1/15/2014
Everybody Sucks But Dylan
By Stephen Jay Morris
“I aint crawling out no window unless I am a victim of defenestration.” What does that mean? Absolutely nothing. Just like mid-60’s song lyrics by Bob Dylan. The gibber-jabber of Dylan lyrics, as quixotic as it appears, has no secret code. When I heard this lyrical line from the 1966 song, “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands:” The king of Tyrus with their convict list, are waiting for their geranium kiss, I went, “Huh? What the fuck does that mean!?” We would all gather ‘round the hi-fi, smoke weed, and make up our own theories about Dylan’s lyrics.
A lot of my generation thought Dylan was the second coming of Christ. We thought that his lyrics were text from a third testament of the bible. You had to excuse us; must of us were fucked up on dope! Eventually the truth came out that Dylan was a bullshit artist all along. In 1980, I attempted to write an anarchist anthem; this was during Dylan’s Reborn Christian period. He had this song called, You Gotta Serve Somebody. Dylan created a shit storm with that tune. Somebody remarked, “Is Dylan telling us to become waiters or waitresses at some coffee shop?” I knew what he was talking about, so I penned a reply in my song performed by my former band, The 100th Monkey, “Nobody Rules.” The opening line went, “You got some nerve, buddy; to tell me I got to serve somebody.” You know, Dylan, in some ways, reminds me Frank Zappa’s antics. They both have distain for their fans. Dylan knew, at that point in time, that nobody wanted to accept Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior after investing time during the 60’s, rebelling against religion. In a way, he was rebelling against the rebels. Maybe he was getting his schadenfreude freak on!? Dylan loved to play with his fans’ minds. A lot of Dylan critics will agree with me on that point.
To a lot of music fans, Dylan was Woody Guthrie singing Allen Ginsberg’s poetry. Fair enough, however…you cannot deny his influence in folk and in rock music. After Dylan’s reign in pop music, songwriters started to write more artistically crafted lyrics. He not only created relevant lyrics in folk songs, he invented folk rock and country rock. He influenced the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. He influenced me. At one time, I copied his style.
Back in the late 60’s, you could ask anybody on the street who Bob Dylan was, and 96% of them would reply accurately. Right now, in 2014, if you ask pedestrians who Bob Dylan is, you’d be lucky if 2% knows of him. Dylan is a fallen demigod and most baby boomers who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease will forget about him.
As far as the other stuff goes, who cares? Even if Dylan joined the J.D.L., becomes a reborn Christian, contracts H.I.V., watches kiddy porn, is a junkie or even is a holocaust denier, his music will live on forever. All this tabloid stuff makes Americans look like white gossiping little girls. It’s the music that matters.
