With Bob on nobody's side
| Fans expected his autobiography to be revelatory; critics expected it to be nonsensical, almost senile. It's actually neither. Written in beautiful prose, Bob Dylan chooses not to address any of the big, obvious curiosities that have surrounded his persona over the years ... singing alongside Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial, the very day King screamed "Free at Last!", perhaps that one special insight into what Blowin' in the Wind really meant to him. None of that. |
| Instead, Chronicles: Volume One is a modest, straightforward memoir that shrugs off the curse of being the "conscience of a generation", and takes us deep through his music""the early inspiration, the lost years (bad albums to "keep the creditors at bay"), and the majestic return to artistic form in the 1980s (perhaps the best chapter in the book describes Dylan's Oh Mercy rejuvenation). |
| This is not just a memoir by the greatest American songwriter of the last century, but a virtual textbook on American musical history""early inspirations Hank Williams, Gene Vincent, Roy Orbison; lesser known ones Odetta, John Jacob Niles. Dylan also doffs his hat to some of his peers""Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, the Beatles: "They offered intimacy and companionship like no other group." |
| But two influences rise above the rest, and place in clear perspective what drove some of Dylan's best work. Jack Kerouac, whose 1957 work On the Road probably lent Dylan the spirit of non-conformity that simmered in the America of the 1950s""his two themes of freedom and longing are a common element in most of Dylan's important work. Like Dylan's seminal Chimes of Freedom, the anthem used many years later at Amnesty International concerts: |
| Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail |
| The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder |
| That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze |
| Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder |
| Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind |
| Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind |
| The second, Woody Guthrie: "You could listen to his songs, and learn about a way to live your life." At a Columbia concert to mark 30 years of Dylan recording music, Bob would open with a touching, acoustic version of his Song to Woody, arguably the finest tribute song ever written. |
| In return, Dylan gave a generation the entire lyrical arsenal it needed to protest, and then promptly turned his back to go where his musical muse led him. |
| That's probably the big revelatory moment in the book. "As far as I knew, I didn't belong to anybody then or now. I had a wife and children whom I loved more than anything else in the world. I was trying to provide for them, keep out of trouble, but the big bugs in the press kept promoting me as the mouthpiece, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation. That was funny. All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of. My destiny lay down the road with whatever life invited, had nothing to do with representing any kind of civilization. Being true to yourself, that was the thing. I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper". |
| Dylan's Chronicles give us another side of the Prince of Protest, a tender side: the family man, intensely private, adoring father, and above all a master musician. Consider this from the Bringing it All Back Home album: |
| The cloak and dagger dangles, |
| Madams light the candles. |
| In ceremonies of the horsemen, |
| Even the pawn must hold a grudge. |
| Statues made of match sticks, |
| Crumble into one another, |
| My love winks, she does not bother, |
| She knows too much to argue or to judge. |
| Bob turns 65 today. After four decades of singing and songwriting, Chronicles is a thoughtful gift to his fans... let's leave it at that, no arguing, no judging. |
| CHRONICLES VOLUME ONE Bob Dylan Simon & Schuster Price: $24; Pages: 293 |