I think most people watching will assume that [the interview with Bob Dylan] is new, most probably with Scorsese himself asking the questions. Certainly there's nothing to suggest that it isn't. It turns out though, that this interview happened in 2000, and it was conducted by Jeff Rosen, Dylan's manager. ...Now, I haven't watched the whole documentary yet. I've only watched the second half of the first half. But it seemed amazingly old fashioned to me. I'm not surprised it's on PBS. It looks quite PBS-y. And I'll admit to being bored by now with the basic Bob Dylan story -- you know, the one where the climax is that he goes electric and pisses off folksingers. I'd prefer something with a little more edge, like the old documentary "Don't Look Back" or the book "Positively 4th Street" or Dylan's own book "Chronicles." I really detested all the drawn out, reverent material about about the role of folksinging in politics. It just didn't bring out how phony that was for Dylan. The most authentic thing about him is the way he felt like a phony doing that -- as I see it. "Another Side of Bob Dylan" -- I love that album -- that meant the non-phony side, didn't it? ("Ah, but I was much older then. I'm younger than that now.")
It seems strange that Scorsese apparently turned down the opportunity to speak more with Dylan, and instead ran with the old stuff from five years ago. So what exactly did Scorsese do? An (admittedly very beautiful) editing job? But then what did David Tedeschi, the editor, do? Was Scorsese principally just a name to use as ammunition in persuading people to surrender their archive material?
I'll watch the whole thing and come back and admit it if I think this preliminary view is wrong. Feel free to argue with me in the comments.
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52 comments:
I'd had every intention of watching 'No Direction Home' last night. But as 9:00 approached, I decided to read instead. I guess I did so because I had the impression from the previews that a lot of it was composed of footage I'd already seen and that the entire approach to the Bobby Zimmerman saga was the same old same old.
Even if it isn't composed of film images I've seen before, your preliminary reaction makes me feel that I made the right call. Your description appears to what I'd expected.
Now I can skip seeing the thing and not feel guilty for my decision! Maybe I'll just pop 'Blood on the Tracks' onto the computer now.
(I wonder what Scorcese did do?)
Mark: Sounds like you need a TiVo, actually.
Aren't your views on this documentary the Boomer version of Apostasy?
(what would the appropriate punishment be, no coffee house privileges for 2 weeks?)
LeRoy: Not at all!
Saul: Am I correct in guessing that you are fond of PBS documentaries generally? Clearly, we have very different taste. And Scorsese's name is being used to promote the documentary as a work of art, so that matters a lot.
Aidan: A lot of us think Bob Dylan is really rather right wing. He was uncomfortable with those lefty folksingers would initially embraced him.
I went back to PBS for it, long tired of the PBS-ness of PBS, and found it interesting. How seriously young audiences took music, how dangerous standing for civil rights really was--a good history lesson for anyone who thinks mass culture was always mass culture.
And Scorsese probably didn't interview Dylan now because he's incomprehensible.
MS documentary on American film is quite good, also.
The PBS documentary may have been good at one point, but they've seemed stuck in that moment, and so the docs seem really dull to me.
and I never liked Ken Burns either, and he hasn't gotten any better with each new doc.
Okay, so I lied. Just as I finished posting my comment about not watching the Dylan documentary, my wife and son had tuned it in on the TV in the family room. So, I sauntered in and watched it with them.
Reactions...
The film itself: Nothing special about it;
Peter Yarrow: Clueless;
Joan Baez: More interesting and insightful than I'd ever heard her before and while I recognize that she has a lovely voice, I can't tolerate listening to it for long. The only Baez LP I've ever been able to stand was the admittedly over-produced 'Diamonds and Rust';
Bob Dylan: A jerk who can write a song and with his studied cryptic-ness plays the media better than he ever played the guitar or harmonica. I love his music and that's really all we know about him.
Martin Scorcese: He just carried off a pile of easy money.
OMG. Everyone is talking about this documentary tonight.
I was supposed to watch it, and ended up catching Because of Winn-Dixie.
I should've gone with Bob Dylan, as much as I detest him and his era.
(Great autobio of his late last year though -- I recommend it to all who haven't read it)
Saul: Am I correct in guessing that you are fond of PBS documentaries generally?
This generally means Ken Burns.
Let's just say, if it weren't for the late Shelby Foote, his documentaries would have the feel of stale toffee.
(Although Frontline and Nova are unmissable for me)
Cheers,
Victoria
Let me be clear that I was a big Bob Dylan fan when it mattered the most, and Bob Dylan is deeply imprinted on me. I started listening to him (and listening really obsessively) when "Bringing It All Back Home" was the current record, and then "Highway 61" came out. From there, I went back to the earlier records. I was a teenager and quite impressionable. I very much felt that Bob Dylan was revealing to me what life was really about, and he created in me an intense longing to get to the kind of way of life that seemed to be his.
Also, I'm watching the movie from the beginning now, trying to catch up to the part I saw last night and I'm enjoying a lot of it, though I still have the opinion that it's old fashioned, PBS-y, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with Martin Scorsese.
The best and most interesting part of the whole film was hearing Joan Baez be pissed off that Dylan wouldn't go to her protest rallys. Good on you Bob.
I have to say also that I've become a bigger fan of Dylan in the last few years. Mainly because he chides all those who didn't think that he should just be a gifted human being and not a "spokesman for a generation".
As bloggers might say, watch the whole thing. Superb editing by David Tedeschi flawlessly directed by Scorsese. Nearly four hours and it never once bogs down. So it's all archival film -- yes, well, it's a documentary.
Brilliantly, Scorsese punctuates the entire story with footage from the '66 tour, where Dylan's artistry climaxes and his music alternately crystalizes and melts just before he, as Bob Dylan, arrived at his sudden personal crash. Something happened in art and popular music in 1966 - something historically and culturally important.
Now you know.
lmeade: I'm still trying to figure out what Scorsese did (as opposed to Tedeschi). It's basically an editing job, so what did S do "flawlessly"?
I think the documentary was probably overhyped, but for those of us who are vaguely familiar with the storyline but haven't seen Don't Look Back or read the books, I think it's a very clear and occasionally insightful explanation of Dylan's rise and transition. Particularly in Dylan's rejection of being pigeon-holed and how he broke out of that.
Ironically, I see earlier in the comments Dylan is still called a "lefty protest singer" as a label. Certainly that's true of part of his career, although I think even then Dylan is often vague in his politics, but that's primarily based on less than 3 albums of material. And, I find "Blowin' in the Wind", "The Times They Are A'Changin'" "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", and more, not particularly tied down to a topical issue of the time but more general, universal, and timeless. That's not to say that Dylan wouldn't be classified as a "lefty" of the time, but his "leftishness" was mostly limited to justice and equal rights to the poor and minorities, (see "Pawn in the Game" or "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" for exanple) and being against war, particularly the nuclear kind (see "Let Me Die in my Footsteps"). Dylan was a general sentiments kind of "protest singer" and not a "vote for this guy" or "Castro is a great leader" type of singer.
As for what Scorsese did, I think it was more of a job of sorting through a mountain of material and picking out what he considered the most pertinent and interesting, film and music. He obviously decided the overall structure of the film, with Dylan getting booed showed early in contrast to the general acclaim he was getting. Not saving the booing as a "surprise" moment was probably a good choice on Scorsese's part. And while I doubt Scorsese actually cut any film, I'm sure he gave directions to the editors along the lines of "juxtapose these three pieces of film with this song and emphasize the audience reaction", and such. You know, basic director stuff.
" It's basically an editing job, so what did S do "flawlessly"?"
Someone had to decide what would be edited. Scorsese only uses film we've seen before when it's necessary to telling the story. I think his brilliance is largely shown by what he chose to leave out (which includes Scorsese himself). Is that just editing? I don't think so. Scorsese gets the essential Bob Dylan story; Scorsese tells the essential Bob Dylan story.
Please don't give away the ending, I recorded it for future viewing! :-)
I mean pop culture is weird, it just takes a certain coalescence of influences to come together and suddenly someone who is actually rather mediocre is propelled to mythic status, and everyone begins worshipping at the altar. It's a bit like the king with no clothes - no single person had the courage to say what they really thought.
Dear me. I have to stop being inspired by this blog and its commenters to write up posts.
On the heels of the Dylan documentary, and due to the "Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop & Protest" which airs today, Wednesday night, on your various PBS affiliates, I wrote up a challenge post:
Country Music Saves America
Somewhere along the line, from Kate Smith to Kanye West, popular music changed...
And Country Music took up the mantle.
Cheers,
Victoria
Victoria: Interesting blog post. If you haven't already read this, I think you'll find it worthwhile. There is a patriotism which honors and celebrates the 'land where our fathers died' without cloying sweetness. I think many of Bob Dylan's songs express that patriotism. After 1970, one could begin with New Morning. Cheers.
Here is Scorsese speaking for himself. On PBS, by golly!
There is a patriotism which honors and celebrates the 'land where our fathers died' without cloying sweetness. I think many of Bob Dylan's songs express that patriotism. After 1970, one could begin with New Morning.
Sometimes all one needs in life, is a person to take you by the hand, and show you a new way of looking at things.
Thanks, LMeade.
I absolutely loved that article -- and it has made me curious to re-visit a singer I thought I would never like.
And the line Wilentz used too:
Not quite five months after this concert, the French pop singer Johnny Hallyday plays the Olympia.
Where the US offered Dylan, Hendrix and Joplin to define an era, France offered Hallyday, Gainsbourg, and Birkin.
I guess you can't hit a cultural homerun all the time.
Cheers,
Victoria
...Quintessentially "PBS'y," for sure.
while I'd never describe any artist as "God-like," saul, I have to agree that Dylan's songs evoke emotion in me like no other songwriter -- especially thoe on Blood on the Tracks.
I thought the piece was a little too much romanticization of the "movement."
I thought Dylan's interview by 60 Minutes' Ed Bradley was far more illuminating.
lmeade: In that interview he says "we looked at all the footage"-- note the prounoun -- and then, after hemming and hawing, says "I thought it would be an interesting challenge to pull a narrative from that" note the pronoun. I still have the question who did what. What was Scorsese's contribution? He used existing footage, he looked at it, presumably with the editor Tedeschi, and he saw that it was a big challenge. How exquisitely uninformative! And Scorsese isn't famous for being modest and not talking about himself.
Wave Maker: Here's my old post on the Ed Bradley interview.
And while I'm at it, here's an old post about Dylan's book "Chronicles," which I blogged in detail, chapter by chapter.
One thing about both of those things that's different from the PBS show is that you see his elusive, evasive quality. The PBS documentary is more solidly in the real world, showing other people reacting to him (because that's the available footage). is heavy on the reminiscences of friends, so it's very heavy on the war stories -- peace stories? -- of aging folk singers. I'm spending a LOT of time contemplating Dave Van Ronk's horrendous teeth and being incredibly irritated by Peter Yarrow and not wanting to see any more Pete Seeger. And my, didn't Maria Muldaur age strangely!
Stranger: I'm hot on the subject of what Scorsese did -- and please folks, note how to spell his name and get it right from now on! -- because his name was prominently used to get attention and promote the film. It promised not just another PBS documentary -- and I'm hotly opposed to PBS-style documentaries -- and not just a show about a great artist, but a film that is itself a work of art. I don't like to be scammed. There's also the political angle. When I tuned in at first, in the second half of the first night's show, it was all about lefty politics, laid on very thick. That did not seem to be what Scorsese was ever about. He's a man who loves 60s music and cares about characters. I wasn't seeing that. I was seeing PBS, not Scorsese. And I was irked.
Ann: Why did you tune into Part 1 halfway through? That strikes me as an odd way to view any narrative work of art - particularly a movie. It would be like walking into a seminar which is half over and proceeding to question with great suspicion just what the professor's contribution is to the discussion and what is in fact the work of her graduate assistants, and then blaming your fractured perspective on the transparent ideological bent of the college providing the forum.
Your fractured perspective, for what it is, might even be accurate.
But I'm afraid, in this case, I don't find your deconstruction of Scorsese's movie valid or even very interesting.
...Dave Van Ronk's horrendous teeth and being incredibly irritated by Peter Yarrow and not wanting to see any more Pete Seeger...
Yes. I had the same thoughts and feelings. I don't think it's an accident that S. let's us see and feel those things about those characters.
And my, didn't Maria Muldaur age strangely!
And now you're just being pissy. And mean. Which, of course, is the new nice.
Watch. The. Whole. Thing. please.
http://www.mariamuldaur.com/bio.html
To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
Lmeade asks: "Why did you tune into Part 1 halfway through?"
I had set the TiVo to record both episodes on Tuesday, when Episode 1 was reaired. The Monday episode conflicted with "Medium," which we record, chez Althouse. I was planning to watch Episode 1 on Monday, without relying on TiVo, but then the early evening was consumed in a death struggle with Garage Band as I spent hours trying to finish my podcast. When I finally got that done, I felt like watching TV and just started watching the Dylan show. I agree that it would have been odd to deliberately watch the show out of order.
But it was kind of interesting to get a faceful of lefty propaganda when I was hoping to see Bob. Did it skew my opinion unfairly? Or did skipping the PBS prep-work enhance my perceptions?
Aidan -
I agree with what you say politically, but...
Anyone who doesn't see the amazingness of Dylan's wordplay, starting with the first original he ever recorded ("Song to Woody")- well, I'll say this: you've never tried to write songs. Or paid much attention to the words.
The hardest part of song-writing is the words. Any fool (me included) can come up with a melody. Words? I think it's like looking at a great golf swing: well, that doesn't look so hard. I could do that!
Here's Song To Woody:
http://orad.dent.kyushu-u.ac.jp/dylan/songwoody.html
(One of his greatest gifts was the surpising way he would introduce a cliche or something familiar and turn it slightly askew. You'll notice a movie title in there.)
In American popular music word-writing specifically, the Holy Grail is simple poetic vernacular. Dylan evolved from being an immediate master of the nearly-straightforward to an original, a master of words that sound like they're straightfoward but aren't quite; and songs that sound like they're telling a story, but aren't quite, but then they are, maybe. Or something like that. I've probably listened to "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" a hundred times, and I still can't quite tell you what happens. I don''t care. I thihnk it's about the dangers of trying to have your cake and eat it too; the risks of gluttony maybe.
But the lines are so spectacular. "Lily started drinking hard and seein' her reflection in the knife..." That's not easy to come up with. That's hard. And then to fit dozens of roll-off-the-tongue couplets around it? That's super-hard. People have been trying to duplicate it ever since he came along.
I love words. That means I love Dylan. Someone who doesn't see the magic of Dylan's use of words - we're very different people. That's about all i can say.
Here's a latter day song. This is maybe 15 years into what's called his decline. And of coure you should hear him sing it.
http://orad.dent.kyushu-u.ac.jp/dylan/blinwimc.html
Sorry about the length of the previous post.
"The comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus..."
That kind of thing. Most guys never seem to get past "I got on the bus with a comic book." He's got - literally - a million of 'em.
I've always been a sucker for: "It balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine: your brand-new, leopard skin pillbox hat!"
You try to write something that sounds just casually tossed off but is so cool and memorable.
BTW, I liked the scene at the beginning of the "Scorsese" film where Dylan is looking at a sign and then saying the words in different combinations.
Coco: I seem to make a big deal out of high vs. low art? What gives you that idea? My distinction is between good and bad. And I don't like political art, generally. And high art deserves special criticism when it gets pretentious. And I've certainly never relegated Dylan into a "low art" category.
I saw Dylan at an outdoor, summer night setting about five years ago. He shared the bill with Lyle Lovett, and I was struck by his modest, journeyman attitude. He was wearing a tight and rather loud suit and he was sweating a lot. What a contrast to the dark and angry young man in the PBS documentary. One thing he said at a press conference 30 or 40 years ago has held up: He said he just wanted to stay around, and he has managed to do it.
One reason I liked the sign scene was because of how lame a few of the attempts were. And how sort of sheepish Bob looked while doing it. He was letting us into what was usually a very private process.
I do agree, by the way, that for us big fans, the narrative was old hat. The clips were great, though, and some of the interviews with others too. Al Kooper's reasoning for dropping out of the band before they went to Texas: "I didn't want to be his John Connolly, the guy next to him." Very funny.
coco: I just would like to believe that Bob, these days, might have a slightly less disingenuous idea about who the masters of war are than some others. Less incomplete, say.
Thinking about it today, I think the question about "what did Scorsese do?" can best be answered by considering what the film would be like if directed by someone else. I'll take Ken Burns as an example.
1. The film did not feature clips in an orderly fixed chronological order. Juxtaposing the '66 concert footage against the earlier footage raised a different question than what happened next, but how and why did it come to that. And, of course, it also allowed for a good bit of concert footage instead of a documentary narrative followed by a half hour of concert footage.
2. There was, thankfully, no godlike narrator telling us all what it meant. Scorsese almost always has given the audience the benefit of drawing their own conclusions.
3. While the movie obviously admires Dylan, it's not overly sentimental. Stories are told about him stealing records, he comes off looking bad in how he handled his relationship with Baez, he's described as an "opportunist" in one point, although the context wasn't that derogatory, etc.
4. Scorsese obviously isn't someone that gets upset by swearing. Yeah, it was bleeped for television, but it's there, not a second take without the swearing.
5. Scorsese included things that didn't necessarily contribute to the narrative but helped flesh out Dylan. Dylan playing with the words of the sign in England being an obvious example. Nothing to do with the narrative, but fun and illuminating. The "screen test" shots from Warhol is another example.
6. Scorsese isn't one to dwell on things too long. No footage brought the film to a standstill.
7. No academic talking heads. Yes, there were talking heads, but they were people that knew Dylan personally and related experiences and observations, not analysis.
Scorsese probably wasn't as hands on on this project as he is on others, but he was the man in charge.
Excellent review, Robert R!
paulfrommpls said...
... I just would like to believe that Bob, these days, might have a slightly less disingenuous idea about who the masters of war are than some others. Less incomplete, say.
At his first concert after Sept. 11, Bob's setlist looked like this:
(2001-10-05 Spokane, WA)
Wait For The Light To Shine
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Desolation Row
Searching For a Soldier's Grave
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
You're a Big Girl Now
Summer Days
Blind Willie McTell
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Masters of War
Tomorrow is a Long Time
Watching the River Flow
Sugar Baby
Drifter's Escape
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Honest With Me
Like a Rolling Stone
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
All Along the Watchtower
Blowin' in the Wind
While it wasn't the first time he had covered the song, many felt that Searching For A Soldier's Grave had a special gravity that night.
Also, Masters Of War is not, as Dylan has explained, a song promoting pacifism. And it doesn't take very much imagination to hear the words as a sharp attack on all who profit from any military-industrial complex including Islamic jihadists:
"You that [buy] all the guns
You that [steal] the death planes
[And turn them into] big bombs
You that hide behind [beards]
You that hide behind [mosques]
I just want you to know
I can see through your [phony fatwas]"
Well put Ann, or should I say Ayn?
Ahh, that was almost me last week.
I was this close to teasing Ann about her Ayn Randesque attitude to popular culture.
After my mama's boy remark, I thought I was skating too near thin ice though. :)
Ann says:
Coco: I seem to make a big deal out of high vs. low art?
Apart from the confusion this remark arose from, it's understandable that people are likening you to Ayn Rand.
Like her, you draw your audience (in her case, her acolytes) into your world of personal interests via your blog, and you are not DISMISSIVE, as so many academics are, of popular culture.
In her case, she watched and championed doing so, Charlie's Angels. In your case, you watch Six Feet Under.
The motivations may be different, but certainly the similarities are there to be culled.
Her thick Russian accent was annoying though. Nothing like the lilting tones on the podcasting.
Cheers,
Victoria
BTW, I liked the scene at the beginning of the "Scorsese" film where Dylan is looking at a sign and then saying the words in different combinations.
Cigarettes and Tobacco.
Tobacco and Cigarettes.
I want my dog picked up.
I'm seeking a bird bath.
Loved it, too.
Cheers,
Victoria
Call me guru, call me saint
I’m like the dalai lama without religion a huckster cashing in on dreams, just don’t ask this boy to get up and fight.
In the context of the 60's/70's, one might be confused to think that he means not to "fight" in the war.
But perhaps, given his "guru", "Dalai Lama", "huckster cashing in on dreams" lines, maybe he's addressing himself to his fellow artists, saying that he's not going to participate in their fights with "the Establishment"...
Cheers,
Victoria
Aidan -
I've been thinking about this stuff too - not so much with regard to Dylan, but unavoidably with regard to a lot of pop culture, musicians especially, people I love like John Fogerty, who was without any doubt acting like an idiot last year.
So it's a worthy question you're posing.
A couple things about Masters of War: One, even though I've moved right, I don't necessarily find it to be completely ridiculous. There is something to be said about the dangers of the over-militarization of society: it's not an absurd worry.
It especially wasn't an absurd worry in the context of the Cold War, when mutual paranoia was how the world would come to an end. The Soviets weren't going to try to take us down, most people came to realize, with a nuclear strike anyway, unless they believed we were planning to. The absurdity of mutual paranoia was why a movie like Dr. Strangelove worked back then: the point of view was valid. (It's less valid now, sadly.)
The song, by the way, was written in 1963, raising a question as to how much he had Viet Nam in mind. Probably not much, I'd guess. I'd guess the Missile Crisis was more part of his thinking at the time. And like wiht a lot of Dylan, when you look at the lyrics, it becomes less clear who he's aiming at. Taken literally, the words apply just as much to the men behind desks in the Kremlin as they do to those in the US.
"this poem wasn't written by Dylan - but by a Dylan detractor"
...which makes sense - it isn't a very good poem.
Aidan -
That poem is aiming at a target that didn't exist. If I'm reading it right, it seems to assume a rabid anti-Viet Nam type of singer. Dylan was never that.
Coco: Sorry! I need to put on my stronger reading glasses. I must just see the letter A and think it's all about me.
I thought Ann's quote was very smart - nearly brilliant. But Steven made me laugh loud and long.
What a director does and what everyone else does on a set is a constant source of gossip and legend. We know that writer Robert Towne's happy ending in Chinatown was changed by director Polanski--after quite a fight--to its darker, better ending. Lots of other movies yield gossip: the DP on Magnolia pretty much directed it because Anderson was in over his head, etc. It almost doesn't matter. A film is a collaborative art: somehow it gets done, by everybody.
I would think Scorsese storyboarded everthing, and the editor put his two cents in after that. Just my conjecture.
I'm finally three and a quarter hours into the four hour documentary and have enjoyed a lot of it. Mainly, that onslaught of folkies in the second hour made me feel bad. I loved the post-"Like a Rolling Stone" press conferences. And Al Kooper cracks me up.
Hey Ted -
Since we're probably the only two left here, maybe you'll read this.
You actually provide, in your hypothetical statements, some good points. But you undermine and reveal yourself with phrases like "self-evident piffle" and "self-delighted hack" and "fool."
Raising a decent point is not the same as being clearly, obviously right. So in the end, you provide another example of the reasons so many of us who read this site and think somewhat like Ann can no longer consider ourselves part of the same left you (I presume) belong to:
You're addicted to your own clear moral and intellectual superiority, and your reasons for engaging seem largely to be limited to finding ways to buttress that flattering self-image.
Read Ann's post near the top today clarifying what she's saying, what she means. If you consider it not worth at least considering, a susbstantive idea even if you disagree, then I'd conclude you're not someone worth talking to. Which, multiplied several tens of millions of times, is why the left has essentially removed itself from rational debate.
Starting, to bring in another point, with the way the dominant anti-war zealots essentially removed themselves and the rest of the left from rational debate during the run-up to the war, making it more rather than less likely.
To clarify Ted - what I'm saying is, that's what your language suggests to me about you. Maybe it's inaccurate, but if so you're not doing yourself any favors.
Althouse says:
"To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that."
Hey, way to peddle in stereotypes! Your decription of conservative ideology is very flawed.
Do conservatives promote personal rsonsibility when...
...they oppose controls and on pollution and fines and penalties for polluters?
...when they support a President who never admits his mistakes and actually rewards incompetence (see: Prsidential Medal of Freedom)?
I could go on, but there's probably not much point.
Alpha Liberal said: "Hey, way to peddle in stereotypes! Your decription of conservative ideology is very flawed... I could go on, but there's probably not much point."
Alpha, she wasn't describing conservative ideology, she was describing characteristics of great artists. Suggested listening: Althouse podcast #7
StPat: The only trouble with that logic is that other lines from other songs may confound your conclusion. For instance:
RING THEM BELLS
Ring them bells for all of us who are left,
I'LL REMEMBER YOU
I had so much left to do,
And then, just to confuse things, we get:
LOVE IS JUST A FOUR-LETTER WORD
I left my mind behind
and finally:
TALKIN' WORLD WAR III BLUES
I dreamt that the only person left after the war was me.
That Bobby D, not unlike Ann A - tough to pigeonhole.
StPat,
Yes, I knew you were kidding. I thought I could play off your riff of humor with some of the same. I share your appreciation for BD's eschewal of soapboxes.
Seriously, with her aversion to politics and her ability to tweak the self-satisfaction and dogmatism of diverse groups, don't you agree that AA just might be the '66 Dylan of this new blogging medium, albeit sober? She is clearly an inspired artist hitting her stride.
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