailian:
>>
>> Since the mass media won’t tell you Dylan was in his youth a leftist
>>> or that some of his greatest work came out of a critique of our
>>> corporation-dominated, unequal, militaristic and racist society, it is
>>> important to underline it lest the celebration of his masterpieces
>>> become merely maudlin (and he would hate that outcome, too).
>>>
>>
>> Yes. And this cold war chestnut is becoming more apropos by the minute:
>>
>> I've learned to hate the Russians
>> All through my whole life
>> If another war comes
>> It's them we must fight
>> To hate them and fear them
>> To run and to hide
>> And accept it all bravely
>> With God on my side
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
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