Last night I saw Bob Dylan perform live. It was a first. It may well be the first and only, though if the vigor on display last night is any indicator don't bet on it. Perhaps more fragile, but at the age of eighty-three the man still has the chops. Being part of the Outlaw Tour, sharing billing with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson, the performance was missing many of Dylan's most beloved standards. Like a Rolling Stone and Tangled up in Blue were both conspicuously absent, but if you are Bob Dylan you can play whatever the hell you want.
Now you might be thinking that this is shaping up to be a concert review. You will be disappointed if that is your want. This isn't entirely about Bob Dylan. I could easily write about him exclusively, but this would require a book. A book I could write, to be sure, but will not. It has already been done countless times over. There is nothing that I could ever add about the man, his work or any individual performance that could render the justice it deserves.
I can recall, as I expect most in my age bracket do, a childhood being entertained with toy cars. Matchbox or Hot Wheels, or any of a number of knock offs of same. In most cases this was brought to us as a vicarious extension of our fathers' enthusiasm for cars. Like most boys of my age I embraced this and did spend many hours imagining going places in one vehicle or another. While for most this eventually translated into a grown up enthusiasm for the real thing, I never did get bitten by that "car bug". I have owned a few vehicles that I can honestly say I enjoyed, but only a few.
I never actually spent any time thinking about this, until quite suddenly and for no apparent reason, earlier this year I had an epiphany. I finally understood what it was that I had most enjoyed about playing with those cars. I finally understood what made certain ones favorites, while others were only sacrificial vessels for mock demolition derbies. It was their color. I didn't know a Volvo from a Mustang or a Camaro from a Jaguar. Those were names that were stamped on the bottom of the car. They meant nothing to me. Metallic Plum, Pearl White, Candy Apple Red... these were the deciding factors that determined whether or not a car might be kept in pristine condition, or carelessly tossed into a bucket of also rans.
There is an extraordinary and unique beauty in finding an innocent liking for something for nothing more than it's color. Maybe it's subliminal, or maybe it's something more primal. Perhaps it's nothing more than some optical trick our brains are trained by, yet we can all quite readily cite which is our favorite color or colors. It's like being right or left handed; you don't choose it, it just is.
I can say the same thing for my favorite Bob Dylan songs. I could apply a lot of thought to it and find an answer for why certain songs are my favorite, but I never have. I have simply accepted that I like the song because I do, not because someone told me to. Just like I enjoyed certain Matchbox cars for their color, even though I didn't know this at the time.
One of his great standards that was included in last night's performance is one of those songs. In fact he closed his set with this song. Ballad of a Thin Man. I have always loved this song. I never knew or questioned why. I never before had asked "What is that song about?" I have always simply appreciated it for it's poetry. The version that I know best is the 1965 studio version featured on the album Highway 61 Revisited. I know it as a somber, dirge-like ballad chronicling the disillusionment and misfortunes of the woebegone Mr. Jones. Last night's closing act was neither somber nor dirge-like. It was charged and it seemed... angry, somehow.
Bob Dylan has long been known for delivering widely varied renditions of his songs. This was certainly in evidence with last night's show, including a spirited performance of Chuck Berry's Little Queenie. But last night's rendition of Ballad of a Thin Man had something special. There was a fury to it, a fire in it's delivery never imagined. I could hear it play over and over in my head on the ride home. This morning, for the first time, I asked the question: What is that song about?
I would never presume to know what is in Bob Dylan's head. That is a fool's errand for any mortal man. Sadly I must report that Mr. Dylan has not made himself available to share his thoughts. I may only present an aggregate of many years of sporadic reporting around the question and the consequent speculations that have followed. It seems that the "Mr. Jones" is generally attributed to a Jeffrey Jones, following the publication of his article in a 1975 edition of Rolling Stone magazine, in which he seems to attempt to "out" himself as the Mr. Jones. When asked about this Dylan only said "there were many Mr. Joneses at the time". There does seem to be a consensus, and absent any outright refutations from the man himself, we are safe at least in concluding that the ballad expresses Dylan's disdain for journalists.
Some have extrapolated this to a broader disgust with a media and establishment class of the 1960's and their inability to grasp the counterculture. Others have further posited the notion that the ballad is an expression of contempt for the obtuse questions from those unable to understand or appreciate the man and his work. Both of these may be true. For argument's sake let's say they are right, for either or both counts. In that light I am left to wonder if the uncharacteristic ferocity of this performance is somehow telling. With the current state of media and establishment both it is not a great leap of faith to think that the ballad, once rendered as a sorrowful lament, can now be seen as something more. Expressed with more amperage, with more volume, it can easily be taken instead as a stinging indictment. The man who told us that the times "they are a changing" is also the man who told us something else. Another lyric from last night's show that still echoes in my head.
I used to care. Things have changed.
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