Shine on, crazy Dylan!

Bob Dylan, the poet-laureate of rock 'n' roll turns 70

Nigel Britto

In his twenties, he was called Judas for plugging in an electric guitar, much to the chagrin of the folk brigade. In his thirties, he found Jesus, to the chagrin of the rock brigade. Earlier this year, he performed a suspicious-looking set in communist China, to the chagrin of those who still expect him to be the conscience of the world. Back when the counterculture took shape, the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll captured the zeitgeist like no other musician, poet or philosopher. At seventy, when most retire to a life of solitude, Bob Dylan carries on. He ran away from home several times when he was a boy and said that for the rest of his life he has just "kept on running". 

Not only does he still create top-quality music, he's still touring with a frequency that would kill artistes half his age. Dubbed the 'never-ending tour', he's been on the road since June 7, 1988 (for a little perspective, Rihanna was 4-months-old then, while Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber were yet to be born). He is one of the few giants from the '60s - along with Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney and Willie Nelson - who is still relevant today and not just living off his reputation. Look at the numbers: He has 34 studio albums, over 500 songs, 3, 000 concerts, 11 Grammys, an Oscar, two doctorates (he fell asleep during one ceremony) and nominations for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

No musician in the history of rock 'n ' roll has had his life scrutinised so closely as Dylan. To mark his 70th birthday, the University of Bristol has organised a conference titled 'The seven ages of Dylan'. There are hordes of self-proclaimed Dylanogists, led by AJ Weberman, who questioned his every lyric and interpreted his every move. Weberman, who Rolling Stone magazine called "the king of all Dylan nuts", was once beaten up by the singer for going through his garbage to find clues to deconstruct the man born Robert Allan Zimmerman. This was in the '60s, when Dylan's 'finger-pointing' lyrics chronicled an era of huge social unrest in America, marked by the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam war. Blowin' in the wind, The times they are a-changin', and Like a rolling stone, which was later named the greatest song in rock 'n' roll history, became anthems that echoed the contemporary conscience. 

While many believed that his early lyrics espoused a particular political cause, a closer analysis reveals that they addressed the larger human issues of justice, freedom and love. He's continued in that vein to this day. His latest and most controversial set of concerts in communist China and Vietnam, his critics said, contained song lists that were censored by the government. "He took his pile of communist cash and left," wrote one bitter critic on the internet. Another disagreed, "The fact that Dylan showed up there was sufficient to portray the voices of protest." A little later, Dylan posted a typically sarcastic clarification on his website explaining his position, saying that the government approved the list of songs he sent them without any changes. He ended with a sardonic flourish aimed at the myth-makers: "Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them."

Dylan has never really cared about what people think of him. Even in the '60s, when he "struck the chords of American history", as Bill Clinton described it, he wasn't pretty rock star material. He didn't have Joan Baez's vibrato, Jimi Hendrix's passion or Jim Morrison's aura. His hair was messy, his voice strange, his tendency to suddenly bring out a harmonica unusual, and his habit of routinely taking up 'political' issues unheard of. But instead of grooming himself to be what a rock star was expected to be, he created an image and personality entirely his own. Rock music, which was described as "a bunch of raving shit" by Lester Bangs, suddenly had a heavy dose of intellectualism injected into it. Primarily responsible for that was the "unwashed phenomenon", Bob Dylan. 

Yet, like the times he sings about, his music too keeps changing. The clean-shaven man who used to sling an acoustic over his shoulder has taken country, blues, rockabilly, folk, swing and jazz in his stride. In 2009, he even released a charity Christmas album, confounding critics, as he has done consistently for 50 years. The 'political' lyrics, which he preferred to call 'finger-pointing' have disappeared in his recent works, and his writings now suggest that he's an aging rocker coming to terms with the injustices of the world. "Big politician telling lies/Restaurant kitchen, all full of flies. . . Wives are leavin' their husbands, they beginning to roam/ They leave the party and they never get home / I wouldn't change it, even if I could/ You know what they say man, it's all good." 

Despite living under a spotlight, Dylan has managed to retain his reclusiveness. The aura of mystery that he has wrapped himself in is something today's overexposed musicians would die to have. He reinforces his contrarian reputation before every concert by mocking all the honorifics thrust upon him down the years: "The poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. The voice of the promise of the '60s counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock. Who donned makeup in the '70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse. Who emerged to find Jesus. Who was written off as a hasbeen by the end of the '80s but who went on to release some of the strongest music of his career. Ladies and gentlemen - Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!" 

To his legion of followers, he's all of this and none of it. He famously said what's important to him is "for me to come to the bottom of this legend thing, which has no reality at all. What's important isn't the legend, but the art, the work". His fans disagree. For most, the cult of Dylan is as important as his works. It's another matter that even if he passes on without another song, his songbook will stay forever young.

This article was first published on The Times of India's Crest edition dated May 28, 2011.