Mr. Dylan * 'he became a student
of what he heard'
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 10:09 am
Subject: Mr. Dylan * 'he became a student of what he heard'
Hey Friends,
The Los Angeles Times did an article on Mr.
Bob Dylan today that I think is just wonderful. I will share
a few excerpts. I think if you have an opportunity to read the
whole article that would be good.
The Songwriters Series:
Bob Dylan by staff writer Robert Hilburn.
It's only natural to pattern
yourself after someone. ...If I wanted to be a painter, I might
think about trying to be like Van Gogh, or if I was an actor,
act like Laurence Olivier. If I was an architect, there's Frank
Gehry. B
But you can't just copy somebody.
If you like someones work, the important thing is to be exposed
to everything that person has been exposed to. Anyone who wants
to a songwriter should listen to as much folk music as they can,
study the form and structure or stuff that has been around for
100 years. I go back to Stephen Foster.
...
I always admired true artists
who were dedicated, so I learned from them. Popular culture usually
comes to an end very quickly. It gets thrown into the grave.
I wanted to do something that stood alongside of Rembrandt's
paintings.
To me Woody Guthrie was the
be-all and end-all. Woody's songs were about everything at the
same time. They were about rich and poor, black and white, the
highs and lows of life, contraditicons between what they were
teaching in school and what was really happening. He was saying
everything in his songs that I felt but didn't know how to.
It wasn't only the songs,
though. It was his voice - it was like a stiletto - and his diction.
I had never heard anybody sing like that. His guitar strumming
was more intricate than it sounded. All I knew was I wanted to
learn his songs.
It's like a ghost is writing
a song like that. (Like a Rolling Stone I'm not thinking about
what I want to say, I'm just thinking is this okay for the meter?)
It gives you the song and it goes away, it goes away. You don't
know what it means. Except the ghost picked me to write the song.
I don't think in lateral terms
as a writer. That's a fault of a lot of the old Broadway writers...They
are so lateral. There's no circular thing, nothing to be learned
from the song, nothing to inspire you. I always try to turn a
song on its head. Otherwise, I figure I'm wasting the listeners
time.
D:Anyhow I just thought to share a few things
from the article. It really is a good one if anyone is interested
in Bob Dylan. Don't really know many on this list but I thought
hey what the heck:)
Something that caught my attention also was
this:
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
I heard the sound of a thunder,
it roared out a warnin'
Heard the roar of a wave that
could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers
whose hands were a-blazin'
Heard ten thousand whisperin'
and nobody listenin'...
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
D: And it got me to wondering, who the hell
is this cat?
Sunday Sunday Sunday,
Dottie
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 10:23 am
Subject: Re: Mr. Dylan * 'he became a student of what he heard'
Bob Dylan 'Sunday LA Times:
I don't think in lateral
terms as a writer. That's a fault of a lot of the old Broadway
writers...They are so lateral. There's no circular thing, nothing
to be learned from the song, nothing to inspire you. I always
try to turn a song on its head. Otherwise, I figure I'm wasting
the listeners time.
This just got me to thinking and I had to
come back to the idea of inspiration. To me this is what the
Waldorf schools help bring about in children. Verus just waiting
for when and how they will be inspired the Waldorf concept helps
to bring it into fruition in a sense. It allow the child to wonder
and dream as a child should.
I get parents have an issue as to whether
it is religious/spiritual and so forth and feel they have not
been let in on this aspect of Waldorf. And they wish they had.
Now, they are out to save all the other parents who might not
be made aware of this as well. How noble of them. It's so not
about this issue is it? It really is another thing all together.
And to me this is the sad part of their cause.
Waldorf is not about inducting others into
Anthroposophy as can be seen by the many stories told by parents
that their children did not even learn about who Dr. Steiner
was into high school years. The idea of Waldorf and Anthroposophy
as a cult is just a blazing shot against Christianity and for
those who do not believe. Well, okay. You can have your beliefs
and let others have theirs. You want seperation of state and
religion okay. But to bring in all this other baloney as racism
and nazism is just too much for normal sensibilities when one
takes in the whole picture.
I have been to the Rudolf Steiner Bookstore
in Pasadena many times now and never not even once was I approached
on if I was a member or if I was interested in becoming one.
This hysteria built around the PLANS site is just that; controlled
hysteria. And for what reason I must ask my self. What is it
that is really going on over there. We are on year five maybe
and the same stories rehashed over and over and by the same people
over and over fresh minting it each time. And for what? At one
time I really thought it was about their hurt feelings and so
forth. But now it has taken such an ugly turn one has to really
take a new look at what is going on with all this nazi and racist
ideology coming from the same few members with similar life/spirit
ideologies over and over again.
And it fits the Dylan thought on lateralality.
No circularness in their thinking it seems. No inspiriation.
It is all for today and 'why look into what we can not know'
and damn if anyone else might have the answer we are not even
interested in as we have already decided it does not exist.
Dottie
...................................................................................................................................
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 11:09 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
Hi Dottie,
Thank you so much for your Dylan post. His
songs cover just about everything, from the sublime to the romantic
and the wild and hilarious. Check this out from 1963 - the text
differs a little from what you hear on the "Freewheelin'
Bob Dylan" album, but what the heck:
I SHALL BE FREE
by Bob Dylan
Well, I took me a woman late
last night,
I's three-fourths drunk, she looked uptight.
She took off her wheel, took off her bell,
Took off her wig, said, "How do I smell?"
I hot-footed it . . . bare-naked . . .
Out the window!
Well, sometimes I might get
drunk,
Walk like a duck and stomp like a skunk.
Don't hurt me none, don't hurt my pride
'Cause I got my little lady right by my side.
(Right there
Proud as can be)
I's out there paintin' on
the old woodshed
When a can a black paint it fell on my head.
I went down to scrub and rub
But I had to sit in back of the tub.
(Cost a quarter
And I had to get out quick . . .
Someone wanted to come in and take a sauna)
Well, my telephone rang it
would not stop,
It's President Kennedy callin' me up.
He said, "My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country
grow?"
I said, "My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot,
Anita Ekberg,
Sophia Loren."
(Put 'em all in the same room with Ernest Borgnine!)
Well, I got a woman sleeps
on a cot,
She yells and hollers and squeals a lot.
Licks my face and tickles my ear,
Bends me over and buys me beer.
(She's a honeymooner
A June crooner
A spoon feeder
And a natural leader)
Oh, there ain't no use in
me workin' so heavy,
I got a woman who works on the levee.
Pumping that water up to her neck,
Every week she sends me a monthly check.
(She's a humdinger
Folk singer
Dead ringer
For a thing-a-muh jigger)
Late one day in the middle
of the week,
Eyes were closed I was half asleep.
I chased me a woman up the hill,
Right in the middle of an air raid drill.
It was Little Bo Peep!
(I jumped a fallout shelter
I jumped a bean stalk
I jumped a ferris wheel)
Now, the man on the stand
he wants my vote,
He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.
He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,
Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.
(He's eatin' bagels
He's eatin' pizza
He's eatin' chitlins
He's eatin' bullshit!)
Oh, set me down on a television
floor,
I'll flip the channel to number four.
Out of the shower comes a grown-up man
With a bottle of hair oil in his hand.
(It's that greasy kid stuff.
What I want to know, Mr. Football Man, is
What do you do about Willy Mays and Yul Brynner,
Charles de Gaulle
And Robert Louis Stevenson?)
Well, the funniest woman I
ever seen
Was the great-granddaughter of Mr. Clean.
She takes about fifteen baths a day,
Wants me to grow a cigar on my face.
(She's a little bit heavy!)
Well, ask me why I'm drunk
alla time,
It levels my head and eases my mind.
I just walk along and stroll and sing,
I see better days and I do better things.
(I catch dinosaurs
I make love to Elizabeth Taylor . . .
Catch hell from Richard Burton!)
Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special
Rider Music
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 11:27 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
His songs cover just about everything,
from the sublime to the romantic and the wild and hilarious.
Check this out from 1963 - the text differs a little from what
you hear on the "Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" album, but
what the heck:
It's funny because I just bought a few cds
of his earlier songs. His style is just not my style in song
ways. However when I read the words you guys all share on the
list I am in awe of him that he inspires me to write. The article
speaks of how he just took anything and everything from life
and used it whether it be a newspaper clipping, something someone
said or as Johnny Cash did, make the inanimate animate and alive.
He uses the example of Cash's song about a freighter.
Mr. Dylan:
There are so many ways you
can go at something in a song. One thing is to give life to inanimate
ojects. Jonny Cash is good at that. He's got a line that goes,
' A freighter said "She's been here, but she's gone, boy,
she's gone." That's great. A freighter says, "She's
been here." That's high art. If you do that once in a song,
you usually turn it on its head right then and there.
Me, personally I am liking the cd Love and
Theft. I think I am a later fan in a sense. Stephen Clarke was
here one time for a RJ Stewart workshop and he gifted me with
this. I loved it immediately as it made me smile. I especially
like Mississippi. It makes me smile as does the whole cd. I like
contmplating how he has found a way to keep on trucking through
it all. He found a way to stay relevant to the end. He has not
abandoned his artist within. I dig that.
There is one picture in the paper where he
appears, well at least for me, in a Christ like moment. As if
the thorns have been placed on his head. And ironically it is
the point, well maybe the paper did this on purpose, oh well,
where they mention it was during his born again Christian period.
Born again Christian period? I had no idea he came to this point
in his life. Is he still a Christian as far as an outer understanding.
It really does not matter in a way when it is an innner understanding
that refuses to conform to others ideas of what a Christian is
and is not. Abraham Lincoln also had an interesting take on Christianity.
Feel like writing when listnening to him,
somehow my imaginations open up in a lightness of being way,
Love,
d
...................................................................................................................................
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 11:40 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
I quoted BD:
I's out there paintin'
on the old woodshed
When a can a black paint it fell on my head.
I went down to scrub and rub
But I had to sit in back of the tub.
(Cost a quarter
And I had to get out quick . . .
Someone wanted to come in and take a sauna)
We've been talking about racism here, and
Bob Dylan has a way of blending the seriousness of this with
outrageous entertainment. In the verse quoted above he is referring
to blacks having to sit in the back of the bus. And in another
song, "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", he's kicked out in
the alley for being Jewish after pulling down his pants to prove
it so he can get a loan to bail his friends out of jail:
Now, I didn't mean to be nosy
But I went into a bank
To get some bail for Arab
And all the boys back in the tank
They asked me for some collateral
And I pulled down my pants
They threw me in the alley
When up comes this girl from France
Who invited me to her house
I went, but she had a friend
Who knocked me out
And robbed my boots
And I was on the street again
And then you've got "Talkin' John Birch
Paranoid Blues", where we understand the link between the
witch hunt against Communism and anti-Semitism, from Stoddard
and the Nazis through the McCarthy years and the John Birch Society.
He got booted out of a TV studio for singing this song, which
is why he says on the bootleg version, "There's nothin'
wrong with this song!" and then he skips the verse about
Hitler:
Now we all agree with Hitlers'
views,
Although he killed six million Jews.
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist,
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria.
And here is a clincher about the link between
the war on Communism and anti-Semitism:
To my knowledge there's just
one man
That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell.
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie
Exodus.
I've made two edited version of this favorite
BD song, one for Dan Dugan and one for John Ashcroft:
http://www.uncletaz.com/plansblues.html
http://www.uncletaz.com/ashcroft/ashblues.html
Cheers,
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 11:49 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
Hey Tarjei, here's the link. I didn't think
it would be available but it is.
http://www.calendarlive.com/music/pop/cl-ca-dylan04apr04,0,3583678.story
d
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 11:54 am
Subject: Re: Mr. Dylan * 'he became a student of what he heard'
Tarjei:
I've made two edited version of this favorite
BD song, one for Dan Dugan and one for John Ashcroft:
http://www.uncletaz.com/plansblues.html
Tarjei!!! You shoulda been a cowboy:)
A good Sunday to you all,
d
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 11:58 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
or you could just go to http://www.latimes.com
:) for the Bob Dylan piece.
d
...................................................................................................................................
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 12:04 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
At 20:49 04.04.2004, Dottie wrote:
Hey Tarjei, here's the link. I didn't think
it would be available but it is.
http://www.calendarlive.com/music/pop/cl-ca-dylan04apr04,0,3583678.story
Thanks. "Rock's Enigmatic Poet Opens
a Long-Private Door" says the title. One of the reasons
why Dylan has been reticent with giving interviews, I think,
is that there used to be so many intellectual interpreters writing
articles and books about textual analysis of his songs
and asking him about these interpretations. (There was also a
garbologist analysing Dylan's trash and writing about it.) We're
guilty about interpreting his lyrics too - see http://www.uncletaz.com/thiefspoke.html
- but we're not pestering him about it, because Bob Dylan always
writes "from the guts" as he calls it, not from the
head. The songs come to him from his muse, and he's not up to
analyzing and interpreting them and talk about what all the words
mean.
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
...................................................................................................................................
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 12:35 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
At 20:27 04.04.2004, Dottie wrote:
There is one picture in the paper where
he appears, well at least for me, in a Christ like moment. As
if the thorns have been placed on his head. And ironically it
is the point, well maybe the paper did this on purpose, oh well,
where they mention it was during his born again Christian period.
Born again Christian period? I had no idea he came to this point
in his life. Is he still a Christian as far as an outer understanding.
It really does not matter in a way when it is an innner understanding
that refuses to conform to others ideas of what a Christian is
and is not. Abraham Lincoln also had an interesting take on Christianity.
Check out my post from December 9 about Bob
Dylan's Christ experience where I treat it with some detail:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anthroposophy_tomorrow/message/550
[from the thread "The Thief Who Kindly Spoke"]
Bob Dylan has always reflected a relationship
to the Mystery of Golgotha, but in 1979 he decided to declare
himself as a born-again Christian. What puzzled a lot of people
was that he became so fundamentalistic for a while - like in
several of the songs on the "Slow Train Coming" album.
This was
Bob Dylan's mortal self speaking, thus coming across far less
perfect than when everything is just given to him so to speak.
The "I" is the least perfected member of the human
organism. So Bob Dylan was going through his midlife crisis and
expressed something he felt it was right to do. The fundy clichés
that popped up for a while weren't his fault, but the Protestant
Christian culture in America - Billy Graham and all that.
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
...................................................................................................................................
From: dottie zold
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 2:06 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
Jesus, Tarjei, who is this cat? In our own
time we have been blessed with one of the masters and he almost
passed us by or could have if you did not constantly bring this
man and his words to the forefront. I am inspired in my life
today to 'listen' to these words and this man as he passes through
town.
wow,
d
Tarjei:
Check out my post from December 9 about
Bob Dylan's Christ experience where I treat it with some detail:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anthroposophy_tomorrow/message/550
[from the thread "The Thief Who Kindly Spoke"]
...................................................................................................................................
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 3:17 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Mr. Dylan * 'he became
a student of what he heard'
At 23:06 04.04.2004, Dottie wrote:
Jesus, Tarjei, who is this cat? In our
own time we have been blessed with one of the masters and he
almost passed us by or could have if you did not constantly bring
this man and his words to the forefront. I am inspired in my
life today to 'listen' to these words and this man as he passes
through town.
Oh my, I just can't imagine the postwar years
without Bob Dylan. He was born around 1940, i.e. same generation
as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and so on. He introduced
the Beatles to marijuana, and he and John Lennon were mutual
fans, imitating each others' styles sometimes. One of the funniest
things Dylan did was to tease Lennon about the "Rubber Soul"
song "Norwegian Wood", which was about a one-night-stand
affair, with his own "4th Time Around" on "Blonde
on Blonde" the same year (1966). Lennon said that it made
him "very very nervous." I'm telling you , those guys
were two of a kind.
Rudolf Steiner said some interesting things
about the biographies of initiates and great artists, homeless
souls. He mentions the significance of Goethe's brush with death
at a young age, for instance, which influenced his consciousness
and vocation for the rest of his life. He also talked about how
such people would sometimes suddenly become independent at a
very your age, out on their own. Bob Dylan hit the road at 16
on his own, and he had a brush with death after "Blonde
on Blonde" through a motorcycle accident. It was after this
accident that he came up with the "John Wesley Harding"
album featuring "All Along the Watchtower" and "I
Dreamed I Saw Saint Augustine", although very interesting
lyrics were already out, such as "Gates of Eden".
One of the songs that made me "discover"
Bob Dylan was "With God On Our Side". The concerns
are the same as in the song you quoted - "A Hard Rain's
A-Gonna Fall" - when he was petrified at the prospect of
a nuclear war because of the 1962 Cuban crisis. You'll understand
this thing about Dylan always having had a relationship to the
Mystery of Golgotha if you go through this text and pay special
attention to the second-last verse - about Judas Iscariot and
the Kiss of Betrayal:
WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE
by Bob Dylan
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell
it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.
Copyright © 1963; renewed
1991 Special Rider Music
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
...................................................................................................................................
From: lightsearcher1
Date: Mon Apr 5, 2004 3:14 pm
Subject: LS/1 & Tarjei CHILLIN' with DYLAN...
BRAVO ON DYLAN, TS ! --
THIS POST SWAPS EQUALLY POWERFUL AND PROPHETIC
BOBBY D. LYRIC/S INTO TARJEI's RECENT ORIGINAL...
--- In "anthropo-to-mo", Tarjei
Straume wrote:
Oh my, I just can't imagine the postwar
years without Bob Dylan. He was born around 1940, i.e. same generation
as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and so on....
Rudolf Steiner said some interesting things
about the biographies of initiates and great artists, homeless
souls. He mentions the significance of Goethe's brush with death
at a young age, for instance, which influenced his consciousness
and vocation for the rest of his life.
...You'll understand this thing about Dylan
always having had a relationship to the Mystery of Golgotha if
you go through this text and pay special attention to....
ALL THE FOLLOWING COMPLETE LYRICS FROM A SONG
NOW 20-years ON CALLED:
(TS, may I cut in for this dance...oooh, thank
you!)-- LS/1
NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY
Well, the neighborhood bully,
he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just
lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick
skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been
driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch
mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against
it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
`Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really
speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists
who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved
him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have
been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to
him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so
many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.
Copyright © 1983 Special
Rider Music
The Thief Who Kindly Spoke
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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