Last night, drunk as I was, I tried to describe to someone how amazing it is that the theme of Dylan's newer work is usually love. I failed to convey this irony. How a man made famous for his cynicism, originality and skeptical, biting voice could at long last, with all he has tried, despite all his snake-skin layers of personae and insights has come around to the same obvious truths we all already know when we're children.
Listen to this tortured journey through confusion and disillusionment that he penned in his twenties. It's alright ma, I'm only bleeding. A letter back home describing the pain of living in a fucked up unexplainable world. He's so serious. He's so pained. I know what he means. My mind has exploded too. I've wandered out into the cold too. This song encapsulates for me the very thing that made this man inspire me in the first place. If you can feel it, you can say it.
Now listen to this. All these years later, lost as ever in the same wilderness he's no longer spitting fire at it. He's no longer needling through the threaded mess of the unknowable. He just wants a hand to hold while he wanders closer and closer toward the abyss. wow.
14 years ago
1 comments:
May 26, 2009 at 11:18 AM
It's funny how some people grow-up in a Benjamin Button fashion.
They start out with the bitter cynicism that comes with experience of a disappointing life and the wisdom of having seen way too much. As their body ages, their mind copes with all of this old pain by straining to understand all of this negation, desperate to find meaning in the space between. Stressed and fatigued, their eyes start to see faces in the clouds and their eyes begin hearing the rains whisper.
At that point, all one can do is laugh. Laugh at the limit of our understanding and the despairing feeling of absurdity that comes from not knowing. Laugh at the truth of words spoken long ago. Laugh at truth of sychronicity. And finally laugh at each day having it's own agenda which dictates where we will be when...
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