There is a new book out, Where The Music Had To Go, by Jim Windolf. Windolf is a features editor at The New York Times, and he has published articles, reviews, essays, and humor pieces in various magazines and journals, as well as publishing some short fiction. He lives in New York City. Windolf's new book is about "How Bob Dylan And The Beatles Changed Each Other - And The World."
I am not quite through with the book, as I write out this blog posting, but I am thinking that I am not really going to put the book down until I do finish it. I am a longtime Dylan fan, but am not otherwide much invested in popular (or other) music, and I have never really been too interested in The Beatles. This book may change my view.
As it turns out, Dylan and The Beatles had a rich interaction, right from the very beginning, as they both rose (almost simultaneously) to public notice. Windolf documents these interactions. What is even more extraordinary, to my mind, is the fact, revealed by Windolf, that both the Beatles and Dylan trace their origin to Little Richard, who, among other things, combined his "out there" rock and roll music with a personal devotion to Jesus Christ. Like I say, I am going to keep on reading!
Thinking about Dylan and religion - appropriate on a Sunday, I'd say - led me to revisit "Rough And Rowdy Ways," Dylan's last full album. If you click that link you'll see the list of songs included on the album, with links to the lyrics of each song. I have always liked, "False Prophet," myself.
The first verse of "False Prophet" announces "another day of anger - bitterness and doubt." In other words, as Dylan says in aother song, "it was a normal day." Here's the entirety of that first verse:
Another day without end - another ship going out
Another day of anger - bitterness and doubt
I know how it happened - I saw it begin
I opened my heart to the world and the world came in
The "world," and all our human preoccupations, can just "come in," and overwhelm us - and most usually it does. Dylan's song, "False Prophet," certainly tells us that. But... in the end, that isn't, really, what the guy singing the song wants you to accept, and take for real. There is something else out there, beyond all those things that assault us on all our days "without end." There is something out there that is not "of this world." It's implied, not spoken, not described, but just so you know, the guy singing the song is no "false prophet." He's "the enemy of treason - the enemy of strife." He's "the enemy of the unlived meaningless life."
If you believe in all those things that the world brings in, you're missing the real thing. That's what the guy singing this song knows, and he's no "false prophet."
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