2 Comments:
b.f. said...
Too bad Dylan will apparently be performing at a concert in Tel Aviv in June 2011--despite the call by Palestinian solidarity activists around the globe and the BDS movement for an anti-apartheid cultural boycott by musicians of Apartheid Israel. Perhaps some of the lyrics to "The Poet of PBS" folk song of a few years ago might explain why Dylan--unlike John Lennon--became more mainstream in his politics during the late 1960s and early 1970s (and later wrote his "Neighborhood Bully" song that seemed to support Israeli government militarism in the Middle East):
The Poet of PBS
Was just in it for himself
He took tunes from the Folk
Made money and then sold out.
His manager's got some footage for a commercial promo film
To justify him selling out and his silence while his government killed
So they hired a director and controlled how he did the edits
And the Corporate Rock house artist is now The Poet of PBS.
He moved to his cousin's frat house near a campus in the Midwest
Then impersonated Woody Guthrie and added hip black lyrics
He hung out in the Village and Broadsides taught him to write protest
And the Times man composed the album notes for The Poet of PBS.
With his corporate media backing and his crafty manager
He turned his back on the Folk community to become a millionaire
Then he hid in his country mansion, while Vietnam was wrecked
And cash or drugs destroyed the soul of The Poet of PBS.
Forty years of artistic failure followed his creative moral youth
Forty years of defensiveness, forty years of obscuring truth
And when his tour has ended and they write his epitaph
They'll say: "The rebel poet became The Poet of PBS".
8:55 AM
Markin said...
Bob- Good point (and nice jabbing lyrics) on Dylan's politics which were always ugly after the first early 1960s rush. I would point out that John Lennon's, after he got into immigration trouble, also took a dive right, or rather ducked his head. I like Trotsky's position on these cultural types (Breton, Rivera, Kahlo, Malraux, etc.in his day)-let them do their cultural thing to add to humankind's storehouse of knowledge- and basically keep out of our way.
b.f. said...
Too bad Dylan will apparently be performing at a concert in Tel Aviv in June 2011--despite the call by Palestinian solidarity activists around the globe and the BDS movement for an anti-apartheid cultural boycott by musicians of Apartheid Israel. Perhaps some of the lyrics to "The Poet of PBS" folk song of a few years ago might explain why Dylan--unlike John Lennon--became more mainstream in his politics during the late 1960s and early 1970s (and later wrote his "Neighborhood Bully" song that seemed to support Israeli government militarism in the Middle East):
The Poet of PBS
Was just in it for himself
He took tunes from the Folk
Made money and then sold out.
His manager's got some footage for a commercial promo film
To justify him selling out and his silence while his government killed
So they hired a director and controlled how he did the edits
And the Corporate Rock house artist is now The Poet of PBS.
He moved to his cousin's frat house near a campus in the Midwest
Then impersonated Woody Guthrie and added hip black lyrics
He hung out in the Village and Broadsides taught him to write protest
And the Times man composed the album notes for The Poet of PBS.
With his corporate media backing and his crafty manager
He turned his back on the Folk community to become a millionaire
Then he hid in his country mansion, while Vietnam was wrecked
And cash or drugs destroyed the soul of The Poet of PBS.
Forty years of artistic failure followed his creative moral youth
Forty years of defensiveness, forty years of obscuring truth
And when his tour has ended and they write his epitaph
They'll say: "The rebel poet became The Poet of PBS".
8:55 AM
Markin said...
Bob- Good point (and nice jabbing lyrics) on Dylan's politics which were always ugly after the first early 1960s rush. I would point out that John Lennon's, after he got into immigration trouble, also took a dive right, or rather ducked his head. I like Trotsky's position on these cultural types (Breton, Rivera, Kahlo, Malraux, etc.in his day)-let them do their cultural thing to add to humankind's storehouse of knowledge- and basically keep out of our way.
