What Bob Dylan wrote was:
I had a primitive way of looking at things and I liked country fair politics. My favorite politician was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who reminded me of Tom Mix, and there wasn't any way to explain that to anybody. I wasn't comfortable with all the psycho polemic babble. It wasn't my particular feast of food. Even the current news made me nervous. I like the old news better.I'd blogged about that when "Chronicles" came out and Meade's Hillary/Bob mixup got me looking for that old post. Searching my blog for "Dylan Goldwater," the first thing I found was this post from June 2008, about none other than Hillary Clinton. She's everywhere! Just then, she was withdrawing from the presidential race. She gave a good speech, and I'd said: "Oh, Hillary, why weren't you like this all along?"
There's no mention of Bob Dylan in that June 2008 post. And, interestingly, the first commenter is Meade (a man I had not yet met). He quotes Hillary's "So today, I am standing with Senator Obama to say: Yes we can" and adds "Gag me." Despite Meade's tendency to bring up Bob Dylan, it wasn't Meade who dragged him in. It was a commenter named L. E. Lee who hijacked the thread to say:
"I was even more surprised that Bob Dylan said that he supports Barack Obama this past week. I do not remember Dylan ever endorsing a candidate for political office before."Meade responded: "L.E.Lee, It's widely known that, like Hillary..., Bob Dylan was a supporter of Barry Goldwater in 1964." Lee demands evidence, Meade tells him to Google "Dylan Goldwater Chronicles," and I make a comment:
If you do that Google search for Dylan and Goldwater, I hope you find this old post of mine where -- as I elaborately blogged "Chronicles" -- I wrote:I provided the relevant lyric:
Dylan's favorite politician: Barry Goldwater. P. 283.
Why: "[he] reminded me of Tom Mix."
Bob Dylan song that mentions Goldwater: "I Shall Be Free, No. 10."
Now, I'm liberal, but to a degreeAnd that's what I said immediately this morning when Meade brought up Dylan and Goldwater: "But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater/Move in next door and marry my daughter/You must think I'm crazy!" Back in 2008, what I did was to go on to write another post, about Bob Dylan and Barack Obama, "What did Bob Dylan say about Barack Obama — and what did he mean?"
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.
In the then-present, which was before dawn, I was reading the new post out loud to Meade, because I want his okay for the use of quotes from him, and the material you see above in this post seemed like it needed to go at the bottom of that post I was trying to finish. I was struggling to get to the end of the whole long string of Stringband-and-Dylan-and-Hillary-and-Althouse-and-Meade and "Fishes stop and ask me where I am bound"-sense-and-nonsense.
And Meade was piling on, saying things like:
The first President Barry was almost President Goldwater... Dreams from My Goldwater... Fishes swimming in the gold water....By then, the sun was up, and the post was up, without the update, because the update itself would need another out-loud read, what with the additional Meade quotes. It was a new morning, and this is a new post.
Can’t you feel that sun a-shinin’?Are there fishes in the stream, wondering where you're bound? What does the groundhog say? And will the Dreams from My Goldwater ever come true?
Groundhog runnin’ by the country stream
This must be the day that all of my dreams come true
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15 comments:
And do you still believe that Hillary really like Goldwater, and don't see this as a political calculation?
'If you like your constitutional Republic, you can keep it.' I kinda recall my family listening to the Sunday Morning news shows in Goldwater's time. The current government bureaucracy seems to be in institutional rebellion against Citizens United. I don't believe Goldwater came up through that process, and, though I agree with the Supreme Court decision, I think the executive branch overestimates the benefits of its rebellion. It can still be beaten.
Naked Bob Dylan Robot says:
I Was Riding the Milk Train to Minnesota Back from London and I Heard Myself on the Radio. That's Not Me, I Said, I'm Already Here, With All the Fishes Swimming in the Fish Car, Waiting on Our Eggs. The Thief Sitting Next to Me Was Looking for a Way Out of Here, But the Joke Was on Him: When You Are on a Train with No Doors You Better Just Enjoy the Ride. I Looked Out the Window and Saw that the Clouds Spelled Cleveland; I Bought My Boots in Cleveland and Left a Princess There, But That Was back Before they Closed Desolation Row. Desolation Row: That was a Good Place to Find Boots and Leave Princesses. The Persian Drunkard nodded in Agreement Even Though I Didn't Say Any of This Out Loud.
Kneeling on the obviously required surrealistic pillow I grovel in abject admiration at the feet of Betamax3000, paying homage to his
compositional skillz..
(BTW, is your sister's name "Transistor Sister?")
As in the time travel paradox of the stepped on butterfly changing the entire future, imagine if you will a world not changed by a single phrase: "Read my lips, no new taxes". Had the first President Bush not uttered that phrase, Bill Clinton would not have been elected and Hillary's only claim to fame would have been the Whitewater trial. She would have long since entered the dustbin of History, while I believe Dylan will be familiar long after his death.
Imagine a world where LBJ's campaign did not come up with the nuclear bomb commercial.
I've been reading MSM stories (like Yahoo) and lefty web sites lately, and my impression is that Americans are trending leftward.
It's an emotional movement, and like the backward look at Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and MLK, and the Republican party, and the Democratic party...
Sorry. I got lost. It just looks hopeless.
Are there fishes in the stream, wondering where you're bound? What does the groundhog say?
Doesn't Taranto have a category for these?
Sometimes with Dylan you Don't Have to Look Back Very Far. Of More Recent Vintage:
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
The Last Line is the Next Train Stop Past the Hopeless Station.
Just then, she was withdrawing from the presidential race. She gave a good speech, and I'd said: "Oh, Hillary, why weren't you like this all along?"
I felt the same about Romney at the point of his concession:
The election is effectively over. Romney ponders what to say in his concession speech, and one of his aides pipes up, suggesting that he give a speech that will “soothe” his acolytes.
“To get up and soothe is not my inclination,” says a defiant Romney. “I cannot believe that [Obama’s] an aberration of the country. I believe we’re following the same path of every other great nation, which is we’re following greater government, tax the rich people, promise more subsidies for everybody, borrow until you go over a cliff. I think we have a very high risk of reaching the tipping point sometime within the next five years. And the idea of saying, ‘Hey, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,’ well, it’s really not.”
I read the Dallek biography of LBJ. The reporters covering Goldwater kindly passed along whatever Goldwater said in his off the record briefings to LBJ's campaign staff. They cooperated whenever possible in painting Goldwater as a wild eyed extremist. There were lots of unfavorable things about Johnson that simply were not reported. LBJ won in a huge landslide........They claim journalism is the first draft of history. Hardly. It's the opening argument for a class action suit against America.......Knowing about how certain essential truths about FDR, JFK, and LBJ were glossed over and ignored, you can't help but wonder when you read these laudatory articles about Obama what the bullshit content is. I suspect that in an article like Remnick's it's pretty high, but it will be another generation before we know for sure.
Goldwater is passé. It's all about Calvin Coolidge now.
Skyler said...
And do you still believe that Hillary really like Goldwater, and don't see this as a political calculation?
Hillary was a semi affluent suburban white girl. Very aspirational and quite conventional in her thinking. She latched on to the dominant ideology of her neighborhood in an effort to blend in and advance herself.
The pattern recurred at Wellesley and Yale. Just different neighborhoods.
Goldwater was a senator. Senators make bad presidents.
If you think I'm going to let Hillary Clinton move in next door and marry my daughter...
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