Bob Dylan turns 70 today. He's had a very long career and I like a lot of his music, especially his two mid-60s albums Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Having said that, I tend to think that many of the hosannas that have been showered upon Dylan are kinda ridiculous.
There's no doubt that he's a word-slinger of great skill -- consider these lines:
Well Mack the finger said to Louie the King
"I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
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"
Good stuff. What makes it better is the sneering voice and silly whistle that's deployed throughout the song. I've always believed that Dylan understood that the cult that surrounded him was a little silly. You see it especially in the D.A. Pennebaker documentary "Don't Look Back," which was filmed in that 1965 period when Dylan was moving from folkie to rocker. You get the sense that Dylan just doesn't believe the hype.
The title of this post refers to a line from John Lennon's song "God," in which Lennon says Goodbye to All That. What it comes down to for me is this: you can appreciate Bob Dylan for a lot of reasons, but he's not someone who wants a cult all that much. And that's how it should be.
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