More on "Yakuza" and Dylan's credibility

Date: 12 Jul 2003 09:27:53 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
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> True, true, *but* he took 12 lines [or more] written by another man, 10
> years ago, 12 lines that I, and others, considered some of the best he'd
> written. 12 lines I wished I'd written, and put his name on it. "Love &
> Theft" is loaded with great lines... did he write them, or did he find
> them..? He's not a kid anymore, he needs to answer this.
> Dockery
I think Mr. Dockery needs to relax just a little bit. It is
unfortunate that those 12 lines are some of his favorites on the whole
album (although in fact, most of the 12 quotes are extremely mundane:
"My mother was the daughter of a wealthy farmer" -- THAT'S a favorite
line?). But there is also what seems to me to be a somewhat unhealthy
concern that Dylan himself must reveal his deepest soul in his songs.
Someone somewhere -- might have been Mr. Dockery -- wrote of his
disappointment upon learning that the "mother/wealthy farmer/uncle"
vignette was NOT somehow an obscure autobiography of Dylan. But what
does that possibly matter? He was sketching a character, and he took
that bit of "bio" as part of the character's creation. How is that any
different from his quoting Gatsby in the "you can't repeat the past
line"? Isn't it still a great line in the context of the SONG? How
about "all the railroad men drink up your blood like wine." That comes
from an old Bascom Lamar Lunsford song, was decades old when Dylan
plunked into "Memphis Blues Again." Does that somehow make it less
effective, because it wasn't torn straight out of Dylan's nervous
system? (It's a well-known fact Dylan was never "a lonesome hobo,
without family or friends," either, but that doesn't make the song any
less interesting, does it? I even hear tell he never went to a bunch
of pyramids "all imbedded in ice," either. So should we flush "Isis"
down the drain?)
I've said it before: if Dylan had written a song about pre-war yakuza
life, using these 12 lines, then yes, it would be disturbing that he
didn't acknowledge it. But this is not what happened. He took a few
interesting (and a few bland) lines from a book, and wove them into a
much larger structure with an entirely different meaning. It's the
context that matters here. I am sure that Margaret Mitchell was not
the first person in the history of the world to think of the phrase,
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." She may have even heard
someone say it before or even -- gasp! -- read it in a book. But it
was the CONTEXT she placed it in that gave it such effectiveness.
People are entitled to have their own reactions to events, of course,
and sure, if you feel Dylan's credibility or authenticity has been
compromised in some way by this, then that's the way you feel. But I
do think we should get away from this idea that a Dylan lyric has to
be a spontaneous, never-before-thought, never-before-spoken eruption
of utterly unique genius from his own brain to be an effective work of
art. Art has never worked that way; nor should we want it to. What's
important about Dylan is the charge of meaning and emotion he conveys
in a song -- not the state of his soul, or how closely his lyrics
match details of his private life, and so on. Who cares? We don't know
anything at all about the private life of Homer -- but we still get a
deep charge of meaning and emotion from his work across all these
centuries. You could read a book by Dostoevsky -- The Brothers
Karamazov, say -- and not know a thing about his background,
personality, biography etc (nor recognize the literally hundreds of
unacknowledged phrases, quotes and ideas in the book that were
"lifted" from other sources), yet still be deeply moved by the work of
art itself.
"Ironywaves" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message news:<email-address-deleted>...
> "Dale Goodvin" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
> news:email-address-deleted...
> > Bob does what he does. Period.
> >
> > He turns his back on folkies, rockies, fundamentalist christians, jews,
> > friends, enemies.
> >
> > He has done everything possible in the last 40 years to show that he is
> just
> > a song and dance man.
> >
> > If you don't like how he acts, he doesn't care.
> >
> > Listen to the records from england 1965: surrounded by boos, bob literally
> > DRAGGED audience after audience into the new world of rock and roll with a
> > message. Listen. You can literally hear him do it.
> >
> > I saw him when he did nothing but christian songs. He did not care
> whether
> > the crowd booed. Folks I know turned their framed bob pictures to the
> wall
> > because he turned christian. Bob does not care.
> >
> > He has written about and defended more real people than any songwriter in
> > america: medgar evers, george jackson, hattie carrol, hurricane carter,
> > lenny bruce, etc. And he's used real names in identifying who shot,
> > tortured, abused, mocked these people.
> >
> > He chose to sing about how the system uses poor white people (only a pawn
> in
> > their game) while singing to african americans picking cotton in the
> fields
> > of the south. And he was only 20.
> >
> > He is stubborn, perverse, cocky, strange, brilliant, and much more.
> >
> > Most of all, he's shown over the years that he will not under any
> > circumstances allow the media or his fans or convention rule his ways.
> >
> > Love him or leave him, but he has shown unimaginable courage and
> brilliance
> > in his 40 plus years on stages throughout the world.
> >
> > NOTHING, no scandal, no media attacks, no glitches in his personal
> behavior
> > will ever take away his nobility.
> >
> > Dale
>
> True, true, *but* he took 12 lines [or more] written by another man, 10
> years ago, 12 lines that I, and others, considered some of the best he'd
> written. 12 lines I wished I'd written, and put his name on it. "Love &
> Theft" is loaded with great lines... did he write them, or did he find
> them..? He's not a kid anymore, he needs to answer this.
> Dockery
>
> http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=NER8GQR&key=TVL