My relationship with Bob Dylan has been a rocky journey. I was first "turned on" (and I use that phrase correctly for that time) to Dylan in 1965. Several of my mates had older brothers who were at uni.
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One of the radical vibes back then was to be into folk music and to like the music of Pete Seeger or, if you were in the know, Woody Guthrie. The album I listened to was Bringing it all Back Home, the one with Dylan in a very messy lounge room with someone (?). We listened to it constantly. From then on we would all eagerly await the release of his next album.
Over the years, we would get used to his sudden changes of direction and style.The folky protest bent dropped off severely and he made attempts at his own type of rock and roll. This was followed by sudden jolts into country and western and then religious. There were years when I didn't even really follow him at all, probably preferring to replay the Blood on the Tracks album when the urge took me. His voice was dropping off badly - stretched raw at times, craggy and strained it seemed to me. The last time I saw him live, in Wollongong, six or seven years ago, it was pretty hard to listen. Instead, that concert seemed more about the experience and the familiar music.
But, in the end with Dylan, it's mostly about the lyrics; the often baffling but essentially simple words and his persistent poetic technique of rhyme. Essentially he is a poet, the Poet Emeritus of his generation.
Not many of his songs made it high up in the Top 40s but SO MANY of his little phraseologies are familiar and can be repeated by most of us: "It's one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind"; "Don't think twice, it's alright."
YouTube offered the opportunity to revisit old favourites, as well as discover unheard tracks from bootleg albums or rare concerts or compilations. But my enthusiasm had waned. I didn't really like the albums he was putting out after Nashville Skyline (1969) until Modern Times (2006), with brief interludes of creativity, Blood On The Tracks and Desire during 1975/76 and Time Out of Mind (1997). It became obvious Dylan's depth of material truly seemed to exceed even the connotation prolific. Wedded to this is his stated determination to just keep on touring, the so-called Never Ending Tour. After all, he told us a long time ago he was "Just a song and dance man" (with a smile on his face). He is much more than that.
About the time Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, which I thought was a richly deserved honour for a career that spanned six decades across centuries, strangely enough, it led to my quitting the Dylan fan site, attacked for daring to urge him on to accept the award graciously. Dylan can be arrogant at times, but a genius is allowed their foibles.
So we come, eight years since his last, to yet another new album. One which contains his sensational 17-minute opus Murder Most Foul. This is not so much a song, neither is it quite a dirge, (although it's subject matter lends itself). It is more a lament, an elegy for a lost hero and a lost vision. He analyses the John F Kennedy assassination in 1963 and then lays out the consequences of that event. Sometimes he is the narrator and at other times, Kennedy himself. He assumes three vocal genres throughout the song: mournful, at times comedic, and onto deadly serious to great effect, alongside a wistful, rambling, understated backing of violin, piano and drum. The music is sparse but powerful.
As a JFK assassination researcher for quite a few years, I can verify the references he makes in the song are spot on. He knows his subject matter and brilliantly weaves his subtle asides into the work:
"There's a party going on behind the grassy knoll".
"Play 'Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood',
Play it for the First Lady, she ain't feeling any good".
And about the times that followed:
"I'm going to Woodstock, it's the Aquarian Age,
Then I'll go to Altamont and sit near the stage".
Sometimes though he misses: "I'm just a patsy like Patsy Cline" doesn't work.
Reviewers have likened the song to Hamlet and, in the second half, he uses the device of Wolfman Jack (a revolutionary DJ of 70s America) as an artifice, asking him to play a series of songs and artists; a veritable Who's Who of 50s, 60s and 70s musical reference, from Jelly Roll Morton to Etta James and Glenn Frey. Dylan is on full display here as the greatest wordsmith of our times.
On first hearing the song, I was taken aback. I thought I'd just listened to a masterpiece. And this at the age of 79! Dylan, written off, pulling another surprise. No, the song won't become a Top 40 hit, but it does sum up, in Dylan's unique and pointed style, a generation's lost hopes and dreams. It's not everyone's cup of tea and if you don't know much about the JFK assassination, it may sound a little obscure, but certainly sincere.
His requests of Wolfman Jack to play songs and artists acts as a counterpoint to the sadness of that lost dream many years ago. He is saying, in remembering these things, we can have hope that there will be times when the world can be a better place.