Bob's work is open to a lot of interpretations, but I think taking the lines from My Back Pages (Another Side of Bob Dylan):
A self-ordained professor's tongue Too serious to fool Spouted out that liberty Is just equality in school "Equality," I spoke the word As if a wedding vow. Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
as some sort of rejection of Brown v. Board of Ed or expressing solidarity with Orville Faubus or George Wallace is totally wacko. Bob's had his odd right wing moments, but not on racial justice. Not ever. Not for a second.
Maybe you are just talking about My Back Pages, but that has a rather specific target. (The people who wanted him to keep churning out variations on The Times They Are A'Changing). And the lines you complain about can be read jsut as much as saying that liberty is a whole lot more than just equality in school, and can't be easily shoehorned, given the context of the record, the times, the man's life and other work, as being a _rejection_ of equality in school.
"My Back Pages," which you tar as right wing here, appears on the same LP ) as Chimes Freedom, which should help put the anti-protest-folkie snarl of Myu Back Pages into context. Explain how this song, which uses "freedom" and not "liberty," btw, is right wing, noting the positive allusion to ML King ("Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight"):
I quote the whole song:
Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched With faces hidden while the walls were tightening As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain Dissolved into the bells of the lightning Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales For the disrobed faceless forms of no position Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts All down in taken-for-granted situations Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an' cheated by pursuit An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed An' the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
* * * *
Bob (a college dropout) has always had short shrift for professors:
You've been with the professors And they've all liked your looks With great lawyers you have Discussed lepers and crooks You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books You're very well read It's well known
Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?
Ballad of a Thin Man (Highway 61 Revisited)
and traditional higher ed has never been a particular object of his admiration:
You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely But you know you only used to get juiced in it And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
(Like a Rolling Stone, Highway 61 Revisited)
Or (this, written after receiving an honorary Doctorate in Musiv from Tigertown):
Outside of the gates the trucks were unloadin', The weather was hot, a-nearly 90 degrees. The man standin' next to me, his head was exploding, Well, I was prayin' the pieces wouldn't fall on me. Yeah, the locusts sang off in the distance, Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody. Oh, the locusts sang off in the distance, And the locusts sang and they were singing for me.
I put down my robe, picked up my diploma, Took hold of my sweetheart and away we did drive, Straight for the hills, the black hills of Dakota, Sure was glad to get out of there alive.
Day of the Locusts (New Morning)
Course a lot of us who went to Tigertown, even for rather more than an afternoon felt the same way.
But contempt for abstractions? Bob Dylan? Are we talking about the same guy? The most allusively symbolist poet-singer American music has produced?
In fact, Bob always made fun of lowbrow anti-intellectaulism, here's from Motopsycho Nightmare, also on Another Side:
I had to say something To strike him very weird, So I yelled out, I like fidel castro and his beard. Rita looked offended But she got out of the way, As he came charging down the stairs Sayin, whats that I heard you say? ********* He said hes going to kill me If I dont get out the door In two seconds flat, You unpatriotic, rotten doctor commie rat.
Well, he threw a readers digest At my head and I did run, I did a somersault As I seen him get his gun . . . .
Hardly an ringing endorsement of anti-intellectualism in American life. Really quite the opposite.
I think Bob's most consistently politically problematic positions over the decades have been concerning women, who rarely figure as full fledged people in his songs at all.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On May 28, 2006, at 2:08 PM, andie nachgeborenen
> wrote:
>
> > In my right-wing days, we thought that
> >> Dylan's "My Back
> >>> Pages" was a great conservative song
> >> <http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/
> >>> backpages.html>:
> >
> > Of course it is really more of an anti-political
> song
>
> I'm always amazed and amused by how Dylan fans -
> including my father-
> in-law - don't want to admit to the right-wing
> content of the song.
> The way he spits out "equality in school" is not
> apolitical - it's
> from someone who hates the very idea. "Liberty" is a
> very right-wing
> word. The contempt for professors and abstractions
> is right out of
> American right-wing populism.
>
> National Review isn't entirely wrong about this.
> There's a deep
> streak of American individualism in rock and roll,
> and it's not just
> Ted Nugent. I love the Kinks (does anyone listen to
> them anymore?),
> but their politics are often pretty right wing. The
> anti-disco moment
> of punk was full of racism and homophobia. Not in
> every case, for
> sure, but it's there.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
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