> All I see on this list is a bunch of people that stopped listening to
Dylan in 66, or whenever, and who figure that their opinion on something
they know nothing about (by their own account) is worth something.
I still listen to Dylan a lot (though he gave me conniptions for a long dry stretch of not very good records) and think his most recent one is maybe his best--and that excerpt from his memoir sorely tempts me to go buy a copy of it right now--but I've also looked back on the period which most of my Dylan-loving friends think of as his best--the Blonde on Blonde--Bringing It All Back Home--Highway 61 Revisited batch--and I've come to see their relative weaknesses--image-mongering, a critic once called it.
Possibly, that makes me a more sophisticated version of Carl, contrarily putting down his best work--in my case, I guess that'd make me hipper-than-thou. Could be, could be--all I know is, everything you know is wrong. Sorry, wrong groove.
Still, the night I heard Ballad of a Thin Man at around four in the morning on a clear channel AM station--KOMA, I think--the first time I ever consciously heard Dylan...well, I guess I was thirteen or so, and it really did change my life.