highway bob dylan revisited, 61st time

so, sometimes what really gets me about dylan is that i feel like, when i am listening to him, that really no-one could really understand him without my help. not cuz of what i know about him & what-not -- though that's certainly there, & cant be ignored -- but because i feel like he's talking to me in a 'language' that only he & i speak, like a sort of dialect where the native speakers are so few & far between that the chances of you finding someone other than me to 'explain' it to you are virtually zero. i realize two things, though, here: 1] this CERTAINLY aint true, no-one needs anyone else's help to 'understand' bob dylan, & 2] it seems to be an almost arrogant thing to consider, that i have some access to something that you don't have.

of course, this brings up the authorship issue -- does it matter that  i  know  when & where things were recorded, how they were put together, maybe even what kind of wine dylan was drinking when he figured out that "like a rolling stone" didn't work as a waltz? i mean, yeah, i can bring that stuff up, & we can talk about it, but how much does it REALLY matter? i somehow instinctually doubt That there is some biographical information that can help us bring any more or less meaning to the line 'you're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal. . . " it's like the line either speaks to you, or it doesnt. . .

which i guess is really the point i'm trying to make to myself : i 'understood' dylan long before i knew anything about who he was, how he did his thing, before i even knew about 'the 60's' -- he spoke to me outside of time, outside of self, outside of any boundary that i had even considered the existence of. the funny thing -- almost ha-ha funny, almost straight-jacket funny -- is that the more i know about how these things were done, the more i know about the guy & what he was doing & who he was doing it with, & when, & etc etc -- the more i know, the more i wanna just listen to it over & over & over again & again & again, & try to talk about those things that cant/arent talked about.

sheesh, check out the song "she's your lover now." & don't start talking to me about dylan, unless you got some free time & wannna watch/listen to a guy try to figure out whats going on in reality & whats going on in the mind, & how some pseudo-beatnik-too-smart-no-attention-span man who's brilliant with words can make sense of it all, usually about 5 minutes at a time.

Comments

[Kensho]

Well, here we are, and I'll be the first to admit - Dylan for me was not a native language. But Pete Seeger was. Some people say, oh, there's a hippie guy singing these old songs. But that would imply everything he's been doing was lost in translation, for them. I maintain you can't move effortlessly between philosophical planes - you can only have the hubris of the illusion that you have done so.

[David Felton]

Down the rabbit hole you go. What is this fascination of wanting to 'know' so much about the who, what, when, how, etc. of our artists? I sometimes think one would be better off not 'knowing' anything about any artist because it seems like all that supposed 'knowing' can only get in the way of how we experience the art. But damn if I'm not fascinated by getting some down low on all the behind the art, artist's life stuff, and haven't the spectators always been fascinated by this stuff, or is it some morbid thing only developed in the more recent world? I would dig reading more riffing on this whole subject from you. What drives you to pursue such esoteric 'knowledge' as what wine Dylan was drinking when he wrote a song? Who cares who Shakespeare was anyway; why don't we just read 'Shakespeare' and talk about the work not the worker? Does interest in the artist's life ever get in the way of our experience of the art, or does one enrich the other and deepen our experience of the art, as you seem to be saying that your 'knowledge' of Dylan does for you with his music? Does your 'knowledge' of Dylan force you deeper down into his 5 minute rabbit holes, making you see things down there you never would have before???????????????????????????????