by Larry Fyffe
Members of the Sound School of Dylanology dwell on rejigged, allusion-filled, viewpoints about the trials and tribulations of human existence; even on the paste-up method employed by Post Modernist writers; though underplayed is the obvious fact that the creative author plays the part of a unifying god when he re-arranges randomized scraps of paper to suit him/herself.
True believers like Christianized Saint Paul warns about these wicked people a long time ago.
About their messing around with the teaching of the “narrow way”, with the faith (not works) demand by Jesus of Nazareth:
From which some having swerved Have turned aside into vain jangling Desiring to be teachers of the law Understanding neither what they say Nor whereof they affirm (I Timothy 1: 6,7)
A motif taken up by Charles Dickens with his wayward “Scrooge” character – later satirized by the comedian/author beneath ~ the “Nazz” pictured on the “Bringing It All Back Home” album cover:
He looked like seventeen gas-light stove pipes Come together with jingle-jangle bells all over (Lord Buckley: Scrooge)
“Jangling”, can you believe it, that’s carried on to this very day by the care-free narrator in the song lyrics below:
Hey, Mr, Tambourine Man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you (Bob Dylan: Mr. Tambourine Man)
The far-too-long ‘narrow way’ to salvation demanded by Apostle Paul for one, gets scrambled up good in the following song lyrics:
I'm going to walk across the desert 'til I'm in my right mind I won't think about what I left behind Nothing back there that I can call my own Go back home and leave me alone It's a long road, it's a long and narrow way If I can't work up to you You'll surely have to work down to me someday (Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)
The Buckley-eyed RAZ flees the future of an inevitable death that’s blowing in the wind.
Robert Allen Zimmerman, at least as the narrator in the lyrics below, seizes the now-moment:
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky With one hand waving free Silhouetted by the sea Circled by the circus sands With all memory and fate Driven deep beneath the waves Let me forget about today until tomorrow (Bob Dylan: Mr. Tambourine Man)
Wicked!!
Footnote
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