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Dylan, Bob
Any semblance of linear thinking that I may have had when I started this project has all gone out the window once I began to consider Bob Dylan. Writing about Dylan is like writing about Franz Kafka; for every word that he wrote, the pundits have written another two hundred in analysis and historical study. Besides, Dylan fits about as comfortably into a book about the top 40 as Kafka would. When tracing pop music back to its Tin Pan Alley roots, Dylan stands apart. He knowingly and deliberately was an outsider who fancied himself to be the destructive force that severed pop music’s ties with the moon June croon, at least until he decided to use pop for his own purpose. Dylan has had so many phases, most of them contradictory, that any attempt to be objectively factual would surely be questioned by the diploma-carrying Dylan-ophiles who have dedicated more time to studying their subject of interest than most brain surgeons and nuclear physicists do.
One thing that everybody agrees on is that Bob Dylan is a moving target who defies definition. He's either a pathological liar or weaver of mysterious fables who protects his privacy above all else. He's a folkie who seems dedicated to the plight of the powerless. He's an electrified rocker who sings surreal song/poems. He's a self-obsessed recluse who avoids the press and the public while casually recording great songs just for his own amusement. He's a confused country singer who seems to have trouble being understood or who deliberately confounds his fans. He's a self-analytical, introspective lover who lucidly and eloquently divulges personal information and heartfelt observations. He's a storyteller who spins fantastic tales of fantasy and experience. He's a single-minded Christian who seems unwilling to write about anything without including his religious concerns. He's a living legend (let him deny it) and maybe none of the things previously mentioned. We barely know more now than we did thirty years ago, except for his amazing catalog of words and music.
When "Like A Rolling Stone" first appeared on the top 40, there was nothing else even remotely like it. It seemed to arise from the ashes like a phoenix borne out of the controversy at the Newport Folk Festival, when Bob Dylan scandalized die-hard folk fans by showing up with a rock-and-roll band. The lyrics were not derived from that awe-inspiring travesty - it was recorded the previous month - but his renewed vengeance could easily have been directed at his detractors, or even at himself for allowing himself to be sucked into their vacuum.
When he wrote the song, Dylan was frustrated and exhausted to the point of considering quitting music entirely. He drew up from his well of emotion a seemingly endless torrent of words that he later distilled into the verses. His attitude was one of dismissive, vengeful anger, which is directed straight at you, the listener. Fortunately, you have a choice. You can either duck to avoid the line of fire and listen in sneakily, like an eavesdropper who overhears someone vent his rage at someone else, or stand up to the verbal assault and wipe the spittle from your face as he revels in your absolute failure and hopelessness. The very length of this diatribe is astounding. During the six solid minutes of nonstop putdowns, the song format doesn't allow the victim to counteract with, "You’ve got a lot of nerve to say..." There's only two believable possibilities; either his victim has been rendered mute, or Dylan, with a disguised gender, is singing into a mirror.
"Like A Rolling Stone" is so directly personal that it alienates the singer from everybody. He's singing for his own sake and simultaneously saying "Let the masses be damned," i.e., "Save yourself, heathen, this is my lifeboat." Fortunately, we can interpret this to be something other than despicable, because there is freedom and liberation in hopelessness. "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose." The accusations and condescensions build and build to interminable heights until, thank God, the chorus acts as a jubilant release where relief is derived from the knowledge of saying what had to be said.
Not to interrupt myself in mid-thought, but can you believe that I'm talking about a pop song? From 1965? That's why Dylan is a big deal. Before him, none of this would have been, or at least it was never considered to be, song fodder. Now, it is. To this day, the effects of this song are so ingrained that they are undeniable and often unrecognizable. Everything was touched by its wake. Calling this song the birth of folk-rock would be an absurd oversimplification of its relevance because "Like A Rolling Stone" was a revelation. It was not poetry in the sense that it contained perfectly metered verse because, quite simply, it didn't. It's chock full of colloquialisms, casual phrases and sloppy wordplay, but this only adds to its power because it seems to have flowered without pretense and deliberation. It brilliantly conveys spontaneity. Because of its liberating use of ideas and words, an entire universe of souls who harbored secret desires of unlimited self-expression were set free. Twenty-plus years on, this newfound freedom of expression is ingrained in pop music, and sometimes abused. In this sense, yes, you can indirectly blame Dylan for unleashing whining crybabies like Dan Hill ("Sometimes When We Touch"), but for every oversensitized dolt who uses music as a masochistic forum, there are now dozens of artists who have been given a voice. It sounds almost crazy, but in this light, Dylan was like the Holy Spirit descending upon the apostles, touching their tongues and bringing enlightenment to everybody who cared to listen. Music has often spoken a different language ever since.
 
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