by Larry Fyffe
& HG Wells unheeded
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Britisher Herbert Wells wrote the story called “The Invisible Man”.
Akin to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster story, Wells’ main character becomes mad due to taking chemicals in an effort to reverse the scientific process that caused him to become invisible in the first place; turns to murder.
He’s able to vanish by removing his bandages and clothes.
Bob Dylan’s invisible girl becomes a symbol of what can happen to someone in a society that is corrupt at the top. She becomes ‘invisible’ to those higher up on the social totem pole, they having nothing to gain from her:
When you got nothing , you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
(Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone)
Science fiction has nothing to do with it. It’s not that she is under the control of the mighty devil, or of “orginal sin”, or because she just doesn’t care.
Rebukes the following assertion:
I shouted out who killed the Kennedys
When after all it was you and me
(Rolling Stones: Sympathy For The Devil)
Likewise it’s claimed in a cartoon:
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
(Walt Kelly: Pogo)
Not so, according to a British-born Canadian poet, such matters are determined by fate:
He was never meant to win
He’s a rolling stone,
And it’s bred in his bone
He’s a man who won’t fit in
(Robert Service: The Men Who Don’t Fit In)
The singer/songwriter/musician’s persona below gets cynical about a society that’s controlled from the top down.
Control which is kept as hidden as possible from the public at large:
Shoot’em when he runs, boys
Shoot’em while you can
See if you can shoot the Invisible Man
(Bob Dylan: Murder Most Foul)
Pretending you’re at a circus, shooting toy-guns at toy-targets is one method you’ve got to get rid of the Invisible Man.
But all is not lost …there are indeed those who possess spiritual love for their fellow human beings:
She could feel my despair
As I climbed up her hair
And discovered her invisible self
(Bob Dylan: Journey Through Dark Heat)