Bob Dylan's Lyrics

Discussion of Joseph Campbell's work with an emphasis on the personal creative impulse as well as the sociological role of the artist in today's global community.

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Stone_Giant
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Post by Stone_Giant »

Hey nice to see this one still chugging along. Lot of media attention recently for Bobby with Scorcese's film being aired. His comments like 'You have to realise you are constantly in a state of becoming.' I find very Eastern in tone...but then there always was a lot of religion in his lyrics, from hellfire preaching to tantalising mystic glimpses of another reality. I was fascinated to see footage of his Free trade Hall concert. His "I don't believe you" response to the catcall of "Judas" was such a powerful put down, though I can't offhand think why. Anyway, keep it coming people.

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Post by Guest »

I am another Dylan and Campbell fan. Dylan's skill lies not just in his use of mythic imagery, but in his use of mythic imagery to further enhance his mythologizing of the subjects of his songs. Whether he is talking about a person who has been wronged by society, the state of the world, his personal relationships, or just a feeling, he transforms it into something timeless with imagery, situational relationships, and metaphor. He lifts the common things into the realm of the sublime. I think he is an excellent example of someone to whom the Joseph Campbell quote about artists being the mythmakers of today belongs.

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Post by Guest »

Dylan's entire life has enbodied that of the troubador. Dylan has played the quintessential Tarot Fool from a perspective and vantage point few have access to. The mythological proportion of his lyrics is proportionate to the mythical nature of his life. He created himself in a very real way, changing his name and embarking on new territory. I feel that this innate connection to myth bleeds into all his work, and gives his lyrics, music and voice their power in such a fundamental way that even he would be at a loss to explain it.

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Post by Ron Starbuck »

And then there is the prophetic voice of ...

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

http://bobdylan.com/songs/hardrain.html

"Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."

or in the following .....

Ballad of a Thin Man

http://bobdylan.com/songs/thinman.html

"Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?"


Dylan seems to cover it all (the human experience) at one point or another!

ALOberhoulser
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Post by ALOberhoulser »

Ha Ha Ha S_G ,

To find that you started this thread is a bit of synchronicity, methinks 8)

Bob Dylan Inducted Into American Academy of Arts and Letters
By John Clarke
May 16, 2013 9:15 AM ET


"For more than 50 years, defying categorization in a culture beguiled by categories, Bob Dylan has probed and prodded our psyches, recording and then changing our world and our lives through poetry made manifest in song – creating relationships that we never imagined could exist between words, emotions and ideas," read the citation awarded to Dylan.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon gave the keynote address, appropriately titled "Rock & Roll," and laughed at how he was obsessed with the opening line to Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom," in which Chabon mistook the word "toll" for something else, The Associated Press reports.

"'Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toe,"' Chabon said. "How many hours I had devoted to [the idea] . . . that midnight had toes, and that one of them, the big one, had been broken."
Chimes of Freedom (with Joan Baez) enjoy :D
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
~Max Planck

ALOberhoulser
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Post by ALOberhoulser »

Bob Dylan - Times They are a-Changin

8) :cry:

If Morrison was still alive with Bob Dylan, Neil Young & Willie Nelson - Jimi would be playing lead 8)
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
~Max Planck

ALOberhoulser
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Post by ALOberhoulser »

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
~Max Planck

Stone_Giant
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Post by Stone_Giant »

Wow - just caught up with this thread that I started way back. Sorry for being so lazy. I didn't visit JCF much for a good few years, I was too busy being Nietzsche's "Camel" for several years and have only lately refound my absent "Lion" (hint -checkout Famous Shamans... in Mythology and Religion) :) Needless to say, Bobby is on the Famous Shamans list.

Thanks for those links Al - and hey, Michael Chabon, great author my daughter introduced me to.


Stone_Giant
Want to wash away my sins, in the presence of my friends. (Arcade Fire)

ALOberhoulser
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Post by ALOberhoulser »

Bob Dylan - I Shall Be Released/ Blowing In The Wind (Live 1986)

...very moving "Blowing in the Wind" @ about 3:30
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
~Max Planck

ALOberhoulser
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Post by ALOberhoulser »

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
~Max Planck

ALOberhoulser
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Post by ALOberhoulser »

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
~Max Planck

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Post by Roncooper »

Al,

That was really interesting. Now we know how scientists spend their time.

My example of the genius of Dylan comes from the album I consider the best album ever, "Bringing it all back home."

It is one single verse from Subterranean Homesick Blues that summarizes the lives of a billion people.

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift

Short and sweet.

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