I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.
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Prelude by Tony Attwood: Being English, and living all but one year of my life in England, I’m acutely aware of how my Englishness has influenced my view of Bob Dylan. Which is why among things I have always been keen to include articles on this site from writers of other nationalities, (and incidentally one reason among so many why I so valued the writing of the late Aaron Galbraith with his Scottish-American take on life).
And it is one reason why I invited Wouter van Oorschot to write an article about his book “Dylan and us: beyond America”. I’m publishing his reply in two parts – here is part one. I should add, in case some of the musical examples here are not ones Wouter would have chosen, they were added by me…
A synopsis of “Dylan and us: beyond America”
by Wouter van Oorschot:
- Not for whom
Wouter van Oorschot,
Three groups will not be amused by my book.
First, evangelicals who only took an interest in Mr. Dylan during his openly religious period (1979-1981).
Second, those who will say that I drop a clanger by arguing that American idioms in Dylan’s work can obscure the global importance of it and therefore can be temporarily declared irrelevant, (notwithstanding that many lyrics containing Americana belong to the most Nobel prize-worthy ones).
Third, dylanologists who pretend that they understand Mr. Dylan’s work better than any other person and even better than he does himself, and for whom no one, like me can do any good by writing about Dylan.
- All except idolatry
This chapter deals with the absurdity of Bobcats or Dylanheads who forgot to live their own life because for them Mr Dylan has become God himself. It is followed by the prelude to the next two chapters in which I explore the status quo of Western popular music in 1962, when Mr. Dylan arrived on the scene, and the characteristics of the century-old lovesong.
- Love, dance, sex, sorrow
Prior knowledge of the development of popular music in the USA is advisable in order to be able to estimate the true value of Mr. Dyan’s work. This chapter offers a short history of the origins of rock-’n-roll, the decay of the Great American Songbook after WW 2 and its replacement by industrial mass-market music (illustrated with quotes of a cross-section of very popular and very appalling, mostly misogynistic songtexts, against the background of which rock-’n-roll emerged and the adolescent Dylan grew up, to end with the introduction of portable radio (around 1963) that enabled youngsters to flee their homes and listen to their music anywhere.
- The invariable hetero lovesong
In which it is argued, concentrating on The Beatles’ singles ‘Love me do’ (December 1962) and ‘I feel fine’ (November 1964) that the century-old genre of the lovesong had always been exclusively cliché-ridden heterosexual.
- Becoming who you are
A few words about Mr. Dylan’s background, ending with the high school year bookquote ‘To join Little Richard’.
- From rocker Zimmerman to folksinger Dylan
The explanation of how this change came to be, with ‘Song to Woody’ as a source from which the oeuvre would rise.
- What should they do with that
In which it is argued, concentrating on the singles ‘Mixed up Confusion’ (December 1962) and notably ‘Don’t Think Twice it’s All Right’ as the B-side of ‘Blowing in the wind’ (August 1963), that the traditional love song that had been known for centuries had come to an end.
- Up against the cliffs
Pressure rises as Mr. Dylan, displaying his talents, is unwillingly welcomed by representatives of the Left as their secular protesting preacher.
- Trapped
The triumphant October 26 concert at Carnegie Hall, the biased Newsweek-‘profile’ a few days later that made Mr. Dylan realise how fame can take its toll in very unpleasant and angering ways, and in reaction to this his song ‘Restless Farewell’ (last stanza chosen as fragment which, in retrospective, can be considered as the upbeat of his self-liberation as an artist) and the completion of the album The times they are a-changin’ on October 31.
- Conflict in the making
How the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22nd thwarted Mr. Dylan’s acceptance of the Tom Paine Award a few months before, as well as his acceptance speech on December 14th a little later.
- Dull but necessary chapter
The Kennedy assassination interrupted Mr. Dylan’s songwriting for almost three months. It demotivated him as well to wholeheartedly promote his new album The times they are a-changin’ during his spring 1964 concerts, as the title song in which he had invested all his craft a few months before and that he had chosen as the opening song for all his concerts, in his own words now seemed quite unreal to him. It means that he had already emotionally outgrown the album before it was even released.
- Turning point
The only song that originated within almost three months of a writer’s block was ‘Guess I’m doin’ fine.’ In it there is the significant line ‘I been shot at just like you but as long this world keeps a-turnin’ I just keep a-turnin’ too.’ It shows that after these turbulent weeks and months Mr. Dylan was regaining his courage to continue his work. And: as he kept on touring the word ever since: he kept his word.
- Poetic chimes
The release of The times they are a-changin’ on February 10 coincided with the passing of the Civil Rights Act by the US House of Representatives on that very same day. By that time, for several weeks Mr. Dylan and a few friends crisscrossed the USA in a large station wagon, halting here and there.
During this trip the source of his songwriting opened again. But not only time had changed. Emerged an astonishing new type of songs, the first three of which would have been ‘Chimes of Freedom’, ‘Mr. Tambourine man’ and ‘It ain’t me, babe’. Not only is it tempting to speculate that ‘Chimes of Freedom’ was at least in part inspired by the passing of the Civil Rights Bill, these songs were the first three in which Mr. Dylan displayed his self-liberation. From then on, he had become an artist, determined to reject any form of emotional and/or social possessiveness, both in his private and public life.
Entremets
In the belief that if one keeps oneself out of range while writing about Mr Dylan’s oeuvre one can only produce a dull book, in the next two chapters I speak of my personal background and how this influenced without any doubt my future interpretation of Mr. Dylan’s work.
- 1962-1964: teenager takes sides
How I learned about the existence of pop music on the sole Dutch tv-channel in 1962 when I was ten years old, how four bereavements in October-November 1963, among with the suicide of my 8 years older brother and the assassination of President Kennedy, changed my view on life when I was 11 years old and how, at twelve, my entry on highschool in September 1964 changed my perspective.
- 1965: Kid discovers a hero
No teenager in The Netherlands had ever heard of Bob Dylan until ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ entered the sole Dutch Top 40 on May 22nd 1965.
With only nine months of English lessons at school, except for one or two lines I did not understand at all what the song was about but this I knew for sure: it was about me. Hence, just turned 13, I discovered my first ‘hero’. I kindly ask my possible American readers to realize the difference in perception between themselves, who at the time had known Mr Dylan for several years as a highly esteemed singer of acoustic folksongs, and teenagers outside the USA for whom in 1965 he entered their minds as proto-rapper with an electric band.
Part two will appear shortly.