from the beginning I’ve taken all “play...” references as the stream of consciousness thoughts of a dying man, or a dying country’s spirit. Or least the narrator consoling himself.
I listened to that the other night. I enjoyed it, but there were some glaring mistakes about American history, some specific to the assassination, others in general. But I’ll give them a break. It was rushed and in the moment. As for the *doggerel, I think each example is carefully chosen, and many are in a character voice. They all make sense to me.
Oh yeah she made some real boners. But I tend to just overlook that stuff, it’s so frequent everywhere I’ve just given up. Agreed on the “doggerel”
I started a new thread for the #1 hit hoping to start the discussion over in a more positive way, but it's been merged.
Bob’s had a few number one songs, the most recent previous one being Darius Rucker’s recording of “Wagon Wheel” (on the country charts).
I’m sure Dylan will be told by his management that he has a number one song on the charts. I imagine that it has to feel pretty darn good at any stage of your career to get a response like that. What a tremendous song! I remain deeply moved by the lyrics, the music and the performance. Thanks Bob, fan since ‘99 and my life is better for it.
What I meant is that even if we reached a consensus about what happened in America after Kennedy´s death that won´t get us any closer to the meaning of the song , to Dylan´s intentions when he wrote it , he is making his own analysis . Not at all , it´s only that at this time we were focussing on that aspect of the lyrics and their relation to what seems to be the fulcrum of the song , Kennedy´s assassination.
Well , yeah , that would fit nicely with the idea expressed in a very interesting post by , I think, streetlegal some pages ago about the whole thing being some sort of prayer (pray / play) and I think I posted something about the narrator using the music as a way of dealing with the trauma of Kennedy´s death . I don´t know , for me the whole thing is very ambiguous , if not incongruous .
You’re right in many ways, I suspect. Of course, my ideas are thrown out as exploratory talk, a germ of an idea that might or might not sprout in the collaborative spirit of an online forum. Dylan’s more recent work does tend to fire off in all directions and I am not always sure where these lead. And it’s certainly difficult for these songs (like "Pay in Blood," "Roll of John," "Narrow Way," "MMF") to hold the weight of any particular interpretation (sometimes to my frustration). I dig Nick Cave’s insight on MMF, particular of “our potential as human beings to create beautiful things, even in the face of our own capacity for malevolence.” But, depending on one’s take on the song, these same “beautiful things” can be see as part of the answer or part of the problem: either denial, an escape into vacuity oblivion, or genuine redemption. Maybe Dylan, like Hamlet is (increasingly) ambivalent toward human achievement (artistic or otherwise): What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? What is the lasting human merit of the three minute single? Perhaps what we hear in "MMF" is ambivalence: comfort and triviality, love and theft. On another note, one other quick reference flashed by this evening—this one from another song, that shares Hamlet’s central dichotomy: between thought and action: But it's like I'm stuck inside a painting That's like hanging in the Louvre My throat starts to tickle and my nose itches But I know that I can't move
Dylan is #1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, a feat that Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and the Lemon Pipers all conspicuously failed to do!
