Comments on: Bob Dylan Is 66 Years Old Today

Bob Dylan Is 66 Years Old Today

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:05:48 -0800

...Rembrandt's last self-portrait, for instance, shows an old man having a good laugh at the ways of the world, even as he is about to leave the stage. The Western world may be ageing, then, but, far from this amounting to a 'dying of the light', a case can be made for the very opposite, certainly where Bob Dylan's renaissance as an artist is concerned. Neither should age be confounded with a heavier tread. For while a perception and characterisation of the surreal nature of much of human life was a defining quality of Bob Dylan's first golden creative period in the 1960s, it's also a delightful characteristic of his artistic renaissance in the 'noughties' of the new millennium.

Bob Dylan and the ageing of the West
In other news, May 24th is International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day

Of course, he was 23 in 1965, the year when he recorded Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, but, gosh darn it, he's still writing songs and touring and he still isn't dead yet..."

By: DU

DU — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:12:57 -0800

The 60s: Greatest Generation or Greatestest Generation?

By: parmanparman

parmanparman — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:18:54 -0800

May a moody baby doom a yam?

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:32:51 -0800

"May 24th is International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day" Perfect! My nose is already stuffed-up from allergies, so I was talking like Dylan without even trying!

By: notsnot

notsnot — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:33:40 -0800

Damn, weird coincidence: I started reading, and the 13th Floor Elevators' version of "Baby Blue" came on the player. Not only a Dylan song, but redone by an archetypal 60's band, and then the actual lyrics....

By: NedderLander

NedderLander — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:34:21 -0800

dying in the light, does that mean they'll have to bury him onstage?

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:38:10 -0800

YouTube: Bob Dylan - Happy Birthday - 1986 Sydney See also 65 Revisited

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:48:02 -0800

I think that he did his best work in the 60's, when he wrote all the songs ever performed.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:54:16 -0800

See also: I'm in awe of McCartney. He's about the only one that I am in awe of. He can do it all. And he's never let up... He's just so damn effortless.

By: ORthey

ORthey — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:08:50 -0800

Sooner or later, we're not going to have any "talk like you normally do " days anymore.

By: SteveInMaine

SteveInMaine — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:32:22 -0800

"The kids have been coming home and telling their parents about the weird man who keeps coming to class to sing scary songs on his guitar."

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:37:02 -0800

That is probably a hoax, by the way--that story originated in the New York Sun in the last month and it said the kids in kindergarten were Jakob Dylan's, but Jakob Dylan's kids are all way past kindergarten age. I don't think any of his kids have children that age right now.

By: gubo

gubo — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:50:25 -0800

DIDN' YEEEW!!

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:54:11 -0800

how green was my valley ... how, with the help of hundreds of billions of worms, the baby boomers are revolutionizing the cemetery lawns of the 2030s

By: MtDewd

MtDewd — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:06:39 -0800

When the We are the World video came out, my son was 12 and knew who almost all of the performers were. He had one question- 'Who's the guy that sounds like Buckwheat?'

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:09:57 -0800

I have to favorite this post because...BobDylanfuckingRulesOK? This YouTube clip of Cry A While at the Grammy Awards in 2002 is particularly electrifying.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:15:01 -0800

And I believe next Friday is International "Quit Talking Like Other People, You Freaking Dipshit... It Was Funny When It Was Pirates But This Is Getting Out Of Hand" Day.

By: Dillenger69

Dillenger69 — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:27:10 -0800

The west is not aging ... The baby boomers are aging. I'll be glad when they are gone. They've screwed this country royally with their short-sightedness. Anything that doesn't directly benefit them is falling apart and they could care less. Not to mention how much they screwed up their kids. meh

By: sy

sy — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:35:45 -0800

I'm not convinced by the article's attempt to hitch Bob Dylan's personal arc of artistic development to boomer demography, but the article and FPP raise an important point: Dylan is awesome, and we should listen to his music and then interpret his lyrics however we ruddy please.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:40:08 -0800

I will take this FPP as an excuse to link to Reynaldo & Clara clips and performances.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:40:49 -0800

They've screwed this country royally with their short-sightedness. Anything that doesn't directly benefit them is falling apart and they could care less. Well, there was the whole Civil Rights Movement and there were all those civil rights workers who got killed and there was Earth Day and the whole environmental movement and then there were all those anti-Vietnam war protests--not to mention the potential Jeopardy question What demographic is the bulk of the anti-War in Iraq demonstrations ? Not that any of that counts for anything, I suppose...

By: wendell

wendell — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:42:21 -0800

Yep, he's still performing. He'll be at the ~~San Luis Obispo County Fair~~California MidState Fair on July 27th. I'll do all my "talking like Bob Dylan" on that day; at least then the local folks will get the joke.

By: danb

danb — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:00:41 -0800

"My arms and legs were broken, my feet were splintered, my head was cracked, I couldn't walk, couldn't talk, smell, feel...couldn't see...I didn't know where I was...I was bald...quite lucky to be alive, though!"

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:07:07 -0800

And I believe next Friday is International "Quit Talking Like Other People, You Freaking Dipshit... It Was Funny When It Was Pirates But This Is Getting Out Of Hand" Day. Seconded, except it wasn't even all that funny when it was pirates. But Bob Dylan can talk like Bob Dylan all he wants. He's good at it.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:11:44 -0800

Eeeeeeaaaahdiot weeeeeeeond!

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:59:28 -0800

He's going to be doing another DJ on radio2 on Monday. Should be fun; he's telling jokes.

By: devetron

devetron — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:24:55 -0800

Wheeeeeeeeh heeeeeeeeeeew. Meh twennny fourth is myyyyy birthday teeeeeeewwwww.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:47:30 -0800

...The point at issue here is that the intellectual and the artist are not only diametrically opposed, but actively hostile to one another, absolutely incompatible, in fact. ...The true battle for human purpose, then, is not fought out there in the wider world, where the intellectual seeks to use his influence, but within the mind of each human individual, which explains Dylan's album title, Bringing It All Back Home. As for that wider world, intellectuals who contribute to the constant struggle for power may well have acted as artists at another time, but in their public endeavours their concern is rarely with humility and truth, more likely with pride and the desire for power. Is it any wonder that so many of their pronouncements are absurd?

Do we need intellectuals?

By: howfar

howfar — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:53:05 -0800

Bit of a rubbish article, really. Like a scraping 2:2 essay trying to prove its point through endless appeals to the authority of genius. Dylan is a significant artist, and the mining of his songs for supposed nuggets of lyrical wisdom is a bit dull. For a start, these are lyrics, not poems, and hence not well understood without their musical content. Secondly, even if they were to be taken as "some other kinds of songs", the significance of the words stripped of context is vastly depleted. Still. Some awesome songs in there.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:41:22 -0800

First of all, I once wrote a birthday poem to Bob Dylan. Thankfully it's safely hidden away in a box. Second, phoo-wee is that a terrible essay. I love Dylan as an artist. Hell, growing up my dad would sing his songs to me and my sister as lullabies. But man if that essay didn't have me foaming at the mouth. There's a grand total of one good observation in there, the bit about the eyes signifying illusion. I hadn't thought of that. That's a clever interpretation. However, stuff like this had me spittling up my keyboard: So what is the purpose of Bob Dylan's creative renaissance? It is nothing less than to reinterpret the perennial philosophy of mysticism in twenty-first-century terms, to bear witness to the fact that mysticism is not what the dictionary says it is, something related to a sacredly obscure attempt to achieve elevated religious feeling or ecstasy, but a philosophy that sets out to comprehend and explain the nature of reality as it relates to man. In this endeavour, Dylan is perfectly in tune with one of history's most famous mystics, St John of the Cross, who counselled against being distracted from the mystic's true purpose by any transfiguring experiences that might occur along the way. Third, and last, the interview with Bob Dylan in the 40th Anniversary Edition of Rolling Stone, despite the rather poor interviewing technique of Jann Wenner, was very good. That's where the quote about McCartney comes from. Incidentally, the interview with McCartney was also very good, but the other interviews I looked at I found uninteresting.

By: davy

davy — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:52:47 -0800

"You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride, You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side, You may be workin' in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair, You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You're gonna have to serve somebody, Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody." I'll never forgive him for this shit. And all the zillions of times they played it on the radio -- because it was BOB! DYLAN!

By: Huplescat

Huplescat — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:03:04 -0800

You know it balances on your head Just like a mattress balances On a bottle of wine Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:32:59 -0800

I hear Bob Dylan might be getting back together. "The west is not aging ... The baby boomers are aging. I'll be glad when they are gone. They've screwed this country royally with their short-sightedness. Anything that doesn't directly benefit them is falling apart and they could care less. Not to mention how much they screwed up their kids. meh" Yeah, plus something or other: Bob Dylan.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:34:34 -0800

I'll never forgive him for this shit. Dylan's long career has seen no shortage of people who've disparaged him for one reason or another: who'll "never forgive him". I don't think he's too worried about it, nor should he be. And even his worst material (and I'd argue it gets worse than "Serve Somebody") is redeemed by the fact that he's written hundreds of brilliant, transcendent songs.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:11:27 -0800

Leopard-skin pill-box hat.

By: jfuller

jfuller — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:33:20 -0800

Bob will live forever just for saying "Folk music is just a bunch of fat people." Live long 'n' prosper, Bobby.

By: Huplescat

Huplescat — Thu, 24 May 2007 17:05:52 -0800

Hey flapjax, that looks like a leopard-skin fez. Those things balance on your freaking head like a bucket on a basketball.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 24 May 2007 19:01:49 -0800

Except it's more like a bucket on a bocce ball.

By: eritain

eritain — Fri, 25 May 2007 03:17:15 -0800

I don't think he's too worried about it, nor should he be. True that. I can almost hear him saying: "You don't like my stuff? Fine, complain. Ain't gonna stop me, you know. But go ahead. Get it out there. Whine. Gripe. Fulminate. Shout. Shriek. Roar. Rage. Yes, rage; rage against my dying in the light." ... Hey, you know, that's got kind of a nice ring to it. Somebody oughta put that in a song lyric or somethin'.