R: Bob Dylan
(Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour)
Listening to those university professors discuss Bob Dylan's writing in that Case Western Reserve video on You Tube, I couldn't help but be struck by the irony -- when I was in college, professors were not generally on board for our favorite rock stars -- now, years later, decades later, they're not only listening to our music, they're teaching it, and writing books about it.
(Though of course I must note, these are not the same professors -- new generation....)
In my freshman year at Boston University, political science professor Murray Levin (RIP) said something during his lecture about there being no substantive music made in the current-day, so I left a note at his office suggesting he listen to Bob Dylan.
And then in a subsequent lecture, he mentioned from the podium that someone told him to play Bob Dylan and he specified the song he listened to and said it wasn't good and he didn't like it (something along those lines). (Like, 'this is junk -- this has no merit'...)
He didn't say my name, so I wasn't embarrassed or anything, but I was a little frustrated that he couldn't get the point. (I enjoyed it, so I wanted others to enjoy it, I guess...)
Hey, Professor Levin -- Now, they're teaching Dylan -- bwahahahahahahaha!
A similar experience in an English Literature class: a student raised the subject of Bruce Springsteen's poetry in song lyrics and the professor said, 'Oh come on -- baby we were born to run?! Please." Like she just didn't think those lyrics were very deep.
I felt the sting of that comment, and wished she had not said that.
The kid didn't argue back -- and she didn't say it to be mean, I don't believe, she just said what she felt, off the top of her head.
She "reacted" to the student being so impressed with music that did not impress her.
It wasn't her music -- her favorite music, and I think sometimes when music isn't one's personal favorite, or one's transformative inspiration, and it's real popular in the market, a person can get irritated with it and feel like, "Oh, the kids just think they like it because the record companies push it so hard. It's all just commercialism...."
And that professor, I estimate now, was only 36 years old at the time! That isn't so "old" that you couldn't be "into" current popular rock-and-roll.
WTH?! LOL.
Do we only love the music we loved when we were "young"? Are we only allowed to really like some music for like five minutes during our 17th year on earth, and then we can never like anything new after that?
(during the '90s: "I hate rap!" lol -- if I had a nickel for every time I heard that -- it was enough to make you want to "wrap" yourself in a blanket and hide under the bed...)
(today I saw someone wearing a T-shirt that said, "gangsta wrapper"...)
And -- it isn't as if that student in my class was the only person who liked the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. When I was in high school, Springsteen was on the cover of TIME magazine and Newsweek magazine, the. same. week. (Newsweek is a rag now, but back then it was an equal to TIME...)
...Not as if the kid invented the idea that Bruce Springsteen was a noteworthy songwriter out of thin air. He wasn't "wrong" to like "Born To Run."
I wonder where he is now. Hope he wasn't traumatized....
Actually maybe having the professor say they don't like your music is good because the student can then decide in their own mind, "It is good, I like it, it inspires me, and I guess the professor just doesn't get it. That's OK. Here I am, still alive. Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan are still fine, too...."
Critical thinking. Independent, critical thinking.
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Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be one more
Person crying
So don't fear, if you hear
A foreign sound - to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it
Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only
_____________________________________
"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
written by Bob Dylan
Copyright 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music
-30-
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