It should come as no surprise to those
who have listened to Bob Dylan's music, watched his elusive
appearances, and followed his un-forthcoming interviews, that Dylan
often doesn't help you to understand who he is. In what purports to
be the first volume of his autobiography, Dylan lets you know who he
is and how he got there, but don't expect a straightforward narrative
explanation. Just as in his songs and too infrequent appearances, he
insists in this wonderful book that you do your work, too. If you do
it, however, and are at least marginally aware of the details of his
life, you will find this extended riff on Bob Dylan's early years in
New York as well as his reflections on family, fame, recording, and
more to be deeply informative and most satisfying. In Chronicles:
Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004, 320 pages, $27.00/11.99)
He arrives in New York on a cold winter
day, alone with only his guitar for company, not knowing anybody, but
curious and open to his own experience. He's searching for Woody
Guthrie, even then hospitalized in New Jersey, whose muse has drawn
him to folk singing and wandering. He finds his way into the
Greenwich Village of the late fifties with only the folk songs he's
studied and learned, his dogged persistence, and his intelligence,
and then burrows himself in the folk music culture of this
interesting period roiling with cultural change in America reflected
in the musical and social life of The Village. He begins visiting and
then performing at little hole-in-the-wall venues where, during the
afternoons, anyone can take the stage to sing, recite poetry, or find
their own mode of expression, working for tips. He keeps his eyes
open, soon meeting people who welcome him to flop on their couches or
mattresses in their apartments. He meets, and cultivates in his own
elusive way, Dave Van Ronk, and many other artistic and music
business lights in the Village.
Dylan describes crashing with Ray
Gooch, whose Village apartment was filled with books that he dived
into. In an extended riff, Dylan writes about what he read, saw,
studied, picked up, put down, returned to and groped through to gain
understanding, all the time soaking up a world of literature,
history, and art he had become ready to indulge in and integrate into
his yearning and experience. He's a virtual vacuum cleaner for
seemingly random ideas, musical, literary and artistic, which he
slowly but surely integrates.
Hey Mr. Tambourine Man - Newport Folk Festival - 1964
In its own discursive way, Dylan's
story emerges. He writes about how Bobby Zimmerman became Bob Dylan
through an interesting search for a name reflecting the personna he
was constructing for himself. It, like much of the rest of the book,
makes sense in its own seemingly rambling way. He begins to change,
as well, in his concept of himself as a singer, moving from
traditional and contemporary folk music to what he refers to as
“topical” songs, being careful to remove himself as a “protest”
singer, but rather an observer of the contemporary scene. While the
narrative seems to wander, it's actually pretty straightforward,
laced with references to reading, listening, interacting with the
music community and the world in thoughtful and insightful ways.
While the book seems to jump around a
good deal, it, nevertheless, captures the person I think Dylan, at
least, wants to be. As his celebrity increases, his resistance to
being made into something he thinks he's not does, too. He
consistently styles himself as a folk singer finding songs in his
experience and his internal self. He resists becoming a symbol for
the fantasies of others seeking to make him into a symbol. He
describes the harassment from “pilgrims” seeking him, along with
his growing sense of needing privacy and solitude to do his work.
Robbie Robertson, of the Band, asks him, “Where do you think you're
gonna take it?” as if he were a single driving force behind music.
Life seems to represent his resistance to being styled in some way by
others. He writes, “It was impossible for me to observe anything
without being observed,” exploring the cost of his celebrity on the
family life and creative existence he says he wants to pursue and
fulfill. I can find nothing in the narrative that points to his
seeking celebrity, much less the iconic status he has achieved. His
reactions to attending this year's Nobel Prize award ceremonies
represent a consistent response from him, as does the graceful
statement he sent in.
Bob Dylan with The Band - Forever Young
I'm struck by the need Dylan expresses,
which seems very real to me, to live an ordinary family life in the
midst of everyone else's desire to turn him into a symbol for
something much larger. In the end, Dylan remains a song writer and
story tell of unusual grace and breadth. He experiments, as he
writes, “throws everything at the wall,” and much of it seems to
work for some audience beyond his desires to be a more solitary,
family oriented, singer and writer of songs. For, first of all, he's
a writer. But the more I listen to him, the more I find him to be a
wonderfull, affecting, and honest singer.
It should come as no surprise to anyone
that Bob Dylan can write. And he can think and sing. What some people
might find surprising is that he's a real person, filled with all
that portends, yet driven by the external forces of fame and
celebrity to become something more. While he doesn't seek sympathy,
reading his Chronicles evoked it
in me. I find myself liking the person who emerges while, as has
become my habit with books by and about musicians, listening to his
songs with increasing understanding and empathy. Chronicles
gives the reader entree into the real person Bob Dylan is. But, and
it's a big But, the reader has to allow him his reality. In that
“But” lies the enormous strength and charm of this book. By the
middle, I found myself wishing him the peace of a privacy so
difficult for him to achieve.
Dylan's description of a decade-long
low period in his career, from the late seventies through the
eighties he describes a sense of disconnection from his own work, his
sense that his career was going nowhere, that he no longer wanted to
perform...just going through the motions. Leaving a rehearsal for a
tour with the Grateful Dead, he drops into an obscure San Francisco
jazz joint, hears a singer simply killing it, and has a revelation
which turns him around. During the following European tour with Tom
Petty, he sings eighty long-neglected songs from his catalog without
a repeat and senses new energy and inspiration. Again, taken at his
word, it rings completely true to me. There's an integrity to the
writing as he digs within to describe the indescribable. I've always
thought of Dylan as being non-communicative except in performance,
but Chronicles
is a performance, too, a journey where he takes the risks of
self-discovery and finds what he's looking for.
Most of the Time - From Oh Mercy - 1989
His chapter called
“Oh Mercy” referring to what has been described as his “comeback
album,” discusses song writing and performance, giving huge
insights into Dylan's process. How he thinks, jumps from idea to idea
while a concept emerges. He resents other people's over-analyzing,
but gives himself to the willing reader and consumer of his music.
But it must be on his terms. He won't let you take over for him or
force him into a mold. His account of the period spent working in New
Orleans with producer Danny Lanois to produce Oh Mercy
captures the spirit of trying to build a collaborative relationship
as well as presenting an impressionistic view of the city and a
motorcycle trip with his wife to bayou country that's a joy to read,
an extended riff that also helps reveal Dylan's creative process.
“Folk music was
all I needed to exist. Trouble was, there wasn't enough of it. It was
out of date, had no proper connection the the actualities, the trends
of the times. It was a huge story, but hard to come across.” (235)
Dylan refers to himself throughout the book as a folk singer,
rejecting the critics and fans who would make him into a cultural
icon, a leader of a movement, a poet who spoke for and to a
generation. For this refusal, for his stubborn insistence to follow
his own muse and music, he paid a price, and kept his integrity and
at least some independence. Over the more than fifty year course of
his career, he has continued to discover himself and his music, while
never kowtowing to the rapidly changing world of pop music, but
always being aware of what's going on, listening, watching, learning.
Bob Dylan at the White House - 2010 - The Times They Are A-Changin'
Dylan was a
voracious consumer of the work of other singers and, later, song
writers. Soon after leaving home, he discovered Woody Guthrie, whose
work consumed him and helped set his course, until he heard “Ramblin”
Jack Elliot, who had traveled with Guthrie, and whose confident
singing awed him. Throughout the book, Dylan, explores the
influences, both musical and literary, influencing him as well as
examining his own inner workings. The amount of careful thought and
deep searching that went into thinking through this book should not
be underestimated, either in depth or in carefully structured
writing. For anyone interested in Bob Dylan Chronicles:
Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004, 320 pages, $27.00/11.99)
is must reading. I enjoyed it and learned a lot, too. I bought the
book from Amazon and read it on my Kindle App.
Please remember: If you purchase through any link on my blog or by entering Amazon.com through the portal on the left side, I will receive a small commission and you will have contributed to the cost of running this operation without any cost to yourself. I have no information about who purchases from Amazon through me. Thanks!
Please remember: If you purchase through any link on my blog or by entering Amazon.com through the portal on the left side, I will receive a small commission and you will have contributed to the cost of running this operation without any cost to yourself. I have no information about who purchases from Amazon through me. Thanks!
