Let's talk about Bob Dylan.
Without going on a 10,000 word rampage about his demigod status, his personal mythology, his idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, his power and his weakness, his faith and his doubt, I'd just like to submit that for a man known as one of the greatest and most popular poets of the 21st-century, his poems are pretty terrible.
I feel about Bob like I feel about my siblings, or the country I grew up in, or my particular religious affiliation. Yeah, they're flawed, ridiculous, self-centered, incomprehensible or feeble to the view of outsiders, strange, difficult, and most likely disturbing.
But YOU don't get to tell me that.
But even so, we have to admit that among songwriters he has no peer. And among poets, he has far too many. Here's an example.
(Pointless Like a Witch)
Bob Dylan
trip into the light here abraham ... what about this boy of yours? & don't tell me that you just do what you're told i might not be hip to your sign language but i come in peace i seek knowledge. in exchange for some information, i will give you my fats domino records, some his an hers towel & your own private press secretary . . .come on. fall down here. my mind is blank. i've no hostility. my eyes are two used car lots. i will offer you a cup of urn cleaner - we can learn from each other/ just don't try & touch my kid
got too drunk last nite. musta drunk too much. woke up this morning with my mind on freedom & my head feeling like the inside of a prune ... am planning to lecture today on police brutality. come if you can get away. see you when you arrive. write me when you're coming
your friend,
homer the slut
And yes, the parenthetical title is his.
Here are all of his peculiar quirks laid bare - self-conscious mannerisms like his eccentric punctuation; sudden shifts in tone and subject that aspire to dada but can't quite get there from here; pop culture references thrown into the mix seemingly at random and for no good purpose; allusions to history, religion, myth, literature which all add up to a curiously tasteless mash that by comparison makes Esau's lentils the ambrosia of the gods.
See, now he's even got me doing it!
But compare that with the lyrics to the title track from his album "Highway 61 Revisited." (It's a lot funnier and more entertaining with the video playing.)
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”
Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose
Welfare Department they wouldn’t give him no clothes
He asked poor Howard where can I go
Howard said there’s only one place I know
Sam said tell me quick man I got to run
Ol’ Howard just pointed with his gun
And said that way down on Highway 61
Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61
Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light, he says hmm you’re right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61
Now the rovin’ gambler he was very bored
He was tryin’ to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61
It's got so many of the same qualities as the first poem, and it's even got some similar subject matter and tone. But for Dylan, form seems to be the thing that keeps him on track. It's all united by the rhyme and meter and especially the blues/pop format of verses linked by a final line that acts as a chorus.
Instead of rambling and nonsensical, these sudden shifts in subject matter seem to show that these characters and situations are all symptoms with the same cause that gets embodied in Highway 61. The allusions give it depth instead of side-tracking us, each reference throwing us into a new part of this world he's weaving. It's tight, structured, even while it keeps its loose, about-to-go-off-the-rails feel.
The poem just seems to be a self-referential masturbatory mess, while the song has a method in its madness.
Now, I'm going to have to go off another time about the way in which music critics and especially academics who like to show off how hip they are try to teach songwriting or song appreciation. They strip it of melody, harmony, dynamics and then just say, "Now read this. Ain't it great?" It's not the way songs are written, it's not the way they're listened to, and it's not how we should be thinking about them.
But in this case, even if all you do is read the words on the page, you can see a luminescence that's entirely lacking in the poem. It kind of blows my mind that the man called the greatest living songwriter can also compose poems that are such a waste of time.
Moral of this story: “I like Fidel Castro and his beard.”
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