tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28942667999784437502024-03-13T22:44:10.412-07:00Jim GreenhalfJim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-192029455172014852017-06-03T11:21:00.004-07:002017-06-03T11:21:52.616-07:00Magic Money TreeIt reminds me of a song by the late Burl Ives, Big Rock Candy Mountain. What does? The phrase "magic money tree".<br />
<br />
You may have heard Theresa May utter it at last night's BBC election debate in York. Other senior Conservatives, which is to say former Cabinet Ministers, have also used it - Justine Greening or Amber Rudd. Perhaps all three of them have found it useful way of contrasting their own carefully calculated manifesto plans with those of Jeremy Corbyn.<br />
<br />
<b>"There is no magic money tree." It reminds me of beleagued football managers distancing themselves from universal savious such as Gandalf the Wizard. "There's no magic wand," they are liable to say, as though credulous fans thought there was. </b><br />
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If there was such a thing as a magic wand there could be a magic money tree and if there was a magic money tree nobody would have to pay income tax, corporation tax, VAT. Short of emigrating to Saudi Arabia there's no chance of that happening, not even if the UK government stops wasting money on climate change nostrums or paying into the EU.<br />
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I was going to say that a heavyweight politician such as the late Denis Healey would never use such an infantile phrase in a general election debate. Healey, after all, was obliged to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund prior to the Winter of Discontent, after the Arab-led member nations of OPEC jacked up the price of crude. On second thoughts he might if he was putting somebody in their place.<br />
<br />
Healey it was who likened a verbal assault from Geoffrey Howe to being "savaged by a dead sheep". We're not going to hear put-downs as good as that during the remainder of this campaign because campaign managers are evidently terrified of their charges - T May and J Corbyn - saying what they really think about nuclear weapons, the NHS, the state of teaching in schools and universities, the EU, the special relationship with the United States.<br />
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<b>Whoever coined "magic money tree" should think about retiring to write cautionary tales for young children. Make sure you don't go down to the tigerish woods today, my son, lest you fall under the spell of the magic money tree and start imaging a future in which people can afford decent homes and don't have to apply for a bank loan to pay train-fares to and from work.</b><br />
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The Tories, of course, are sarcastically suggesting that Labour's spending plans belong to the realm of fairy stories. Unlike the economics of the last Conservative Chancellor George Osborne, whose five year austerity plan led to more borrowing, more public debt. The magic money tree that he had access to was known by an altogether more prosaic name - Quantative Easing.<b> </b><br />
<br />Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-22221515903918895222017-06-01T16:01:00.002-07:002017-06-02T01:51:49.682-07:00Is This a Cunning Tory Plan?<span style="font-size: small;">Theresa May is asking people to believe in her because she believes in Brexit, whereas Jeremy Corbyn does not.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Do people believe in her Brexit plan, the 12-point plan that she outlined in January this year? Apprently they don't. I have just voted in a Daily Telegraph poll, declaring that I do not believe she will be able to achieve any of the items on her wish list, for that is what it reads like. Intrestingly, I was promptly informed that 51 per cent of the people who had voted didn't think she would or could achieve her ultimate exit Brexit either. </span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Mrs May probably knows this, which may explain why she goes on addressing what looks like small groups of placard-bearing offspring of Daily Telegraph readers. In an outfit seemingly inspired by Sydney Opera House and the memory of female power-dressing in the 1980s, she bounced her Brexit message about as though she was leading a fitness exercise at a Sunday School meeting.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Is this all part of a cunning plan to lose the General Election to the Labour Party? You never know. Labour, unlike the Conservatives, has not been mandated to take the UK out of the European Union via Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Their policy is to stay in the Single Market while negotiating the UK's gradual withdrawal from the political structure of the EU, with its single currency, federal foreign policy and European defence force. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I imagine that most middle-of-the-road Tories, not obsessed by immigration, wish that was their party's policy. Well, they know now how they can achieve that on June 8. There is historical precedent for this. Before the February 1974 General Election, former Tory Cabinet Minister Enoch Powell MP encouraged fellow Conservatives to vote Labour, which was then opposed to the UK's memberhsip of the exclusive Brussels club. The Tories were defeated.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Handy dandy, how things turn around. Next week Conservatives should vote Labour if they want to keep the UK as a trading partner in the European Union's Single Market.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-size: small;">Either accidentally or cunningly covertly, Mrs May, long a campaigning Remainer, has single-handedly brought about this state of affairs. Her rather forced, stage-managed public appearances, in contrast make Jeremy Corbyn's look a little more relaxed, even to the bearded wonder taking time out to wax lyrical to ITV's Robert Peston about the stress-reducing pleasures of tending his allotment. </span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">In what amounts to a complete change of climate, more tangible than President Trump's public coitus interruptus from the Paris Climate Change Agreement, reporters are now considering seriously the possibility of a porridge-eating Arsenal supporter in 10 Downing Street on June 9.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-size: small;">In the words of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - it was fifty years ago today - "I've got to admit it's getting better/ A little better all the time (it can't get much worse..")</span><b><span style="font-size: small;">. </span></b>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-38302522445526570332017-05-28T07:28:00.002-07:002017-05-31T09:45:54.923-07:00The Enemy of the PeopleOne of the conceits of pundits - journalists, broadcast commentators and bloggers such as me - is that what they say about Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn (or any other subject) makes a groat's worth of difference to public opinion.<br />
<br />
In the course of the current General Election campaign the words and actions of the two main protagonists have probably made more difference than anything said about them by self-styled opinion formers.<br />
<br />
Conservative Party strategists, who have made a dog's breakfast of things so far, probably won't reconsider attacking Jeremy Corbyn as the friend of anti-western terrorism after his speech on Friday night in which he urged a re-think of British foreign policy. I expect him to be portrayed as the devil incarnate, the enemy of the people, hell bent on selling out this country to those who want to destroy it (unlike Ted Heath and the European Communities Act in 1972, say)<br />
<br />
The weakness of Mr Corbyn's otherwise reasonable argument is that British foreign policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan did not cause the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States: they preceded George W Bush's War on Terror and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.<br />
<br />
<b>Moreover, the US aided and abetted the military retreat from Afghanistan by the Soviet Union's Red Army by supplying Islamic Mujahedeen fighters such as Osama Bin Laden with tank-busting rocket-bombs and ground-to-air missiles. Bin Laden showed his gratitude by directing his holy warriors against what the Islamic Republic of Iran used to call 'The Great Satan'. The bearded one's excuse was he didn't like American-led Coalition forces camping out in Saudi Arabia, location of Islam's holiest places, prior to Operation Desert Storm.</b><br />
<br />
Probably the person least surprised by the outrage expressed in the media is Jeremy Corbyn. "Everybody knows my views about nuclear weapons," he said somewhat wearily to Andrew Neil during last Friday's TV badgering interrorgation. Indeed. The general public knows that while he doesn't condone acts of terrorism he doesn't go in for the demonisation of those designated as terrorists.<br />
<br />
This aspect of Corbynism troubles some Labour MPs and undecided voters. Even though governments usually end up doing deals with those they have called terrorists - Nelson Mandela, Martin McGuiness, Archbishop Makarios, George Washington - do we want a prime minister who has shared public platforms with Hamas and the IRA?<br />
<br />
Demonising Corbyn, much as the hapless Michael Foot was demonised and ridiculed during the 1983 General Election campaign, is not guaranteed to shore up Tory election fortunes in general and the crumbling public esteem of Theresa May in particular. Not in the age of social media where people talk to one another instead of being talked at by pundits and politicians. Short of accusing Corbyn of treason, what else can the opposition throw at him as he goes on meeting, greeting and disarming people round the country, much as he did when campaigning for the leadership of the Labour Party?<br />
<br />
<b>Were I a Tory strategist I would counsel a different course. Concentrate on putting more hope and faith in our own strategy, I would say; don't risk making our chances worse by smearing the opposition. But then I would also feel obliged to advise Wonder Woman to stop bigging herself up at the expense of the party and her colleagues. Andrew Rawnsley shrewdly observed that her 'I, me, myself' approach, based on pre-election poll ratings against Jeremy Corbyn, has back-fired and Mrs 'Strong and Stable' is now regarded as Mrs 'Weak and Wobbly'. </b><br />
<br />
In years gone by the media believed that it shaped public opinion and determined<b> </b>the outcome of general elections. After the 1992 General Election - lost by Labour rather than won by the Conservatives - The Sun published a front-page banner headline: 'It was the Sun Wot Won it'.<br />
<br />
<b>Actually that claim is disputable. My view at the time was that Labour's then-leader Neil Kinnock inadvertently lost the General Election by sounding prematurely triumphalist and presdidential at a pre-election rally in Sheffield. "We're all right! We're all right! We're all right!" he announced to whooping Labour Party members. There was something of Welsh chapel conviction in Mr Kinnock's delight; but I'm sure that to the public at large he sounded presumptuous, too full of himself. A little more self-deprecation was called for.</b><br />
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"Well, who'd have thought it?" a surprised John Major self-deprecatingly told Conservative colleagues after the result. Like Jeremy Corbyn, the self-effacing Major had gone around the country with a soapbox and a little megaphone to address ordinary people, a strategy that appeared to be pedestrian and out-of-date at the time. But Mr Major was right. He relied on Mr Kinnock being overly impressed by favourable opinion polls and putting his foot in it. <b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>What is said is usually less important than how it is heard. Intentions count for nothing.</b> Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-66964830578912324652017-05-23T11:45:00.000-07:002017-05-26T00:45:23.910-07:00Bombing Manchester...RevisitedIf 22-year-old Salman Abedi had taken the trouble to look at the history of World War II he might have changed his mind about bombing Manchester's Arena.<br />
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From his point of view he succeeded in killing 22 and injuring at least 59 infidels - age makes no difference to Islamic suicide bombers. For him martyrdom meant killing others. For us, meaning non-Islamic believers or non-believers, self-sacrifice means saving the lives of others. He must have come to think of himself as a man with a mission and as such above the consequences of his actions.<br />
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<b>But let this difference - cultural, religious or otherwise - pass. As I have pointed out before, post-1945 the British people have been subjected to bomb attacks here and all over the world by sundry groups of fanatics. Probably, Salman Abedi had heard of this. I suspect he knew less about what happened between 1940 and 1945 to his home town of Manchester and other British cities. He would have done, of course, if modern British history was still taught in schools or even university. The BBC say he attended Salford University, so he wasn't one of the wretched of the earth; more like one of those misguided educated people besotted by nihilism that you find in 19th century Russian novels by Turgenev and Dostoyevsky: wanting to sweep everything away, blow up everything, to clear the way for a puritanical future.</b><br />
<br />
In summary: More than 48,000 people were killed by Nazi bombs dropped from aircraft and V1 and V2 ballistic missiles launched from sites in Northern Europe. The maimed and wounded numbered many thousands. London alone had a million houses smashed or badly damaged. Coventry, Liverpool, Plymouth, Glasgow, Swansea and many other towns and cities all suffered loss of life and refuge.<br />
<br />
Salman Abedi would have learned that more than 1,400 Manchester people were killed by Nazi bombs, in Collyhurst, Salford, Stretford, all over. The Old Trafford football ground was so badly damaged that after the war Manchester United was obliged to share Manchester City's Maine Road stadium.<br />
<br />
But beyond these facts and figures Abedi would also have learned that the Nazis lost the war in spite of all the civilians they killed and injured; their bombers made no difference to their ultimate fate: they were crushed. Murdering and shredding children at a pop concert is not only disgusting, it's a waste of life and time. In this respect US President Donald Trump was right to categorise suicide bombers as life-hating 'losers'. They love death the way most people love life.<br />
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<b>Far from frightening ordinary people and cowing national leaders the bombing of Britain during World War II resulted in black humour and a desire to hit back even harder. People adapted and carried on. And, such is the national habit of self-deprecation, carrying on gave rise to a series of comedy films after the war, the Carry-on series. All that Salman Abedi achieved was to bring together hundreds of people, probably thousands, who had little to do with one another before he detonated his nail bomb. </b><br />
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Taxi-firms offered free rides to people who escaped from Manchester Arena. Hotels offered rooms and food. Countless individuals reportedly did the same on social media. Off-duty NHS staff went into work. People queued at blood-banks. I am told that a couple of homeless men offered their help as well. Everybody in old Mad-chester, as it used to be known in the 1980s, wanted to help. This touched me more deeply than the official voices expressing the usual post-outrage platitudes.<br />
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<b>With armed policemen and armed soldiers patrolling busy public places, Salman Abedi has succeeded in making an impact beyond the families of the killed and injured.The understable emotion this has generated is only now starting to clear a little from news reporting so that more questioning voices can be heard.</b>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-57527756557905061362017-05-21T06:37:00.000-07:002017-05-26T03:58:51.669-07:00May Watch...Revisited<span style="font-size: small;">In the 2015 General Election I voted for the Conservatives because they were the only political party with a realistic chance of power to promise a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union empire.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Now that Theresa May shows every sign of buggering up the opportunity to re-define Britain's relationship with the EU that the Referendum result provided - and saddling us with complicated and extremely expensive arrangements as well - I shall be voting for another party on June 8. Which one? Probably Labour. Why? Because they don't want to rip Britain out of the European Single Market as precipitously as the Prime Minister. I'm not sure how Jeremy Corbyn's party would honestly negotiate Britain's escape from the political Laocoon of the EU; but you could say exactly the same and much more about the Conservative Party's mystery Brexit strategy as well. </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Conservative election manifesto is another reason. As a State pensioner, why should I vote for a party that promises to attack the security of my main source of income? As a citizen, why should I support a party that intends to go after the elderly and infirm at one end and the welfare of school children at the other? I don't believe Conservatives are natural-born bastards - an interesting mixed metaphor there. I just don't feel remotely sympathetic to what's behind Mrs May's creepy quest for a Parliamentary majority big enough to crush all valid political opposition. Why should I be interested in supporting that kind of one-party dictatorship? New Labour under Tony Blair got a landslide majority twice in 1997 and 2001 and what good did that do, ultimately, either for the party or the country? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The more I see of Theresa May on television - those spindly arms, legs and fingers - I am reminded of the blood-sucking creature played by Max Schreck in Robert Maunau's 1922 silent film <b>Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror</b>. She excels at not answering questions - one of Sir Humphrey Appleby's essential qualities for cabinet ministers and prime ministers. When button-holed by a woman troubled about reduced help for people with learning difficulties and other disabilities, Mrs May tried to give this unfortunate woman a run-down on relevant proposals in the Conservative manifesto. Even a bear of staggeringly little brain such as myself could see that what was required was a bit of genuine empathy for this woman's plight. Listen to the poor old dear, don't lecture her. My memory of Theresa May as David Cameron's Home Secretary is of her being booed by members of the Police Federation. Why would they, why should we, cheer her now? She was a bit of a disaster during her six years as Home Secretary, when immigration was at its highest (it fell by 80,000 last year, when she was no longer in charge of it). What difference will she make from June 9 if the Conservatives get the majority that the polls a week ago were suggesting?</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">The idea that Labour's Corbynistas might close the gap at all - let alone by five points - was as unlikely as the idea of Mike Tyson sitting at home at night in Nevada watching British television series about the Tudors. I daresay even among Conservatives die-hards there are voters put off by the way Theresa May's team have superimposed themselves on the General Election campaign where the emphasis is on Mrs M and the team rather than the party. Dial M for what? Not Murder, as in the Hitchcock movie; but Mayhem. Besides, my bullshit detector does not respond well to collectives, be they 'communi-ies', 'team GB' or 'team May'. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-size: small;">Every time I try to discuss Theresa May's perceived short-comings the riposte invariably comes back: 'So you think Jeremy Corbyn is better do you?' What I think about Mr Corbyn, such as it is, can be found in the blog previous to this one. He might be in his own way another political arse who says one thing, does another and makes pledges and promises impossible to keep. However, I feel less edgy about giving him a chance to prove his worth than I do Mrs May. You may say this is because Mr Corbyn's Labour Party has as much chance of winning on June 8 as I do of scratching a £1 lottery card and winning £100,000. There may be truth in that. But so far Labour, as represented by Mr Corbyn, feels less of a threat to my future well-being than the Conservatives, as represented by their leader.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The latest Youguv opinion poll, according to Newsnight, puts the Conservatives only five points ahead of Labour - 43 to 38. I await the all-out media onslaught. Nasty piece of work though Mrs May was as Home Secretary, she was reportedly good at making sure that others took the blame when things went wrong, as they usually did. Strong and stable? I don't think so. </span>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-28764610391168021552017-05-12T09:44:00.000-07:002017-05-12T15:03:28.831-07:00The Fifth General Election in Sixteen Years<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since the
year of my birth, 1949, sixteen British general elections have resulted in nine
Conservative governments and seven Labour.</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Two or three
took place every ten years throughout the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties
and Nineties. Since the Millenium we’ve had four and by June 8 those will be
joined by a fifth: five general elections between 2001 and 2017; three since
2010 when the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat Coalition brought in fixed
five-year parliaments. Didn’t last long, did it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When you
feel stumped to say anything remotely interesting or amusing about what should
be an important political event in the life of the nation, you can always
resort to nostalgia (fings ain’t what they used to be) and facts (16 elections
since 1949).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Evidently I
would like to say something about the current campaign; but what? Were I a
betting man I’d be inclined to take a punt on Labour coming up on the blind
side of the other parties and winning by a head on June 8. It’s only the polls
that say the Tories can’t lose because they are 16 points ahead and the polls,
as we know from the 2015 General Election, Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour’s
Leader, and last June’s EU Referendum, are rarely wrong.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">No, no, not
fourth time around, according to media reports. Voters love Labour’s manifesto
proposals to nationalise the railways, put more money into education and the
NHS, scrap university tuition fees, guarantee the triple lock on state pensions
and take more tax from people earning more than £80,000 a year. What voters
don’t like or don’t trust is Jeremy Corbyn, they add.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve heard
stalwart Labour voters in various parts of the country say as much on
television<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>news vox pops. None of them
said Mr Corbyn was unlikable as a human being or untrustworthy as an MP: most
of them just didn’t think the former backbench Left-winger had the right stuff
to be prime minister.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Americans
vote for a president, but we vote for prospective party political candidates.
Only constitutional levellers such as those who adhere to the six
Chartist-style principles of the Harrogate Agenda maintain that a prime
minister should be voted in by the public during a general election, not chosen
by party members afterwards. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The British
Constitution does not permit that, but that’s the way we think and feel about
political leaders: they represent more than themselves. Personalities, by a
process of metonymy, come to stand for, or even stand in for, party policies. Therefore, Jeremy Corbyn, whom
people don’t like as a potential leader, represents policies that they do like. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With Theresa
May the other way round appears to apply: the public doesn’t care for Tory
principles of privatisation, public spending austerity, tuition fees, the level
of overseas aid, immigration, and much else; but they feel that Mrs May is
strong and dependable. I have heard female Labour voters in the North East say
so on television. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What grounds
they have for saying that I have no idea, because reporters never ask them to
explain what they mean or give a couple of examples of strength and
independence from a Prime Minister whose actions don’t always live up to her
words.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The nature
of the job inevitably means that is going to happen because politicians, not
even prime ministers and presidents, control events. For example, a few months
ago Mrs May maintained that she had no interest in calling an early general
election; then on April 18 she called one. Surprise, surprise. Oh Laura Kuenssberg.
Oh Robert Peston. Oh Andrew Neil. Did any of these oracles see it coming? </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Prime
Minister does her best to sound decisive and look leader-like in front of
television cameras; but that’s precisely what I think she is: an impression,
style without substance, though I’m not sure about the style either.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her
preference for appearing in public in those bum-freezer jackets, high-belted
trousers and flat shoes has drawn much comment and amusement already. But when
I bother to think about this, I ask myself if this slightly stooping,
grey-haired vicar’s daughter really does have the political moxie to ensure
that Brexit means Brexit when she comes up against the true enemies of Brexit –
the hard Right of the Tory Party.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She’s better
at giving impressions whereas Jeremy Corbyn struggles with sounding or
appearing like anything other than he is. So the public apparently likes the
manifesto policies he represents but doesn’t like him. With Theresa May the
reverse applies, as though they believe she is able to and capable of adjusting
reality to live up to their hopes and expectations.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tony Blair
was exceptionally good at that kind of political legerdemain. David Cameron
also but to a lesser degree. Jeremy Corbyn, I would say, does not. He has four
weeks to convince voters, at least the ones he meets at rallies, that far from
being a charlatan or opportunist he really is as good as his word.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I said,
if I was a betting man I’d be inclined to wager against the polls. Just in case. And in the hope that the outcome of this election isn't as predictable as Masterchef. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-46581308849247834842017-04-02T05:30:00.003-07:002017-04-02T05:36:24.665-07:00The Poet From Zima Junction<span style="font-size: small;">On Saturday night the writer who probably should have been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, died in the United States at the age of 84. That was also the night that Bob Dylan, the man who got the prize instead, was in Stockholm to collect his medal and the cheque worth about $900,000. Nice work if you can get it. Perhaps the protean Dylan, whose latest recording is a triple album of American songbook classics, should add George Gershwin's Nice Work if You Can Get it song to his sad old crooner's repertoire.</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Yevtushenko's poetry made him world famous long before Bob Zimmerman from Minnesota changed his name in New York City. I read somewhere that the Russian, born in 1934 in the Siberian district of Zima, on the Trans-Siberian railway, near the Oka river, was nominated for the Nobel poetry prize in 1963 when he was just 19. By that time he had been to America and had recited his poems at the Oxford Union. W H Auden also recited by heart, or rather chanted in that trans-Atalantic twang that he had, but without Yevtushenko's fist-clenching, finger-pointing charisma.</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I've Googled him up and heard him recite in both Russian and English. In his native tongue he accentuated consonants, grinding them together like techtonic plates in the way that Ted Hughes used to do in the Sixties. Maybe Russians naturally roll their 'r's'. I've also heard the late Andrei Voznesensky recite and he was much the same, relishing the hard consonants and the softer vowels. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Poetasters in this country can only look back in envy. To be acknowledged as a poet in the former Soviet Union, during the period after Nikita Krushchev's denounciation of Stalin and Test Ban Treaty preceding the Cuba Missile Crisis of 1962, meant that the public had high expectations of you. This is part of a biographical note on the end-papers of Yevtushenko's 1963 book <b>A Precocious Autobiography</b>, a work of prose which should have been written as poetry:-</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>In the moral crisis which followed the revelation of Stalin's crimes, Yevtushenko,an ardent believer in the ideals of of the early Revolution and the need to 'restore their purity', found his public role as the poet of the young people, whose response was overwhelming. His editions of 100,000 sold out instantly, crowds of 14,000 flocked to hear him read at the Moscow Stadium. His controversial poem against anti-semitism, </i>Babiy Yar <i>(set to music by Shostakovich) brought him 40,000 letters from all corners of the country</i></b>...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">That 61-line poem is among the selection of his work published in this country in 1963 in the Penguin Modern European Poets series (it cost two shillings and sixpence for me to buy, just over 12p in today's decimated coinage). Babiy Yar was the site of a massacre of about 30,000 Jews by the Nazis in World War II. The young Yevtushenko used the past to make a jabbing point about the present in his country, brashly identifying himself with the persecuted:-</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Today I am as old as the Jewish race.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I seem to myself a Jew at theis moment.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I, wandering in Egypt.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I, crucified. I perishing.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Even today the mark of ther nails.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I think also of Dreyfus. I am he.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>The Philistine my judge and accuser...</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The person who irritatedly annotated in red pen the copy of <b>A Precocious Autobiography </b>that I bought for £2.50 in Oxford in 1984<b> </b>migh have thought those lines <i><b>pretentious </b></i>and<i><b> self-conscious</b></i>. I didn't uinderstand the true import of Yevtushenko until I remembered the Russsian man I saw striding along either the King's Road or Fulham Road in Chelsea. He was bare-chested, wore a folksy cap perched on his head and was bellowing out what I took to be opera. I can imagine Ernest Hemingway doing that. I can't imagine Alan Bennett doing that. Russians, I concluded, must be like Americans: larger-than-life. Not the average English writer's cup of tea.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The slim Penguin volume is largely taken up with a poem of greater length and stature, I think, than <b>Babiy Yar</b>. The autobiographical <b>Zima Junction</b>, 32-pages long, chronicles a long visit home to his family and friends at a time when the young Yevtushenko had come under fire from Communist Party hacks. It is reflective, lyrical and observant. It's as remarkable as some of the young Bob Dylan's songs of the 1960s: <b>Don't Think Twice, It's Alrigh; One Too Many Mornings; Chimes of Freedom; My Back Pages; It Ain't Me Babe; Bob Dylan's Dream</b>. The precocious Dylan too wrote autobiographically about escaping from expectations and definitions laid on him by others.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Unafraid of sounding sententious, Yevtushenko described how Zima Junction the place had spoken to him and told him not to be afraid of his emotions:-</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Don't worry. Yours is no unique condition,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>your type of search and conflict and construction,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>don't worry if you have no answer ready</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>to the lasting question.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Hold out, meditate, listen.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Explore. Explore. Travel the world over.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Count happiness connatural to the mind</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>more than truth is, and yet</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>no happiness to exist without it.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Walk with a cold pride</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>utterly ahead</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>wild attentive eyes</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>head flicked by the rain-wet,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>green needles of the pine,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>eyelashes that shine </i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>with tears and with thunders.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Love people.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Love entertains its own discrimination.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Have me in mind, I shall be watching.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>You can return to me.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Now go.</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">That poem is immediately followed by one that opens:-</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i> </i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Telling lies to the young is wrong.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Telling them that God is in his heaven</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>and all's well with the world is wrong.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>The young know what you mean. The young are people.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Tell them the difficulties can't be counted</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>and let them see not only what will be</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>but see with clarity these present times....</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>To hell with it. Who never knew</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>the price of happiness will not be happy...</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I'll take that any day instead of the infantile nonsense, the prattle, that comes at me from radios and loud-speakers in shops, offices, the gym, everywhere I go in fact. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I would prefer to believe that Yevtushenko's Russian nationality had nothing to do with the Nobel Prize committee's decision to give the big one to Bob Dylan, after all his antecedents were Russian Jews. The old Yevtushenko might have swanked a bit, but what would he have been without that swagger of self-confidence? <b><i> </i></b></span>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-59112921906640713622017-03-29T17:07:00.000-07:002017-03-30T15:04:30.495-07:00The Lady's Not for Turning - BackMarch 29: the day British Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May officially informed the European Union of the UK's intention to withdraw from the project.<br />
<br />
<b>Significant rather than historic, I think; Mrs May's letter to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, merely 'triggered' Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, formally the first day of a two-year divorce.</b><br />
<br />
The truly historic day happened nine months ago on June 23, 2016, when the British people voted in a referendum to leave the EU. Today only happened as a result of that event. Had the referendum gone the other way today would have been more or less like any other, except that David Cameron would still be Prime Minister.<br />
<br />
Why Mrs May chose today to kiss off the EU on behalf of the nation rather than May 29 or July 29, is anybody's guess. She may have felt that delaying an announcement would only be the cause of more irritation among hard-line leavers within the Conservative Party and uncertainty nationwide.<br />
<br />
<b>A political bonus for the Prime Minister is the determination of Scottish Nationalists in Edinburgh to whip themselves up to fever pitch about a second Independence referendum for Scotland. They lost the first one in 2014 and on the evidence of what I've seen and heard in the Highlands over the past few years the SNP will lose the second one as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they even lost the next General Election.</b><br />
<br />
I spent today reading a proof copy of <b>The Gallows Pole</b>, a novel by Ben Myers<b> </b>based on real events in West Yorkshire's Calder Valley between 1767 and 1770, a period of transition when industrial England was taking shape in the form of factories, roads and canals. The old ways for the rural poor, including defrauding the currency, were ending.<br />
<br />
At no point during today did I feel the hand of history on my shoulder. I may not live long enough to see the day when Britain really does cast off from the European Union's political project. Many other events are likely to happen between now and then that will determine the eventual outcome: elections in France and Germany, for example; the stability of other EU members such as Greece and Italy; the state of the euro as a currency; to say nothing of events in the United States, Russia and the Middle East.<br />
<br />
Mrs May said there is no turning back for Britain; but who's to say what will happen behind her back? She would do well to remember the fate of Margaret Thatcher. She got the Julius Caesar treatment from Tory patricians like Edward Heath, Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine, because she wasn't as keen on the European project as they were. Some of them are still able to make a nuisance of themselves. Are they going to sit back and await the outcome of events?<br />
<br />
<b>I was around when the late Tory MP and former cabinet Minister Enoch Powell urged Conservative voters to support the Labour Party in the 1974 General Election because at that time Labour policy was to seek withdrawal of Britain's membership from the European Economic Community, as the project was then called. Mr Powell thought it was a stitch-up that we would come to regret. Labour's Tony Benn held the same opinion.</b><br />
<br />
Winning occasional battles does not guarantee ultimate victory. The bloodiest slaughter on British soil occurred on March 29, 1461. Thousands of men were killed and maimed when supporters of Edward, Duke of York, overcame the forces of Henry V1 at Towton in Yorkshire. But the House of York only reigned supreme until the Battle of Bosworth in 1485<b>. </b>Goodbye Richard 111, vivat Henry V11 and the Tudors.<br />
<br />
And on March 29, 1912, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, died in a tent at the South Pole, having been beaten to his objective by Norwegian explorer Roal Amundsen. "The end cannot be far," he wrote in his diary. It wasn't for Scott. His body is still out there, under ice, snow and a cairn of rocks.<br />
<br />
For Britain it's neither the end of the beginning nor the beginning of the end. Until the decree nisi is formally declared in March 2019 or later, this country is still a member of the European Union. To paraphrase EUReferendum.com blogger and FLEXCIT author Richard A E North: Brexit is a process, not an event. Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-44476512361442249572017-03-23T10:14:00.003-07:002017-03-23T16:09:05.951-07:00On Westminster Bridge..."The world has not anything to shew more fair," wrote William Wordsworth after returning to his London lodgings from Westminster Bridge.<br />
<br />
What the poet saw on that early September morning in 1803 is warmly described in the remaining thirteen lines of his sonnet.<br />
<br />
His poem came to mind after I watched the television news about the killings and injuries inflicted on Westminster Bridge and inside the grounds of the Palace of Westminster by Khalid Masood, a follower of IS. Islamic State reportedly called him "a soldier of Islam". And that's maybe how he saw himself as he drove the car towards his target, justifying to his conscience what he intended to do.<br />
<br />
IS and all the other jihadist righteous brothers bent on annihilating infidels make a great deal out of putting the love of god beyond all other considerations. Their interpretation of struggle embraces self-sacrifice and murder; the taking of life is their ticket to paradise.<br />
<br />
<b>I have remarked before on the absolving attraction of fatalism for those who find modern life fearful, complicated and demanding. Removing all responsibility from yourself, and hence culpability for what you do, is not simply the behaviour of the religious fanatic of a particular kind: throughout history it has been the mark of every zealot.</b><br />
<br />
In <b>The Open Society and its Enemies</b>, the philosopher Karl Popper gave a name to this kind of depersonalised idealism: historicism. Only he had in mind not Muslims of a certain stripe, but Marxists, at least those who worshipped the trinity of Marx-Engels and Lenin, for whom the grand march of history, irrespective of human cost, over-ruled every other consideration. "One death is a tragedy: a millions deaths is a statistic," said that great 20th Century cynic Joseph Stalin.<br />
<br />
Stalin was many other things as well, but he best fits Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic: One who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.<br />
<br />
<b>That could be applied to the bearded leaders of IS, the Taliban and other jihadist movements, though one has to say, if paradise is as desirable as they claim why don't they offer themselves as suicide foot-soldiers? In the various forms of Christianity a martyr gives his own life to save the life of others, not take it. The embodiment of this belief, as reality and symbol, is Jesus Christ.</b><br />
<br />
Whether or not the people in the vicinity of Westminster Bridge yesterday afternoon were practicing Christians doesn't matter. In the confusion and terror of the moment it is what those people did that counts. I saw the television-footage of people running towards those who lay on the bridge; I heard the same exclamations that I heard when the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center imploded on the morning of September 11, 2001: "Oh my god, oh my god, my god, Jesus Christ."<br />
<br />
Today I was deeply touched by some of the sentiments expressed both inside and outside the House of Commons. All the big talk about liberty, democracy, tolerance belonged to yesterday in the ambiguous aftermath of ill-reported events. Realistically, you wouldn't expect anything else. Today I didn't hear many big words. Instead the talk was of ordinary people getting on with life, staying together, helping each other. Practicing curmudgeon that I am, my heart said yes to that although my mind remains on alert for the usual excuse that such attacks are a reaction to Islamophobia. I have been hearing that since the burning of Salman Rushdie's novel <b>The Satanic Verses</b> in Bradford in 1989. <br />
<br />
<b>I could have taken the entirely cynical view that what happened in Westminister was a beneficial crisis as a result of which all manner of restrictions and curtailments of personal freedom would be justified by the authorities as a necessary part of the continuing war on terror.</b><br />
<br />
This, by the way, was the very theme of three BBC film documentaries made in 2004 that I watched yesterday and the day before. <b>The Power of Nightmares </b>contended that ever since the United States aided the Mujahideen insurgency against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, a symbiotic relationship has developed between neoconservatist and liberal values in the West and Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The power and influence of both relied on creating and maintaining a climate of fear.<br />
<br />
It was asserted, for example, that the idea of an international network of Islamic terrorists called Al Qaeda, ready and willing to rise up and strike the West at the behest of Osama Bin Laden and others was a phantasy deliberately connived and perpetuated by politicians in Washington and London.<br />
<br />
In the blood-light of the bombings, shootings, car-kills and stabbings all over the world after 2004, including those in London in July 2005 and May 2013, that thesis sounds specious. <br />
<br />
More convincing to me was Antonia Bird's 2004 film <b>The Hamburg Cell</b>, a dramatisation of the recruitment of the 9/11 jihadists in Germany and their subsequent undercover training as pilots in the United States. Reportedly made after two years of research, the film showed that an extensive network of jihadists did indeed exist. This network supplied money, equipment, ideological support and auxiliary backup. The men chosen to fly the planes were all encouraged to believe fervantly that they were heading for paradise. The American Airlines jet planes would be their firey angels, their chariots of fire, carrying them to everlasting bliss.<br />
<br />
<b>The Power of Nightmares</b> ends with a summary statement to the effect that fear of a phantiom enemy is all that politicians have left to assert their power and influence. A society that believes in nothing is more liable to be frightened of people who believe ardently in something.<br />
<br />
<b>Up to a point Lord Copper. A year ago today a dear friend of mind died. Lesley and I were on our way to London on the morning of his death at home, a place we had come to love. This man, John Pashley, always professed to be an atheist. But in terms of his behaviour in the lives of others he was a practitioner of the values of the Sermon on the Mount. From what I saw and heard on television, I would say the same applies to the people on and around Westminster Bridge yesterday. </b><br />
<br />Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-41866123529460645672017-03-18T06:58:00.003-07:002017-03-23T08:41:47.665-07:00Great Bastards<div class="story-body__introduction">
According to the BBC, Great Bustards are "on the point" of becoming self sustainable in the UK for the first time in 185 years.<br />
</div>
"The world's heaviest flying bird was hunted to extinction in the country, with the last bustard shot in 1832. Over the past 13 years, a population of about 50 birds has been established from chicks brought in from Russia and Spain. It is hoped that by 2019 the number of "release birds" will have reached 100."<br />
<br />
At first I mis-read "Bustards" for "Bastards", an understandable mistake in the circumstances; I had been glancing over the headlines about George Osborne's six jobs including the editorship of the London Evening Standard.<br />
<br />
If the published salary estimates are accurate, David Cameron's former "Iron Chancellor" can be expected to clock up about £1.86m over 12 months. That's quite a stack of chips for Mr Austerity although nowhere near the pre-tax pay of footballers Wayne Rooney and Paul Pogba.<br />
<br />
Three or four years ago Rooney and his agent persuaded Manchester United to agree a five-anad-a-half contract reportedly worth £350,000 a week, more than £80m for the duration.<br />
<br />
Pogba, sold by Alex Ferguson for £1.5m to Juventus, was brought back to Old Trafford by Jose Mourinho for a reported £89m which surely makes the Frenchman the most expensive haircut ever to leave Italy.<br />
<br />
Mourinho is very protective of the giraffe-like midfielder who has only shown flashes of ability in the matches he has played for United: against Chelsea in the FA Cup he was utterly outplayed by the smaller but more energetic N'golo Kante. The manager declared that people were jealous of Pogba's salary and so had it in for him.<br />
<br />
My annual income is a single shred of orange in a jar of marmalade in comparison with what Osborne, Rooney and Pogba can spread on their toast every morning. But am I jealous of them? Not a jot. I don't live in their world, so you cannot judge like with like.<br />
<br />
The only expectation I have is that they should be worth the dosh; for the money they are on they should be able to make a positive difference.<br />
<br />
Lest that sound Gradgrindingly grudging, let me conclude this inconsequential post with a bit more of the BBC's news about Great Bustards (which reminds me of William Boot, the hapless bird-fancier-cum war correspondent in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop).<br />
<br />
<div class="story-body">
<div class="story-body__inner">
"An adult great bustard can be up to a metre (3ft)
tall and weigh up to 44lb (20kg). Its wingspan can reach nearly eight
feet (2.4m).The bustard's size made it an easy target for hunters, leading to its extinction." </div>
</div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-62437578751267284552017-03-09T05:41:00.001-08:002017-03-09T05:41:32.331-08:00A Dog's BreakfastWhat do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? Answer: A stick. What is a party Manifesto pledge? Answer: Balls. What do you call a tax on pay that isn't officially a tax? Answer: An increase in National Insurance. <br />
<br />
What is National Insurance for? Answer: State pensions, welfare benefits for sickness and unemployment and allowances. It's all part of the comprehensive safety net envisaged by William Beveridge seventy years ago to combat the the Five Giants of squalor, want, ignorance, disease and idleness. It wasn't intended to be a way of boosting central government reserves to pay the European Union up to £60 billion for leaving the European Empire.<br />
<br />
Which brings me to an associated part of Philip Hammond's Spring budget announcement in the House of Commons: the £2 billion for extra social care provision over the next three years that the National Insurance hike for the self-employed is supposed to pay for.<br />
<br />
Former Conservative Party chairman Norman Tebbitt has said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's explanation - to equalise the contributions of the self-employed who pay a lower rate of tax with the tax contributions by the employed - is reasonable. Nevertheless, he described the budget as a "dog's breakfast".<br />
<br />
What is a dog's breakfast exactly? Something that cats and human beings would find undigestible? The real question is this: Local authoritities already have the power to raise extra money from Council Tax to pay for Social Care. In view of the £2 billion tax grab from the self-employed for the same thing, will this power be removed from local authorities for the next financial year?<br />
<br />
To this bear of astonishingly little brain, the uncertainty (a subject already covered in a previous blog) over Brexit is being used as an excuse to rack up price increases all round. The power company cartel, for example, is getting away with rises of up to 15 per cent. They blame mandatory carbon capture and lower emissions costs imposed by the European Union and signed up for by Ed Miliband when he was Gordon Brown's Secretary of State for the Environment.<br />
<br />
The BBC, though, doesn't appear to be interested in the connection between higher energy prices and the cost of European Union legislation to the tax-payers of old Britannia.<br />
<br />
The Corporation's bevvy of political and economics editors, though, have yet to find a way of blaming Donald Trump for the Chancellor's dog's breakfast. Give them time. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-46936194266979879032017-01-20T16:37:00.000-08:002017-01-20T16:45:11.581-08:00Trump, Trump, Trump...Brexiteers continue the civil war that's been going on ever since former Prime Minister David Cameron announced the unbelievable news that UK voters would actually have a referendum on membership of the European Union.<br />
<br />
Mr Cameron's successor, Theresa May, set the warring factions against each other again this week - intentionally or otherwise - by making a speech at London's Lancaster House in which she declared that Britain would be leaving the EU single market, at some time, in some way. Lancaster House was the place where Margaret Thatcher declared emphatically that membership of the single market was a really good thing. She may even have believed that, for a while.<br />
<br />
While some Brexiteers like Nigel Farage cheer on Mrs May and, with Donald Trump as President of the United States, look forward to another Thatcher-Reagan era, others, some of whom publicly welcomed her as the best possible successor to David Cameron, are now prophecing catastrophe. Is it a car crash? No. Is it a train wreck? No. Is it a Jumbo Jet explosion? Almost certainly. What, then, does that make President Trump? Why, a nuclear holocaust of course. According to Polly Toynbee at least.<br />
<br />
So, Brexit doesn't mean Brexit after all: it means Exit. The main thing that struck me about Mrs May's speech, though, was the outfit in which she chose to make it. The blue-green tartan bum-freezer jacket and matching trousers, hitched high round her middle, instantly reminded me of the Bay City Rollers, the 'tartan teen sensations' from Edinburgh whose biggest hit in the 1970s was Bye Bye Baby. The main difference between Mrs May and Les McKeown and the boys was that she wore flat shoes rather than boots with big heels.<br />
<br />
Forty-odd years ago, while young Fionas, Daphnes and Theresas were leaping up and down with tartan scarves tied to their wrists, the man with a nose like a ship's rudder, Edward Heath, was tying Britain up to the European Economic Community, as it was then designated, assuring the nation that 'twas but a trading agreement, a market of six sovereign states. Thirty years later Uncle Ted superciliously admitted to BBC television reporter Michael Cockerall that it was in fact a political union.<br />
<br />
No it wasn't. The 1972 European Communities Act was a web and sitting in the middle of it was the European Commission, spinning out ever more sticky strands to bind more and more member states together. The six became 28 or 27 plus 1. More nations need even more sticky rules, regulations, directives, thousands and thousands of them, many of them from international conglomerates a long way from Brussels. A great sticky ball of rules and regs larger than the Gordian Knot that Alexander the Great is said to have loosened with a single blow of his sword.<br />
<br />
Is that what Theresa May has at the back of her mind, a single low to slice through thousands of strands of sticky red tape? Is that what President Trump has in mind as outlined in his inaugural speech attack on Washington's governing elite? - the talkers who do nothing but prosper while swathes of America turn into rusting tombstones. An unlikely image if you think about it, but President Trump is more a man of phrases than images. "The American carnage," was the phrase he used to describe the white collar crimes against America's blue collar industries.<br />
<br />
Because I am easily distracted by trivialities, phrases from a popular song from the 1950s pinged into my mind before President Trump's big show in Washington. It goes:- <br />
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<b><i>Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk</i></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>
And said goodbye to the circus<br />
Off she went with a trumpety-trump<br />
Trump, trump, trump<br /> </i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk<br />
And trundled back to the jungle<br />
Off she went with a trumpety-trump<br />
Trump, trump, trump</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nellie ended up on the road to Mandalay. Donald Trump unpacked his trunk in Washington, specifically at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I imagine him, the fuss of the great day over, taking off his trousers<b><i> </i></b>in the master bedroom, a day after ex-President Obama had put his on in the same room, perhaps, and turning to the First Lady, saying: "Melania honey, did you ever hear of the Bay City Rollers?" Chances are, of course, that Trump's pants could be tartan in honour of his mother's Scottish connection.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In response to all the Apocalypso Now doom-mongers, the time has come to echo that world-weary voice responding to the hapless J Alfred Prufrock in T S Eliot's poem and repeat:-</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>That is not it at all</i></b>/ <i><b>That is not what I meant, at all.</b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While it may be a mistake to impose the pattern of the past on the future, seeing in May-Trump another Thatcher-Reagan, I well recall that 1980 to about 1987 was a time of trouble, turbulence and fear, from Northern Ireland to Afghanistan. America was in retreat while the clunky Soviet Union was on the advance. Few foresaw in the mid-1980s the way things would work out by November 9, 1989 - the day when the German Democratic Republic accidentally abolished the Berlin Wall.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps it's not the great set-piece policy statements in London and Washington that make the real difference, except to the money changers, so much as unforeseen events along the way. <i><b> </b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-22196815031895875212017-01-04T15:53:00.002-08:002017-01-04T15:53:34.597-08:00The Bow Wow FactorSome people are apt to get really boring about the misuse of words and phrases on radio, television and in the press. I'm one myself. I can't watch or listen passively. The frequent misuse of 'iconic', 'awesome', 'fantastic' and lately 'wow' is yet another indicator, to me at least, of the way the public is being treated like a regressive infant.<br />
<br />
Only the testy old Jeremy Paxman on University Challenge appears to have any expectation of audience intelligence or at least a ready willingness to understand. But I don't suppose many would think of judging the nation by the standards applied to University Challenge, more like Gogglebox.<br />
<br />
The willingess to use ready-made words and phrases as unthinking expressions of surprise, shock, incredulity or amazement exists against a soundtrack of Munchkin muzak in supermarkets, gyms, cafes and other public places. So no surprise that at a time of emotional cliches in popular music, invariably about love, the tendency to talk in cliches, like, is bound to be more noticeable. That doesn't make it any more tolerable, though.<br />
<br />
I've just watched a programme on BBC2 about home make-overs in which amateur designers are given £1,000 and a bit of help to change a room in a house in the space of 48 hours. In every instance, two of the three judges inspecting the make-overs uttered 'Wow' as they walked into the room. Not a short, to the point, 'wow' but a lingering 'wo-o-ow', as though Greg Wallace had fed the entire prodution team of Master Chef with five loaves and two fishes. When God surveyed the created universe you may be sure he did not say 'wow, 'awesome', 'fantastic' lor even, 'wow, thar's iconic.'<br />
<br />
I have a family relative who, last time I saw her, had a really annoying way of using the expression 'okay'. In response to virtually any new piece of information she replied, 'okaaaay?' interogatively, as though what you had told her was subject to some kind of commission of inquiry for validation. This is the same as saying 'right?' That little qualifier so common in conversation nowadays which indicates that the person using it is checking constantly that you are following his or her drift. Usually the subject is not at all difficult to follow, just bloody tedious, right?<br />
<br />
Listen dog, next time you talk to me leave your wows in the kennel where they belong. Likewise awesome, fantastic and iconic. Either find a way of expressing what you think or feel or, if you feel and think nothing worth saying, then keep your mouth shut. Nod instead or shake your head.<br />
<br />
Okaaayyy?Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-14515576848938384572016-12-10T09:47:00.000-08:002016-12-12T01:20:07.266-08:00A A Gill: A Man for all SeasoningIt's been a busy year for obituary writers: David Bowie,Terry Wogan, Prince, Tony Warren, Cliff Michelmore, Ray Fitzwalter, Ronnie Corbett, Paul Daniels, Victoria Wood, Johan Cruyff, David Herd, Mohammed Ali, Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn, Fidel Castro, Peter Vaughan, John Glenn and now the Sunday Times columnist A A Gill.<br />
<br />
Not being a regular reader of the Sunday Times - it looks as though it's lost its style to me - I was not familiar with Adrian Gill's food criticism; but I imagine that it was every bit as witty and perceptive as his television criticism. Before I was shunted out of my job as a regional hack I had a book of his TV pieces. On my last Friday I passed it on to a colleague in the hope that it would provoke both thought and laughter as it had done for me.<br />
<br />
<b>Gill's favourite target was costume drama - oh no, it's Dame Judi in yet another Georgian/Victorian dress and hat. If I remember rightly not even my beloved Middlemarch was spared. Try defending your fondness for Andrew Davies's adaptation to Mr G, I thought. Well, I think I can. The serial was not about wigs, country houses and four-wheelers but humility in all its various emanations - Bulstrode's sanctimony, Casaubon's lifeless piety, Lydgate's frustration, Dorothea's resignation and Sir James Chettam's unrequited love for Dorothea. You can't always get what you want and all that - although that doesn't appear to apply to Sir Mick Jagger, a father for the seventh time at 73. The sound-track was good as well, good enough to win a BAFTA. You can't say that about many TV sound-tracks.</b><br />
<br />
What larks, eh Pip? Mr Gill had an eye and an ear for the false note, the bogus, the pretentious, the duplicitous. I'd love to know his thoughts about the current TV drama obsession with serial killers on BBC1, 2 and 4 as well as ITV. Men killing women seems to me the acting out of a subliminal fantasy. Aren't there other subjects to explore, for example: political correctness and corruption, grooming in Northern cities, paedophilia in sport, the proliferation of food programmes in an age of obesity and seven days of the girlie-whirly Strictly Come Dancing across BBC1 and BBC2? <br />
<br />
I think he also had an appreciation of that which was genuinely touching, funny or authentic. He approved of sentiment, the kind that is not accompanied by a piano score in a minor key. He was made to engage in mental strife with this tattooed age in which style, the appearance of things, dominates over substance. Twas ever thus, you may say. I disagree. It wasn't like that in 1963 when Philip Larkin made the Beatles' first LP and Bob Dylan's Freewheelin' articulated what a lot of people were feeling but couldn't put into words. Look at the first part of Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home bio-pic of Dylan dominated by Pete Seeger, Odetta, Woody Guthrie, Dave Van Ronk, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Jacob Niles, a young Nat King Cole, Izzy Young and Joan Baez. That wasn't an age for old men pretending to be wise or young men posturing.<br />
<br />
After George Orwell died in 1950, W H Auden said he would miss Orwell's opinions, implying that the loss was public not private: national life as a whole would be poorer for Orwell's silence. I hope that's not the case with A A Gill's passing. We need all the judicious, fearless, oxyacetalyne voices we can get to cut through the climate of conceit and delusion that surrounds us. <br />
<br />
As readers of The Sunday Times know, he wrote his last piece of journalism for the colour supplement. The subject was his diagnosis, treatment and reflections on the NHS which, he asserts, suffers from a kind of institutional cancer:-<br />
<br />
<b><i>We know it's the best of us. The National Health Service is the best of us. You can't walk into an NHS hospital and be a racist. That condition is cured instantly. But it's almost impossible to walk into a private hospital and not fleetingly feel that you are one: a plush waiting room with entitled and bad-tempered health tourists.</i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i>You can't be sexist on the NHS, nor patronising, and the care and the humour, the togetherness ranged against the teetering, chronic system by both the caring and the careworn is the Blitz, "back against the wall", stern and sentimental best of us - and so we tell lies about it.</i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i>We say it's the envy of world. It isn't. We say there's nothing else like it. There is. We say it's the best in the West. It's not. We think it's the cheapest. It isn't . Either that or we think it's the most expensive - it's not that eiher. You will live longer in France and Germany, get treated faster abd nore comfortably in Scandanavia, and everything costs more in America......</i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i>......Actually it's not being told you've got cancer that is the test of character, it's the retelling. Going home and saying to the missus: "That thing, that cricked neck. Actually it's a tumour, the size of a cigar." It ought to come with a roll of thunder and five Jewish violinists, instead of the creaky whisper of fear.</i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i>People react differently to different cancers: most women think they'll survive, and statistically they're right. Most men think they'll die - and likewise...... </i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i>......I'm sitting in bed on the cancer ward trying to get the painkillers stabilised and a young nurse comes in. "There you are. I've been waiting for you all day. You are supposed to be with me down in chemotherapy. I saw your name. Why are you up here?"</i></b><br />
<b><i>"Well, it turns out the chemo isn't working." Her shoulders sag and her hand goes to her head. "F***, f***, that's dreadful." I think she might be crying.</i></b><br />
<b><i>I look away, so might I.</i></b><br />
<b><i>You don't get that with private healthcare. </i></b>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-79557832817383770642016-11-11T01:37:00.003-08:002016-11-15T05:45:37.474-08:00Leonard Cohen: Going Home<b><i>Even to talk about one's self at a time like this is a kind of unwholesome luxury. I don't think I've had a darkest hour compared to the dark hours that so many people are involved in right now. Large numbers of people are dodging bombs, having their nails pulled out in dungeons, facing starvation, disease. I mean large numbers of people. So I think we've got to be circumspect about how seriously we take our anxieties today," </i></b>Leonard Cohen said in an interview published in July, 2009.<br />
<br />
Well, he goes out as President-elect Donald Trump comes in. As Albert Einstein is reputed to have said: Coincidence is God's way of remaining invisible.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Leonard Cohen will be remembered <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">by</span> the unreliable media as <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">a lugubrious Sp<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">ock-like <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">troubadour</span> of mournful love songs. </span></span>Of all
the songs that Leonard Cohen wrote and recorded the ones I like most are not, wirh the exception of Suzanne and Famous Blue Rai<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">ncoat,</span> love songs. <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Ev<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">e<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">r since David Mar<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">lo<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">w</span></span></span></span></span>, a Jewish friend with whom I shared a basement flat in Hackney in the early 1970s, introduced me to his work I think I have always preferred the outward Cohen of Story of Isaac to the introspective Cohen of Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye. I made <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">my </span>compilation last month after reading David Remnick's
monumental interview with the man himself in The New Yorker. All of it is worth
reading, twice; but here are the last two paragraphs, an apt post-script, Cohen
signing off from the material world:-</span><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">"I
know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life, whether they want to cop
to it or not," Cohen said. “It’s there, you can feel it in people—there’s
some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which
influences their mood and activity. So that’s operating. That activity at
certain points of your day or night insists on a certain kind of response.
Sometimes it’s just like: ‘You are losing too much weight, Leonard. You’re
dying, but you don’t have to co-operate enthusiastically with the process.’
Force yourself to have a sandwich.</span></i></b><br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What I mean to say is that you hear the 'Bat Kol.'
The divine voice. You hear this other deep reality singing to you all the
time, and much of the time you can’t decipher it. Even when I was healthy, I
was sensitive to the process. At this stage of the game, I hear it saying,
‘Leonard, just get on with the things you have to do.’ It’s very compassionate
at this stage. More than at any time of my life, I no longer have that voice
that says, ‘You’re fucking up.’ That’s a tremendous blessing,
really." </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My top twenty Cohen songs
are:- </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sisters
of Mercy: <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Suzanne</span>: Story of Isaac: Joan of Arc: Famous Blue Raincoat:
Hallelujah: Who By Fire: Song of the Partisan: Everybody Knows: Tower of Song:
In My Secret Life: Here it Is: By the River's Dark: In the Land of Plenty: The
Future: Democracy: Going Home: Show Me the Place: Darkness: You Want it Darker.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Pick any
one and you’ll find apposite lines that resonate with the times, trials and
tribulations of the reality in which you’re living. The tawdry Trump versus Clinton
scrap for the sepulchre of the White House prompted me to nominate You Want it
Darker, the title song of Cohen’s latest LP, as the soundtrack for this particular
movie. Others might say, ‘Yes, but what about the more sardonic Democracy? Or the
ironic but poignant last lines from In the Land of Plenty:- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">May the light in the land of plenty/ Shine on the truth some day</i>…</b> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But of
all Leonard Cohen’s songs I have chosen Going Home to send him on his way. God
bless, Mr Cohen.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I love to
speak with Leonard<br />
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd<br />
He’s a lazy bastard<br />
Living in a suit</span></i></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But he does say what I tell him<br />
Even though it isn’t welcome<br />
He will never have the freedom<br />
To refuse </span></i></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He will
speak these words of wisdom<br />
Like a sage, a man of vision<br />
Though he knows he’s really nothing<br />
But the brief elaboration of a tube</span></i></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Going home<br />
Without my sorrow<br />
Going home<br />
Sometime tomorrow</span></i></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Going home<br />
To where it’s better<br />
Than before<br /> </span></i></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Going home<br />
Without my burden<br />
Going home<br />
Behind the curtain<br />
Going home<br />
Without the costume<br />
That I wore<br />
<br />
He wants to write a love song<br />
An anthem of forgiving<br />
A manual for living with defeat<br />
A cry above the suffering<br />
A sacrifice recovering<br />
But that isn’t what I want him to complete<br />
<br />
I want to make him certain<br />
That he doesn’t have a burden<br />
That he doesn’t need a vision<br />
That he only has permission<br />
To do my instant bidding<br />
That is to SAY what I have told him<br />
To repeat<br />
<br />
Going home<br />
Without my sorrow<br />
Going home<br />
Sometime tomorrow<br />
Going home<br />
To where it’s better<br />
Than before</span></i></b></div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-65652902748831008772016-11-05T08:18:00.001-07:002016-11-05T08:21:24.958-07:00One Law in Belfast, Another in Westminster?In the aftermath of Thursday's High Court decision, that the Government had not made a water-tight case for triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without a Parliamentary debate, I'd like to ask a question.<br />
<br />
<b>How come the Government failed so dismally in London, in spite of the efforts of Attorney General Jeremy Wright, when a similar attempt to scupper the Brexit process in Belfast was thrown out by a High Court judge?</b><br />
<br />
The challenge was made by politicians from Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic
and Labour Party (SDLP), the Alliance Party and the Green Party. They said the UK government could not trigger Article 50 without a
parliamentary vote. The Brexit decision should be examined and voted on by parliament or, failing that, by the Northern Ireland Assembly.<br />
<br />
Central to their argument was that the peace process in Northern Ireland would be put at risk by pulling out of the European Union. In the June referendum a majority of voters in Northern Ireland had voted to remain in the EU. <br />
<br />
According the BBC in Belfast, the judge ruled that prerogative power could still be used, arguing
that triggering Article 50 is merely the start of a legislative process
in which acts of parliament will be necessary. "While the wind of change may be about to blow, the precise direction in which it will blows cannot be determined," he said.<br />
<br />
Unlike his three counterparts in the High Court in London, he concluded that discussing the use of prerogative power to enact the EU referendum result was not suitable for judicial review It had
also been argued that the Good Friday Agreement gave the power of
sovereignty to the people of Northern Ireland and that the Westminster
government could not therefore make the region leave the EU.<br />
<br />
But
the judge rejected that argument as well, saying he could not see
anything in the agreement or the relevant legislation that confirmed
that view.<br />
<br />
<b>It's a strange equation to contemplate. England voted in favour of Brexit but can't have it unless Parliament says so whereas Northern Ireland, which voted against Brexit, can irrespective of both the Westminster Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
You may say that a bear of astonishingly little brain, such as I, should not paddle in the deep and treacherous waters of constitutional and legal matters, especially where differences between Belfast and Westminster are concerned. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that none of the media reports, indeed none of the bloggers I have read since Thursday, have seen any merit in taking up this dichotomy.<br />
<br />
Is that strange too, or merely an oversight by commentators and pundits? Some are busy exonerating themselves for not anticipating the High Court reversal; others are saying the decision is in reality good news for Brexit because British sovereignty has been endorsed. Only Peter Hitchens appears to be saying that both sides are talking bollocks.<br />
<br />
The judicial review was without doubt an attempt to block the process of Brexit by putting the referendum result ino the hands of the Parliament. Everyone knows that in both the House of Commons Commons and the House of Lords there is a majority against Britain leaving the EU. That's why the three High Court judges' decision delighted the Remainers and outraged some of the Brexiteers.<br />
<br />
<b>Parliament is paramount for democracy, we are told. Is it? Wasn't this the same institution that voted for the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, on the dubious evidence of a flawed intelligence report? Wasn't this the same hallowed institution many of whose members were caught fleecing British tax-payers six or seven years ago? Isn't this the same institution thought to be implicated in covering up or hindering investigations into a paedophile ring of the geat but not so good?</b><br />
<br />
Oliver Cromwell was so disgusted by the carry-on in the House of Commons after the Civil War that on April 20, 1653, he led an armed force into the Commons Chamber (as
Charles I had done in January 1642) and forcibly dissolved the Rump, declaring: " You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately
... In the name of God, go!" <br />
<br />
<b>Who hasn't felt like that in the past few years? It was Parliament where the vote in favour of the 1972 European Communities Act was gerrymandered by the the major party whips. Why would any self-respecting sceptic believe that this institution, which so readily gave away British sovereignty to Brussels, is the best place to protect and defend it now?</b>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-32542679808270198822016-10-01T09:51:00.002-07:002016-12-10T17:05:52.405-08:00Think Like a Champ, Don't Act Like a Chump<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Donald Trump<b> </b>didn't invent the Mexican Wave; but the wall he proposed for the border with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants has been reviled by his detractors in this country and elsewhere in Europe. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, the UK Government is paying for a wall to be built outside Calais to deter would-be economic migrants from Africa, Afghanistan and elsewhere from getting into Britain. And this weekend the people of Hungary are likely to vote against a European Union proposal to share out 160,000 refugees among its member states. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The wall is the nearest thing to a world-changing idea that Donald Trump can claim for himself. The rest, to rephrase the last line of <b>Hamlet</b>,<b> </b>is ridicule. Mostly.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Television news clips from America about Donald Trump, prospective Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, are almost wholly negative. He is an object of mockery on programmes like the <b>News Quiz</b> on BBC Radio 4. No self-respecting social satirist or commentator has a good word to say about him though there are plenty of others, such as <b><i>sexist, racist </i></b>and<b><i> misoginystic.</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It reminds me of the time when George W Bush was in the White House. Clever people on radio and television took to referring to him as "Gyeorge Wyuh", as though they knew him personally. The contempt had the opposite effect it was supposed to have on me: even after the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, which I supported, I was inclined to extend more sympathy to him than he merited.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I wish I could say the same about Mr Trump. While the chattering classes enjoy themselves depicting him as the great Satan - reminiscent of the sentiment that used to come out of the Islamic Republic of Iran about all things American - I ruefully reflect on the man I used to enjoy watching as the hiring and firing boss of <b>American Apprentice</b> and <b>Celebrity American Apprentice</b>. It was one of the few reality TV shows that I liked.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The BBC used to screen back numbers of the series, so that in 2010 I was watching shows that were three or four years old. That didn't matter to me: the pleasure was in the interaction of the contestants and Donald Trump's comments and judgements. In his mid to late sixties he was an object of fascination: the conspicuous ostentation - the Trump brand on everything, the helicopter, the jet, the sleek limos, the golden apartment in Trump Tower, the sharp suits and (especially) the immaculate ties of red, blue or gold, that hung perfectly below his chin like a Roman sword. Here was a man who seemed to be innately self-confident. My admiration had nothing to do with a desire to emulate him; I just felt he was a larger-than-life character who got things done. Of course, I suspended my disbelief.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">That's why on the afternoon of November 17, 2009, I bought a copy of his book <b>Think Like a Champion</b>, sub-titled <b>An Informal Education in Business and Life</b>. Only an innately unself-confident person would buy a book with that on the cover. I underlined many passages in pencil as I read. Afterwards I appended, in pencil, a list of the <b>48 Laws of Power</b> as compiled by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers, as well as the following by Steve Jobs:-<i><b> </b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Don't waste time by living somebody else's life...Don't be trapped by dogma...Have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition. They already know what you want to become...Stay hungry...Stay foolish.</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The chapters of <b>Think Like a Champion</b><i> </i>are no longer than two to three pages and each chapter starts with a maxim. Plato, Pythagoras, Oscar Wilde, Pearl S Buck and Aristotle, are among those quoted. The chapter Have the Right Mindset For the Job, for example, starts with one from Henry Ford:-<b><i>Don't find fault. Find a remedy.</i></b> This is what Donald Trump says on page 67:- <b><i> </i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I've also noticed how much time The Apprentice teams spend bickering and infighting, which is not only a waste of precious time</i></b>, <b><i>but annoying and sometimes even embarrassing. These people are highly qualified, and to see and hear them carrying on at length, many times over in inconsequential things, is a clear indication that they should heed Henry Ford's advice about finding a remedy instead of finding fault.</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Mr Trump would have done well to have refreshed his memory before he started his campaign. A few quotes from Abraham Lincoln,, Carl Jung or even one Donald J Trump - 'Is it a blip, or is it a catastrophe' would have set a statesman-like tone. The TV debates with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic prospective Presidential candidate, could have done with one or two. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The clips that I saw on television in the UK made him look condescending, petty and disruptive. He looked puffy and heavy in his dark blue suit. Mrs Clinton, head to toe in her Santa suit - a motorway diner bottle of ketchup - seemed lighter on her feet. Overall, what I was shown was depressing - as I knew it probably would be - as was the thought of either of these two in the White House<b><i>. </i></b>I could imagine the late Allen Ginsberg declaring, in a state of irony and shock: America! Is that the best you can do?</span>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-154433063179835332016-07-15T13:05:00.001-07:002016-09-06T12:11:01.539-07:00All That Post-Brexit Uncertainty<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: large;">A friend of mine used to say that the only certainty in life was its uncertainty.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He wasn’t a
quantum physicist parroting the principle associated with Werner Heisenberg in
1927. My friend described himself as a romantic capitalist who liked the adventure of
entrepreneurship. He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 47, a couple of
years after surviving a serious cancer operation in London.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Uncertainty
has been a feature of daily life ever since Albert Einstein proved that space
is curved and time is not linear. If the behaviour of a quantum particle
is unpredictable why should packets of quanta in the shape of human beings be
any different?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet,
post-Brexit, all you hear on the BBC and see in most of the papers, is that the
UK is in a state of uncertainty. Some people have short memories.
I remember that before June 23 uncertainty was rife about a number of things –
the state of the NHS, the Cameron Government’s borrowing deficit, the
likelihood of Roy Hodgson’s England football team achieving something notable
in the European Championships.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We were far
from certain about whether the summer would be sunny or changeable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But now it
seems all manner of things are being blamed for the uncertainty created by the
Referendum vote to leave the European Union. Travel firms go bust – post-Brexit
uncertainty is the reason given. The Governor of the Bank of England talks about
cutting interest rates and then doesn’t do it – post-Brexit uncertainty is the
reason given. Prime Minister Theresa May appoints Boris Johnson Foreign
Secretary – post-Brexit uncertainty is…wait a minute, I’ll come on to that
later.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The 67 years
that constitute my timeline from 1949 could be described as The Age of
Uncertainty, like one of the books making up the Roads to Freedom triology of
novels by Jean Paul Sartre.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Labour
Government from 1974 to 1979, in which Jim Callaghan took over from Harold
Wilson halfway through, was the embodiment of uncertainty, principally because
of the dependency of support from other political parties. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lucky Jim
lost the 1979 General Election after Labour’s prolonged uncertainty turned into
the Winter of Discontent. Out of piles of uncollected bags of rubbish on the
streets of London, Margaret<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thatcher
emerged triumphant, Britain’s first female Prime Minister and a template, did
she but know it, for the daughter of Eastbourne clergyman Hubert May and his
wife Zaidee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Cuban
Missile crisis of October 1962, the assassinations of President John F Kennedy,
the Reverend Martin Luther King and the collapse of Soviet Communism between
1989 and 1991, generated enormous uncertainty, as did the near total collapse
of American banking and finance between 2007 and 2008. Remember that one?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Uncertainty
has been part of life for longer than I can remember. I don’t suppose the Romans
waiting for the arrival of Alaric’s barbarians in 410 AD looked upon the
immediate future as a glass half full. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But just as
there are always people who hope for certainty, there are those who refuse to
accept the result of votes that go against them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Assuming
that the House of Commons doesn’t follow Tony Blair’s advice and vote down the EU
Referendum result, the question of whether we should remain or leave has been
settled - after all the past broken promises. The time has come to start
shaping the future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
ill-informed petulance of those who wanted to remain in the past has surprised
and rattled me. What did they imagine they belonged to? A country with no name,
no flag, no history or tradition, an all-inclusive borderless zone invisibly
managed by a benign unelected bureaucracy?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of them are below the age of 43 and have no living memory of the way
Britain was signed up for the European Communities Act in 1972, a process that
included the gerrymandering of votes in the House of Commons contrived by the
whips of both Edward Heath’s Tory Government and Harold Wilson’s Labour
Opposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of them have no memory or even interest in Britain’s pre-history of the
EU, when this country was one of seven members of the European Free Trade
Association. Efta, formed in 1960 to facilitate trade rather than a political
idea, lost three of its members to the European Economic Community, Britain
included. By one of history’s little ironies, freeing ourselves from the
political octopus of the EU is likely to mean re-joining Efta. which now comprises Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. All four countries appear to be doing better than some of those who left, not only in trade but in football as well. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of the Remainers believe that continued membership of the EU means protecting
the planet from man-made climate change. They won’t be pleased about Theresa
May’s decision to scrap the Climate Change department as an independent entity
and merge it with business and environment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of them think that the EU embodies the equivalent of the United Nations: a
consensus of national interests mitigated by four freedoms: free movement of
people, goods, services and money.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of the Remainers think that leaving the EU inevitably means less freedom
and more constraints; less altruism, less generosity and more selfishness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of them really do believe that Britain is more prosperous inside the EU,
not realising that we currently have a trade deficit in the region of £96
billion because we buy more from other EU member states than they buy from us.
In short we import more from the EU than we export and our exports to Euroland
are falling principally because of trade with countries in other parts of the
world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Probably
most of them regard the EU as a bastion of peace and goodwill in a factitious
world of national and sectional conflicts. The EU is a cosy harbour offering
protection to 28 countries from the currents and storms beyond the arms of the
harbour wall in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now they
feel all at sea or they think that Britain is all at sea. For a country with a
long maritime history and tradition this response is odd. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Would the EU
have prevented World War II, had Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter’s post World War
1 ambition been realised in time to stop Hitler’s rise to power in 1933?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The League
of Nations didn’t. Hitler could have been stopped had Britain and France taken
unilateral action in 1936 when Nazi Germany unilaterally re-occupied the
Rhineland; but they didn’t and Hitler prospered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those who
believe the EU’s hands are cleaner of blood than Pontius Pilate’s should take
the trouble to look again at the break-up of former Yugoslavia in the wake of
the collapse of the political entity known as the Soviet Union.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They should also
re-examine what happened in Ukraine following political advances made by the
EU.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And those
troubled by refugee boat people fleeing conflicts largely stemming from
political and military adventures by Britain and the US in the Middle East
might ask themselves why the EU failed to respond adequately to the crisis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some
commentators are now saying that Theresa May has set up her new Cabinet to
sabotage Brexit. According to this interpretation the appointment of David
Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson is the equivalent of three men in a leaky boat
up a creek without a paddle. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I always
thought Mrs May was regarded as a pretty dull woman, not noted for cunning. In
the six years of her life as a Cabinet Minister under David Cameron, I cannot
recall anybody either praising or damning her for Machiavellian super-subtlety.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Barbara
Castle once observed of Margaret Thatcher that when she metamorphosed from
leader of the Opposition to Prime Minister her confidence and authority visibly
grew with the job. Can this have happened to Theresa May?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If it has,
why would she risk jeopardising her own Government and the future of the
country it is supposed to represent by engineering a political catastrophe or,
in the language of the EU, a ‘beneficial crisis’ that results in Baby Bunting
Britain hurrying back into the swaddling arms of the EU?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Personally I
think her three appointments have more to do with balancing conflicting
elements in the Conservative Party – for the time being. The way things are now
may not be the shape of things to come, especially if EU member states are
subject to further damaging economic and migration crises.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Meanwhile
there is a lot of background reading and talking to do by officials being
recruited into the new department for leaving the EU, a necessary prelude to
mapping out a strategy whether or not it is on the lines of the six-stage
process detailed by Richard North’s protean Flexcit magnum opus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr North,
who seems to prefer notoriety to popularity, nevertheless has gifted the UK one
tremendous idea: that leaving the EU is not an event but a process. This means
it wasn’t accomplished on June 23; the result of the Referendum was an
instruction to the Government to proceed, nothing else. Achieving it is going to be
painstaking and demand a lot of time and patience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pieces to
camera by excitable TV news journalists should be regarded as light
entertainment. The process of working out the details is not going to be
dramatic. Any attempt to sex it up should not be heeded.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>
</div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-45925158702658410132016-07-06T16:23:00.001-07:002016-07-13T15:43:17.714-07:00Time for Britain to Cut the Tie with America as WellHaving announced our intention to formally remove ourselves from the European Union, I hope that in future a British government will take steps to cut the Gordian Knot that binds us to the United States.<br />
<br />
The "special relationship" referred to by David Cameron in the House of Commons today appears to be extremely one-sided. The current US President feels free to lecture British people about the merits of remaining subject to the control of an unelected, unaccountable European Commission, warning us that in the event of us ending that control we would lose out on future trade agreements with the United States.<br />
<br />
I hope we do. I am sure this country could do a lot better by cutting loose from protectionist America which ensures that every deal it does benefits its own people at the expense of everyone else. Britain has paid off the Lend-Lease debt imposed by the United States during World War 2. Since then we have spent mega billions buying into American nuclear missile systems that we are never likely to use and all for the benefit of American armaments manufacturers.<br />
<br />
American bankers and market traders wrecked the economies of the West in 2007/8, making fortunes for themselves by dealing in mortgages that were virtually worthless, bequeathing us budgetry austerity ever since. Thanks guys. You sure know how to treat your allies.<br />
<br />
And now we know that a former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, told former President George W Bush, a year before the invasion and occupation of Iraq, that he, Blair, was "with him all the way." And he was. In Iraq, then in Afghanistan. Six hundred and thirty-two British service personnel came back from those places in coffins. Hundreds more returned in wheelchairs.<br />
<br />
Tony Blair evidently decided that Bush junior needed support in his attempt to live up to his father, George senior, and glorify his presidency with the laurels of military victory. I heard Blair apologists say today that in 2003 Iraq's President Saddam Hussein was a dangerous unknown quantity who, following 9/11, might supply Islamic terror groups with stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.<br />
<br />
Britain and the United States probably supplied Saddam with the technology between 1980-88 when, on their behalf, he sent his soldiers against the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was their regional ally. Al Qaeda was never active in Iraq when he was in power. That only happened two or three years after the American-led coalition invasion in 2003.<br />
<br />
Go back a bit futher if you like to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by the former USSR, the time-scale of which almost exactly parallels the Iraq-Iran War. If the United States had not poured millions of dollars as well as weapons of massive destruction into Afghanistan (via Pakistan) to equip and train the mujahidin, the whole bloody mess that followed, and which prevails today, might not have happened. One of the consequences of that particular insurgency was the formation of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group of trans-national Islamic fighters.<br />
<br />
In short the United States helped to create the state of the world that now exists between Afghanistan and Africa by meddling in matters of no long-term interest to Washington. My last American hero was not President J F Kennedy but General George Marshall without whose plan, backed by about 17 billion dollars, much of Western Europe would not have so rapidly recovered after World War 2.<br />
<br />
There was no such long-sighted, well-funded, plans for either Afghanistan or Iraq. I wouldn't be surprised if George W Bush had never heard of George Marshall. Do US presidents, as a rule, understand that other countries of the world do not exist specifically for the purpose of supporting the economic/political/military interests of America?<br />
<br />
I dare say I won't see Britain cut the tie with the Star Spangled banner in my lifetime. But then I thought that about the European Union. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-13365682688872290452016-06-18T17:00:00.002-07:002016-06-18T17:22:06.811-07:00The Referendum, Jo Cox and Democracy<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Amid the
Diana-fication, almost the beatification, of murdered backbench Labour MP Jo
Cox, it would be easy to lose sight of the fact that Thursday’s referendum is
simply that: it is not a General Election.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Judging by
the way the media has pitched the whole contest as a scrap between Prime
Minister David Cameron and Tory Rival Boris Johnson and UKIP leader Nigel
Farage, you’d be forgiven for thinking that if the majority vote is in favour
of leaving the EU, that will mean a change of resident at 10 Downing Street.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It won't. If the Leave
campaign wins the man tasked with the responsibility of starting the long
process of disengagement with Brussels won’t be either Mr Johnson or Mr Farage,
but Mr Cameron – if he decides to stay as Prime Minister until his second term
ends in 2020. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Daft as it
may be to state the obvious, I have a feeling that there are people out there
who think this is a first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all party political
battle. As others have pointed out elsewhere the ownership of the Referendum is
not the politicians but the public. Nor does it belong to the spectre of a
slain MP.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jo Cox did
not die for democracy, she did not choose to martyr herself for the good of the
cause. As far as anybody knows she was picked on and attacked out of the blue.
If she had had a premonition of what was about to happen, I’m sure she would
have done her best to have avoided it, at the same time ensuring that nobody
else got hurt inadvertently. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I can understand
the desire to make a collective public expression of sadness, if it helps people
to deal with their anger, bewilderment or sorrow. But the immediate elevation
of this reportedly personable woman to ‘stardom’ in the parliamentary firmament
– first by the Prime Minister and then by sundry other politicians and
journalists – struck entirely the wrong note for me.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And if this
process continues when Parliament specially reconvenes on Monday I think public
sympathy might turn to irritation, not about Jo Cox but with those exploiting
her murder to say something sententious, not to say tendentious, about the
current state of democracy in this country and its representatives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Remember, in
May 2008 – long before Jo Cox was elected to be an MP - the House of Commons
lost a High Court case to prevent public disclosure of MPs’ expenses.
Subsequently, these guardians of democracy tried to scupper proposed expenses
reforms.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They eventually
agreed to piece-meal reforms after forcing the Labour Government of Gordon
Brown to drop a proposal to scrap the allowance for second homes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In May,
2009, The Daily Telegraph printed a long series of articles from leaked
computer discs highlighting some of the practices common in Parliament, such as
‘flipping’ homes to maximise expenses claims and changing the designation of
second homes to avoid paying Capital Gains Tax. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The public,
on the receiving end of austerity cuts, whose sons and daughters are killed in
foreign wars allegedly in defence of freedom and democracy, whose homes are
burgled and property stolen usually without any satisfaction of justice, tend
to have the same regard for politicians, in both Westminster and Brussels, that
they have for journalists and the groomers of children.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The memory
of Jo Cox’s life should be honoured. It should not be used as emotional
propaganda by those with another agenda.</span></div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-49708145069986945692016-04-19T17:04:00.001-07:002016-04-21T07:06:52.321-07:00Show Us Yer JoyWhile campaigners for Britain leaving the European Union squabble about facts and tactics the more astute among them might pick up on a point made today by journlaist and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris.<br />
<br />
<b>He told an ITV news journalist that both the campaigns for remaining in the EU and leaving it tended to accentuate the negative: staying in was better than taking the risk of leaving, staying in would do more harm than leaving. Parris wondered why the remain campaign was so lacking in uplift: if being a part of EU was worth the time, trouble and expense, surely it was worth shouting about.</b><br />
<br />
A good point, I thought, especially as the June 23 referendum is likely to be decided by the more than 20 per cent of people questioned by pollsters who say they haven't made up their minds which direction the country should take.<br />
<br />
Are the undecideds likely to be excited by the Prime Minister declaring in his most plausible head boy fashion that Britain will be safer, stronger and better off in a "reformed EU" than outside it, like poor old Norway for example. It's a pretty uninspiring message especially when repeated, more or less, by uninspiring Opposition MPs such as Labour's Yvette Cooper.<br />
<br />
The bland leading the bland.<br />
<br />
<b>If, as David Cameron claims, Britain is safer inside the EU marquee rather than outside it, he should explain why since 1973 mainland Britain has been subject to at least 65 terrorist attacks, killing more than 380 people, maiming and wounding thousands and costing billions. These include the M62 coach bomb attacck in 1974 which killed 11, the Birmingham pub bombings the same year which accounted for another 19, the 1988 Panam bombing over Lockerbie which killed 270 and the London bombings in 2005 which killed 52 and injured more than 700. Add on the bombings and shootings over three decades in Northern Ireland from 1968 and the casualties and costs mushroom.</b><br />
<br />
While the EU in its various incarnations since 1973 cannot be blamed for the Provisional IRA or Al Qaeda, what has it done to justify David Cameron's assertion that membership has made us safer? Globally, of course, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning junta in Brussels has proved to be extremely dangerous. It encouraged the atomisation of former Yugoslavia following the end of Communism in Europe and the rage for independence that followed and had a hand in causing the bloodshed in western Ukraine by trespassing in Russia's sphere of influence. Latterly, the EU stands accused of making the refugee problem worse by offering blandishments to Turkey to act as a border guard for south-eastern Europe. On top of all this, of course, the EU's iron law of freedom of movement has led to a million or more economic migrants from Poland, Albania, Rumania, Spain and elsewhere coming to the UK.<br />
<br />
You may say, so what? If you did I would reply that neither I nor anybody I know actually voted in any general election favour of any of this. It happened because decisions were made and taken elsewhere and simply adopted first by the Labour Government of 2004/5 and subsequently by the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition from 2010 to 2015.<br />
<br />
<b>Let's face it, the EU does not have an encouraging democratic track record. It has a history of ignoring national referendums when the result is not as expected. The people of the Netherlands, France and the Republic of Ireland were told to think again when they, respectively, voted against proposed EU treaties. Leave campaigners appear to have forgotten this in the heat of the debate about whether Britons - "who never, never shall be slaves", according to the national anthem - should remain or go. Come on chaps, look back in anger at the crap that's been going on since 1973: the wine lakes, the butter mountains (in support of French farmers), the fish thrown back in the sea (in support of a fisheries policy contrary to our interests), the dotty carbon capture policies costing us billions and making millions for India's Tata Steel. Next time you hear business leaders and experts advocating continued EU membership for the sake of the economy, look back at the farce of Britain's short-lived membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and what happened in September 1992. John Major's Government was forced to spend billions to maintain sterling's value on international markets in defence of this discredited system. </b><br />
<br />
It's not as though the European empire has generated any interesting art, literature or music in the last 43 years - unlike the Roman Empire or Napoleon III's French Empire. The only bit of music associated with it that I can think of is the Ode to Joy finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. A rousing and glorious blast of triumph appropriated by a bunch of furtive federalists. Ludvig would not have been amused. So come on, all you remainers, let's see the expression of <i>your</i> joy. Show the doubters and the truculent Europhobes <i>something</i> other than the usual spurious arguments. At least the leavers have a plan, Richard North's 420-page<b> FLEXCIT</b>, contrary to all the chundering in the media. For those who haven't world enough and time there is a 48-page summation available for a fiver called <b>The Market Solution. </b>Added to thse two documents, there is a new edition of <b>The Great Deception</b>, the history of the European 'project' that Dr North wrote with Christopher Booker, a copy of which I recently bought. In short, the leavers, in the words of Sir Humphrey, have well and truly "nailed their trousers to the mast". Which means they can't climb down.<b> </b><br />
<br />
In 1975, on the occasion of the first referendum about Britain's membership of the European Economic Community - the "Common Market" as it was deliberately and misleadingly called - doubters were assured that joining Europe would make the country more prosperous, stronger, safer even. Forty years and 65 terrorist attacks later the wine lakes and butter mountains have been replaced by an Everest of debt and a schedule of Government borrowing that runs into billions every month. The money given back to Britain by the EU comes from us in the first place. <br />
<br />
<b>How different it all is from when I were a lad in Walthamstow, London E17, and Harold Wilson could be heard on the wireless worrying about Britain's "balance of payments", a matter of a few millions either in the black or the red. We thought the news was bad then. Little did we know.</b>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-74085498960358906172016-03-22T17:57:00.005-07:002016-03-22T17:57:51.966-07:00Bombing the Soft EuropeansThe departure terminal at Brussels airport was made to look like parts of Syria after the two Islamic State bomb attacks yesterday. And I suppose that was part of the purpose, to show soft Europeans what it's like to be on the receiving end of an unexpected bomb.<br />
<br />
<b>What the bearded holy terrorists may not know or if they do, understand, is that us soft Europeans have been on the receiving end of bombs of all sorts. We have a tradition of being bombed that goes back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the ill-fated Paris Commune that followed and two World Wars. </b><br />
<br />
Seventy years ago in July, 1946, militant Zionist terrorists blew up part of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing more than 90 British military personnel and others. In fact, post 1945 the British have been bombed and shot at all over the world, especially in Northern Ireland. Central London, Guildford, Birmingham and Manchester have all been visited by bombers. Provisional IRA, IS or Al Qaeda, the result is always the same: splintered lives and blood up the walls.<br />
<br />
<b>Much of what I wrote in this blog on November 14, 2015, after the Paris shootings, stands for what I think now. My only wish is that television news would show a little more judicious discrimination in what they broadcast. How does showing people running away from a bomb site help anyone but those organising these attacks? And why do the earnest and well-meaning insist on buying into the regularly offered explanation of poverty, deprivation and disenfranchisement, for the radicalisation of young Muslims?</b><br />
<br />
I've heard that excuse trotted out for more than 30 years. The result, certainly in Bradford, has been renewed efforts to adapt mainstream society and culture to the needs and demands of minority groups, accompanied by the usual press release superlatives, 'vibrant', even 'vibrancy', 'diverse' and 'community', as though the various sectors of the people who live here identify with one religious or cultural tendency. In fact, just for the record, life here is a lot more sectarian, tribal, clannish, than that simplification allows.<br />
<br />
Crying the poor mouth, as the Irish say, is the usual way of staking a claim to resources. Ordinary people, by whom I mean working class white trash who don't work in education, local government, the media or the Church of England, don't fall for that. The others do. Some of them.<br />
<br />
<b>The earnest and well-meaning assume that the deprived and disenfranchised carry out the shootings and bombings. They don't. It's the educated, sometimes university-educated righteous brothers, who seek to impose martyrdom on total strangers. It's not money and opportunities these people lack but humility. </b><br />
<br />
Let's face it, yesterday was not a good day for the European Union. Prime Minister David Cameron has several times declared that due to Britain's membership of the EU, British people are "safer" and, by inference, the peoples of the 27 other members states are safer too. Safer until the next surprise attack sends body bags and reporters to another European city.Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-86779863535582089042016-02-20T09:26:00.001-08:002016-02-21T01:38:37.523-08:00Winning the Referendum - for the Outsiders.<b>Whether or not Richard Nixon's special counsel Charles Colson had a cartoon on his wall with the legend: 'When you get 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow', the fact is that remains a terrible piece of advice.</b><br />
<br />
It guarantees that come the day you relax your grip of said appendages their owners will turn on you and kick your arse - out of power. Forever. Yet between now and Thursday, June 23, the day when the people of the UK have the opportunity to vote to leave the European Union - the biggest single confidence trick of the modern era - we can expect a great deal of ball-squeezing to persuade the credulous to stick with what they are used to rather than risk change.<br />
<br />
A host of rich and prize-winning celebrities from entertainment and politics will get extensive air-time and print space to hammer home the vital importance of 'staying in Europe' for the sake of trade, security, defence and inclusivity. The United States, they will be told, is in favour of Britain staying in the EU. That strikes me as a pretty good reason for baling out of the leaky boat that constitutes the EU's ship of state. <br />
<br />
<b>The issue is not the continent of Europe but the artificial political construct currently known as the European Union but which in previous incarnations was the European Economic Community ansd the European Community. The name of this federal state seems to be different with every significant treaty change so that Joe Public is never sure what he belongs to or what it means, leaving the way open for old Europhile politicical grandees like Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine to talk down to them in tried and trusted cliches about Britain's position 'at the top table' of world affairs. </b><br />
<br />
Nor is the issue a black and white conflict between 'Little Englander' nationalism and pan-europeanism. It is about whether the free peoples, or allegedly free peoples, of the United Kingdom want to go on being part of an unaccountable political organisation that arbitrarilly takes their money and tells them what they cannot do. I recognise that there are occasional readers of this blog who believe that membership of this organisation has enhanced the well-being of many people. In my opinion the EU, in its various forms, inadvertently started the war in Yugoslavia and damned nearly dragged us into military conflict with Russia by trying to sign up Western Ukraine as an associate EU member - the status that is being offered to David Cameron.<br />
<br />
I think those BREXIT factions currently sniping at each other over who has and hasn't got the better exit plan have lost sight of what an amazing turn of events the forthcoming referendum represents.Three years ago, the likelihood of a Conservative Prime Minister, a professed supporter of EU membership, putting such a referendum into place was as remote as Leicester City topping the Premiership table. Armchair strategists felt confident in ridiculing anyone who looked forward to the day when that would happen. And when the unlikely looked highly likely they ridiculed the idea that the referendum might take place sooner rather than later, later being 2017.<br />
<br />
The Prime Minister has put himself in this precarious position, partly to try to steal the thunder of the UK Independence Party of Nigel Farage and partly to prevent he Conservative Party in Parliament from being torn asunder on the issue of EU membership as was the party of David Cameron's predecessor John Major. Will his gamble pay off, will this turn out to be for him a beneficial crisis? If you beome transfixed by the know-alls, then yes, probably he will win the day on June 23.<br />
<br />
<b>I think it entirely depends on whether the out campaigners have the humility to learn a lesson from the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. His unexpected victory was due entirely to popular support from the electorate at large, not the Parliamentary Labour Party, its fellow travellers and their cronies in the media. That's why the media has spent so much time subsequently undermining Mr Corbyn (ironically an advocate of EU membership), for he is there without their benediction. </b><br />
<br />
The referendum will be influenced by Question Time, Any Questions, staged televised debates and the Today programme, just as it will be influenced by blogs; but it will be won by those who go out into the country and address public meetings. This is what Jeremy Corbyn did, and he won overwhelmingly. This referendum won't be won on fine-print details, as some purists would wish, but on blood and guts passion and conviction. David Cameron is adept at that. But Nigel Farage is better, and he has the advantage of knowing the EU from the inside.<br />
<br />
<b>Our balls have been in the hands of lying Europhiles since the last referendum in 1975, when they told us that memebership of the EEC was vital for Britain's economic future. They knew all along that the project was really about creating a federal political state. The time has come to kick their arses once and for all and get out into the sunnier uplands of the wider world.</b>Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-73005957335962689912015-11-14T12:37:00.001-08:002015-11-20T09:41:06.719-08:00The Night of the Jihadis...Revisited<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The last
time I saw Paris, in early May 2011, there was a bomb scare near the Quai
d’Orsay. The streets, busy with bug-eyed tourist coaches, cars and hooting
scooters, were patrolled by blue-uniformed armed police.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few days before,
American Seals had stolen into Pakistan under the cover of darkness and
assassinated Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. French news magazines were full
of it. Bin Laden’s bearded face shone in hot sunshine on all the glossy covers
on news-stands. Evidently the French were apprehensive of retaliation by
Islamic jihadis.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Twelve years
earlier, in late March 1999, a writer friend and myself spent a long weekend in
the capital of love to celebrate the publication of a couple of books and to
see the exhibition of David Hockney’s three Grand Canyon paintings at the ugly
Pompidou Centre. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On the
afternoon of our departure the streets were full of armoured vehicles and CRS
men in their dark blue airmail hats. NATO had just started bombing Serbia in
response to the crisis in the Balkans. Tomahawk Cruise missiles were flying.
The French authorities feared some kind of backlash in the city. Coincidentally, the length of the Pont des Arts bridge was full of larger than
life statues of falling US Seventh Cavalrymen and Sioux Indians gripping –
tomahawks. The Battle of the Little Big Horn had come to Paris.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I happened
to be re-reading Frederick Forsyth’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Day
of the Jackal</b> round about the time of the latest massacre of
innocents in Paris. The eight masked Islamic State kamikaze nihilists must have been making their final preparations while I was reading. The book begins and ends with attempts to assassinate French
President Charles de Gaulle, first by members of the French military
disillusioned by Government policy over Algeria (the Secret Army Organisation),
then by a British hit-man, code-named Jackal, hired by the OAS. Against vast odds - many thousands of patrolling police oficers and paramilitary men - the Jackal comes within a whisker of killing the President. Part of the fascination of this story, first published in 1971, is that the reader watches the Jackal making his detailed preparations including four changes of identity. The security forces are always chasing, never lying in wait. If a fictional lone gunman could come close to destroying the status quo then why not a real group of trained and determined gunmen utterly indifferent to their own safety?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">De Gaulle
survived seven or eight attempts on his life; he even survived the 1968 student
revolution which occupied the streets of Paris and the university quarter of
Nanterre. That bout of street-fighting, replicated in Berlin, London and
Chicago, was in part triggered by the (undeclared) Vietnam War. Although
widespread and intense, exciting much fervour among the impressionable young
and older intellectuals, the revolt did not result in casualties on anything
like the scale of either the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January this year
(20 murdered) or these November killings (129 dead and counting).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The French
have known nothing like it since the war for independence in Algiers. In that
murderous encounter, embittered by the French defeat in Vietnam in 1954, the
French Government felt obliged to agree to talks with its enemy and eventually
to withdraw from Algeria. I don't think they'll be doing the same in this case because this is not a battle for independence but war on a way of life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>All this the
world well knows – doesn’t it? I thought so until I watched some of the
television reporting of the latest killings. That Islamic gunmen, driven by
religious fervour, anger at French military action in Syria and a shoot-to-kill policy, should take to
the streets of Paris and open fire on civilians seemed to come as a complete
surprise to some. It was as though they had no knowledge of recent history. Militant Islam's war on the West started in the mid-1970s with Black September, the late Yasser Arafat’s
Palestinian Liberation Organisation and continuing through the founding of the
Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the 1989 fatwah against Salman Rushdie and
thereafter the rise of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan (funded by the United
States), followed by the religious nihilists of the Taliban, Bin Laden’s Al
Qaeda and latterly the black-masked killers of Islamic State.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Going back further, the jihad against the godless West has been going on ever since
General Gordon was killed in Khartoum by the Mahdi’s forces in January 1885 – 130
years ago. In Afghanistan it goes back to the early decades of the 19th century when the British made a bad choice of allies among tribesmen and ended up sending a punitive expedition from India through the Kyber Pass and into Kabul. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the book <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s
Suburban Terrorists</b> by Rafaello Pantucci, director of International
Securities Studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security
(founder, the Duke of Wellington), the point about the longevity of militant
Islam’s war with the West is re-stated:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The reality is that
while British security services understand much better the networks they are
dealing with and what radicalisation looks like, there is still very little
understanding of how to counter and de-radicalise.</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Among the wider radical
community, numerous arrests and lengthy incarcerations have not stopped a
steady number of young Britons posting radical material online, attending
meetings or seeking out others with similar ideas with whom they can plot and
form secret communities.</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Britain’s jihad has
been underway for decades, and the appeal of the ideas that underlie it has
proved remarkably resilient.</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Three main drivers usually
have to be in place before individuals become involved in terrorism: ideology,
grievance and mobilisation. How they coalesce is dictated by random events and
how individuals respond to a given situation, factors that are difficult to
forecast.</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In his book
Pantucci explains each of these three factors in detail, giving them an
historical context. Like the emblems in a fruit machine, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they have to be aligned in order
to drive an individual to terrorism</i></b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the
problems of this murderous conflict is the different application of the word ‘martyr’.
The Christian and post-Christian West associates martyrdom with self-sacrifice,
not the taking of the lives of others. Usually this conscious act of
existential self-abnegation is undertaken by an individual who lays down his or
her life for others or in support of an idea. The eight Islamic State killers
in Paris killed or wounded hundreds of others to justify their adopted nihilism and their own acts of
self-immolation. Clearly they had no conscience about doing this because they
believed that the people they were shooting and bombing were infidels.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To fall into
this category appears to have little to do with belief in God or Allah; it’s
more to do with the Islamic caliphate as defined by the leaders of Islamic State.
Their followers happily kill fellow Muslims - Shias - wherever they find them. The
military forces of the West may have killed 100,000 Muslims in the ‘shock and
awe’ attack on Iraq in 2003; but in the eight year war between Iraq and the
Islamic Republic of Iran (the West supported Iraq in that one) more than a million
Muslims were killed. Few if any Muslims in this country felt compelled to join in. It didn't seem to be a public issue with them at the time even though the West tacitly supported Iraq.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The West’s military
meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan undoubtedly played a part in educating
disaffected young Muslims in the art of insurrection and insurgency. Islamic
State is one of the consequences. The refugee crisis now bewildering the
European Union is a concomitant consequence of that. Again, all this the world
well knows – at least I thought it did.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But the heart is also involved as well as the head. All day the sombre weight of what happened in Paris has been upon me.That weight has been there so many times in the past it's a wonder I have any humanity left. Gruesome newsreels of so many wars, civil wars, acts of genocide, terror attacks and hatefulness have been a constant feature of life since Korea in the early 1950s. Thirty of my nearly sixty-seven years were besieged by Northern Ireland, a conflict which the late Denis Healey said he could not imagine an end to. </span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I felt the same about the terrible civil war in Lebanon when various religious militias tore into each other and the fabric of the country. Thirty years ago or more Beirut was like Aleppo and other Syrian cities now. In the early Nineties it was the turn of Sarajevo. I had hoped the 21st century would be different from its blood-boltered predecessor. Fifteen years down the road I'm still hoping; but then, as Russians say, hope is the last thing to die.</span></b>
</div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2894266799978443750.post-13221202314431612222015-10-12T09:07:00.000-07:002015-10-15T15:28:13.298-07:00Bob Dylan's Music - an Appreciation...<b>1: STILL ON THE ROAD: THE DARKEST PART</b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There is no proper place to start an odyssey into the world of Bob
Dylan’s music.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For an Arena
biography-documentary, BBC Television chose as the programme’s theme and
structure Highway 61, an old metalled route that follows the Mississippi from
Minnesota 1,300 miles south to New Orleans, where it flows into the Gulf of
Mexico. The lifeline on the palm of America, Highway 61 cuts through the
heartland of the country’s musical culture. The music stations of Chicago
transmitted the blues northwards where it was picked up in a boy’s bedroom in a
white corner house in a leafy suburb of Hibbing. When Dylan came to choose a
title for his sixth album his choice of <b><i>Highway 61 Revisited</i></b> was
not just a happy accident. Highway 61 mapped the route he had been following in his head
for years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin Scorsese, for the
title of his two-part bio-pic, chose a phrase from a song on that album. The
song was Dylan’s most famous rock composition, <b><i>Like a Rolling</i></b> <b><i>Stone</i></b>;
the phrase was <i>no direction home</i>. These two programmes, <b><i>No
Direction Home</i></b> and<b><i> Highway 61 Revisited</i></b>,<b><i> </i></b>separated
by a couple of decades, suggest that 1965, the year when the albums <b><i>Bringing
it All Back Home</i></b> and <b><i>Highway 61 Revisited</i></b> were recorded,
was the high watermark of Dylan’s creative outpouring. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lively first part of
Dylan’s projected autobiographical trilogy, <b>Chronicles</b>, begins
and ends in the New York City office of one Lou Levy, top man at Leeds Music
Publishing. Dylan, if you can believe everything he says about himself, says
this man in the winter of 1961 gave him a hundred dollar advance to publish his
future songs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Singer-songwriter, concert
performer, recording artist, movie star, author, troubadour, minstrel, song and
dance man: Dylan’s fifty years on the road (up to 2011) have resulted in more
than 50 albums - including greatest hit compilations, out-takes and an album of
Christmas songs in 2009 – an estimated three thousand concerts and 500 or more
original songs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i><b>Things Have Changed</b></i> for
the Michael Douglas movie <b>Wonder Boys </b>won the 2001 Oscar for Best Song.
Twice he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, an honour that
must be coming his way. He sang at the 1963 March on Washington when Martin
Luther King Jnr delivered his <i>I have a dream </i>speech. He has sung at the
inauguration of two US Presidents as well as for the late Pope John Paul II,
who requested <i><b>Blowin’ in the Wind. </b></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could say that any year
since John Hammond Junior signed Dylan for Columbia Records in the autumn of
1961 is a good place to start. So let me begin with an anecdote from northern England the early
1990s. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The late Barry MacSweeney,
poet and journalist, during a long telephone call<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>declared emphatically to me that Bob Dylan was the
greatest artist of the Twentieth Century. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wha?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greater than <b>Dylan Thomas,
T S Eliot, Ezra Pound, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, Charlie Chaplin, Gene Kelly,
Igor Stravinsky, Alfred Hitchcock, Bertolt Brecht, John Huston, Orson Welles,
Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, W B Yeats, Maria Callas, Picasso, Samuel Beckett,
Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Cohen, Jacques Prevert, Lotte Lenya, Miles Davies,
Billy Wilder, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Bela Bartok, Boris Pasternak,
Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy...</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">MacSweeney said so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, Dylan has sold more
records than Charlie Chaplin but, unlike Ken Dodd, he has never topped the UK
singles chart. While Dylan’s voice has not lasted as well as Frank Sinatra’s,
twenty-four of Dylan’s albums reached the Top Ten of the UK album chart, six of
them ringing the bell at the very top. Only one of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ numerous
albums did that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Spice Girls and Take That
have probably sold more albums but which of their ditties has, like <i><b>Blowin,
in the Wind</b>, </i>been covered three hundred and seventy-five times by other
artists? According to <b>The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan</b>, ten of
Dylan’s songs have been covered in excess of fifteen hundred times. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of the fluctuations
in his career since signing for Columbia in 1961, Dylan’s output has never
ceased to excite interest, comment and analysis. Hence the dozens of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>books about him, excluding his own.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a poet of the written
word, Dylan’s observational reportage - see the back covers of <b><i>The Times
Are a-Changin’ </i></b>and <b><i>Another Side of Bob Dylan</i></b> – is witty,
sometimes poignant, with a marked degree of psychological insight into the
games people play. They recall the poetry of the young Yevgeny Yevtushenko and
perhaps Allen Ginsberg. In one poem on the theme of psyching out someone, two men
are playing chess. One says: “<i>If you don’t beat me you must be the worst chess</i>
<i>player in the world</i>.” His opponent is drawn. “<i>Why?</i>” he says. “<i>Because I always
los</i>e,” comes the reply. “<i>Hmmm. Now I got to beat you</i>!” his opponent says. In
another poem, a fine piece of work, Dylan is among a crowd of people watching a
man threatening to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge. Dylan observes the scene,
describes the man – his silver wristwatch, his mouth gaping like a shark’s. “<i>I
could tell he was uselessly lonely</i>,” Dylan says, and turns away, admitting that
he really wanted to see the man jump. The longest poem is about Hibbing, his
own aesthetic of ugliness and how his view was modified when he met Joan Baez
and heard her sing. These poems are worth a place in any anthology of American
poetry; his work is superior to that of Langston Hughes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a singer of his own
written words, however, Dylan is in a different class. Dylan’s best songs have
great poetry’s inspirational touch; but their originality requires Dylan’s
unique voice, his idiosyncratic phrasing and music.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That Bob cat from the North
Country was never as nimble a mover as Gene Kelly nor as adroit with his pen as
James Augustine Joyce; but Kelly couldn’t write a song and Joyce, mellifluous
of voice as he was, would have made a dog’s breakfast out of <b><i>The Lonesome
Death of Hattie Carroll</i>. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a painter, Dylan probably
ranks with Hitler, Winston Churchill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the kid in the
corduroy Huck Finn cap, shabby fleece jacket and stained boots, started to make
a name for himself in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village (<i>Green-rich
Village</i> in the spoken prologue to <b><i>Baby Let Me Follow You Down</i></b>). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Cafe Wha?, The
Gaslight, The Kettle of Fish and Gerde’s Folk City, willing ears absorbed his
roughed up brand of folk and blues. Word reportedly went round about the
auburn-haired kid with the amazing take on topical events – his talking blues
delivered with the humour of a Jewish stand-up comedian. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilfred Mellor, erstwhile
music critic of <b>The Times</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> (London), compared the song-writing of
Lennon and McCartney to that of Schubert. Unlike him, I am not going to measure
Dylan’s output against that of Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Sammy
Cahn, Lerner and Lowe, Jimmy Van Heusen, Rodgers and Hammerstein,
Holland-Dozier-Holland, Bacharach and David, Goffin and King. These and many
others occupy honoured places in what Leonard Cohen calls </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tower of Song</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dylan is a different kind of song-writer. Like Hank Williams, Pete
Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison, Dylan is
primarily a writer-performer-cum-recording artist, three in one, whereas
Holland-Dozier-Holland and Sammy Cahn, wrote songs for other performers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From 1963 to 1969, Dylan was writing, performing and recording at the
same time as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beach Boys, Joni
Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix and many more singer-songwriters.
Nevertheless in those seven years, six of his albums topped the UK chart and
five others reached positions three, four (twice) and eight. By May 24, 1965,
twenty-four year old Dylan had compositions as various as </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b>The
Times They Are a-Changin’</b>, <b>Subterranean Homesick Blues</b>, <b>Maggie’s Farm</b>, <b>Like a
Rolling Stone</b> </span></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">and </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Positively Fourth </span></i><i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Street</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">in the UK Top Twenty
singles chart. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Robert Shelton’s glowing notice in <b>The</b> <b>New York Times</b> on Friday,
September 29, 1961, formally announced Dylan’s arrival as a folk artist. He had
seemingly come out of nowhere with complete confidence in his ability to make
an impact. He says himself in </span><b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chronicles</span></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> that he never
doubted he would make a difference in the world. It was the expression of this
confidence on stage that caused word to go round so fast. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Within months of his boot-heels scuffing the sidewalks of New York, with
a little help from those who befriended him, Dylan had a recording contract
with CBS, a thousand dollars advance in royalties and a publishing contract
with Witmark for his songs. During the next five years Dylan single-handedly
turned popular music upside down and inside out. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
destroyed the Tin Pan Alley concept of the three-minute record with simple
verses and a bridge, written expressly for the hit parade. </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Like a
Rolling Stone</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> powers on for more than six minutes, </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> ten minutes 45
seconds and one of his greatest songs, </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Desolation Row</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, 11 minutes 18
seconds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dylan’s professional life up until 1968 has the urgency of a mission. He
proved early on with songs such as </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Blowin’ in the Wind</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><b> </b>that he possessed
to a high degree the uncanny knack of putting into memorable expression what
was on the public’s mind and making it pay. Liam Clancy said he could receive
and transmit unlike any other artist. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most artists could do one or the other: Dylan could do both; moreover he
wrote and performed his own material. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fifty years after Robert Shelton’s illuminating address, Dylan is still
feted. Hagiography undoubtedly plays a part in it, envy too - of the wealth and
fame he has acquired. Treating Dylan as a rare individual is the nearest most
fans can come to explaining the imaginative fecundity of a mind able to create
hip song-lines such as:-</span></div>
<br />
<i>How many ears must one man have/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>before he can hear people cry?.</i>..<span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Yes’n’ how many times must a man turn his
head/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and pretend that he just doesn’t
see?...
</i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span lang="EN-US">To live
outside the law</span></i><span lang="EN-US">/ <i>you must be honest...</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">She knows there’s no success like
failure/ and failure’s no success at all...</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">To them who think death’s
honesty/ won’t fall upon them naturally/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>life sometimes must get lonely...</span></i>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We’re just one too many
mornings/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and a thousand miles behind...</span></i>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You don’t need a weatherman to
know which way the wind blows...</span></i>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When you’ve got nothing/ you’ve
got nothing to lose...</span></i>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You’ve got a lot of nerve to say
you are my friend...</span></i>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Now little boy lost, he takes
himself so seriously/ he brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously...</i>
</div>
<i>Even the President of the
United States sometimes must have to stand naked...</i>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sleeves of his albums were striking,
each one marking a significant change in the style of the content and perhaps
Dylan himself. In </span><b>Chronicles</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> he
says he grew to loathe the adulation, the hero worship, which followed him
through the streets of New York City up to his home in New York State. He
wanted to get away from the mythology of Bob Dylan. This is his explanation for
the double album </span><i><b>Self Portrait</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">
and the public’s first exposure to Bobby the Zee, light tenor country singer.
The author of those memorable lines above went on to utter:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Love is all there is/ it makes
the world go round...</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Her and her boyfriend/ they
done changed their tune...</i>
</div>
<i>If you get close to her, kiss
the kids for me...</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You can have your cake and eat
it too...</i></div>
<i>By golly what more can I say?
Love to spend the night with Peggy Day...</i>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Quoting
the naked words without the essential voice and music is contrary to an earlier
assertion; but in none of the songs from which these lines are taken is there
the slightest hint of irony let alone what a former friend once described as
Dylan’s “lip curl.” Songs such as<i><b> </b></i></span><i><b>Winterlude, Romance in Durango, Heart
of Mine, If You See Her Say Hello, Country Pie</b></i>, <b><i>The Man in Me</i></b>, <b><i>Peggy Day</i></b>, <i><b>Went
to See the Gypsy</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, are forgettable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The deeply personal songs on</span><b>
<i>Blood on the Tracks </i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i><b>Desire</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, which I used to like, now seem to me an artistic
mistake. The kid who defiantly declared that he was hip to the rules of the
road and could dodge the games that people played had become a married man and
a father. Like everybody else, Dylan discovered he had something to lose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;">Although
I no longer care for a good deal of Dylan’s 1970’s output the exception is the
1974 rogue album </span><i><b>Planet Waves</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>.</i>
The power and expression of </span><i><b>Dirge</b></i>, <i><b>Something There is About You</b></i>, <i><b>Nobody</b></i>
‘<i><b>Cept You</b></i>, <i><b>Forever Young</b></i>, <i><b>Going, Going Gone</b></i>, <i><b>Never Say Goodbye</b></i>, <i><b>Wedding Song</b></i>, <span style="font-style: normal;">are rivalled only by </span><i><b>Shelter From the Storm</b></i>,
<i><b>Buckets of Rain</b></i>, <i><b>Simple Twist of Fat</b></i>e<span style="font-style: normal;"> and
perhaps </span><i><b>Black Diamond</b></i> <i><b>Bay</b></i> <span style="font-style: normal;">and parts of </span><i><b>Hurricane</b></i>,
<i><b>Tangled Up in Blu</b></i>e and <i><b>Idiot Wind</b></i>, <span style="font-style: normal;">from</span> <b><i>Blood
on the Tracks</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span><b> <i>Desire</i></b><i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></i>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="font-style: normal;">In the
1980s the release of </span><i><b>Empire Burlesque</b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></i><b> <i>Down in the Groove</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">(a
wretched title), and </span><b><i>Under</i> <i>the Red Sky</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, passed me by. I was not particularly bothered whether I listened to
them; in my view, Dylan the artist had fallen a long way. The main problem was
his voice. That incomparable instrument of raging glory, swooping irony,
whooping playfulness and growling introspection, had become attenuated to nasal
whining. Dylan appeared to be singing through his nose, tweaking out words and
phrases with facial grimaces. What had once been arresting was now irritating.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took notice of </span><i><b>Infidels</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i> </i>and</span><b> <i>Oh! Mercy</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, released in 1983 and 1989 respectively. Both albums were well
received in the press and on radio. Dylan’s voice sounded better. He could sing
songs such as<i><b> </b></i></span><i><b>I and I</b></i>, <i><b>License to Kill</b></i>, <i><b>Long Black Coa</b><b>t</b></i>, <i><b>Political
World</b></i>, <i><b>Everything is Broken</b></i>,<span style="font-style: normal;"> with authority and
power, wit and charm, as needed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan admits in </span><b>Chronicles </b><span style="font-style: normal;">that during the mid-1980s he did indeed fall a long
way. He says he came close to retiring. By his own estimation he was not much
more than a nightclub act; he had lost touch with the meaning of much of his
vast repertoire, no longer knowing how to perform his greatest compositions. </span><i><b>Oh!
Mercy</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, recorded under the supervision of
Daniel Lanois in New Orleans revived Dylan’s interest in recording. That album
revived my interest in Dylan’s music.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Memory can be deceptive. My own did not
serve me well when I first began to consider Dylan’s post-1969 career. The
fluctuating quality of Dylan’s voice and his material, his preference for the
LA pyrotechnics of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as a backing band, made me
indifferent to his post 1960s work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then one wintry morning I spent a
couple of hours poring over the contents of the thirteen albums from<i> </i></span><b><i>Nashville
Skyline</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">(1969) to </span><b><i>Empire
Burlesque</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">(1985). </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One hundred and twenty-two songs plus
thirty out-takes, making a total of one hundred and fifty-two songs. Of these I
rated highly fifty-three, or one-in-three. That is a high standard for any
artist’s work let alone a sixteen year section of one man’s career. Creative
highs include: </span><b>Knockin’ on</b> <i><b>Heaven’s Door</b></i>, <i><b>Something There is About You</b></i>,
<i><b>Every Grain of Sand</b></i>,<i><b> I and I</b></i>, <b><i>Licence to Kill</i></b>. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After 1985 there are plenty of others
worthy of inclusion in the catalogue of Dylan’s finest song performances: </span><b><i>Lord
Protect My Child</i></b>, <b><i>Foot of Pride</i></b>, <b><i>Dignity,</i></b> <b><i>Blind Willie McTell</i></b>, <b><i>Series of
</i><i>Dreams</i></b>, <i><b>Disease of Conceit</b></i>, <b><i>Political World</i></b>, <b><i>Everything is Broken</i></b>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><i>Long Black Coat</i></b>, <b><i>Love Sick</i></b>, <b><i>Cold Irons Bound</i></b>,
<b><i>Not Dark Yet</i></b>,<b><i> I Can’t Wait,</i></b> <b><i>High Water</i></b>, <b><i>Mississippi</i></b>, <b><i>Bye and Bye</i></b>, <b><i>Moonlight</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. After years on the road – </span>the darkest part<span style="font-style: normal;"> – Dylan found himself again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since 1969 of all the songs Dylan has
written and recorded, up to seventy would establish his reputation for all time
as an artist of profound and remarkable gifts. Enough to fill seven albums.
Though I think his early work unsurpassed, these later songs prove that Dylan
was not merely the protest voice of the 1960s. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">He
once declared that he accepted chaos, but had yet to know whether chaos
accepted him. In his forties and fifties he railed against depravity, greed and
licentiousness with the same moral conviction he had shown in his twenties.
Dylan has always been judgemental. In his sixties, more relaxed and sure of
himself, grateful perhaps for still being alive, Dylan’s darkest songs are
edged with compassion and flashes of humour. </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the time comes to write his obituary
and compile the definitive television documentary (Martin Scorsese’s </span><b>No
Direction Home </b><span style="font-style: normal;">takes three-and-a-half-hours
to reach 1966), the range and variety of Dylan’s output will prove too much
even for the most indefatigable journalist and film-maker. Just as a single
trawler cannot hope to gather in the Pacific ocean’s silvery shoals, what hope
does one man have to encompass the length, breadth and depth of Dylan’s
writing, recordings, concerts and film-work? </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></b><b><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></b><b><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></b><b><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></b><b><span style="font-style: normal;">2: SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS</span></b><span style="font-style: normal;"></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Anthony
Scadatu, Michael Gray, Robert Shelton, John Bauldie, Michael Gross, Christopher
Ricks, Paul Williams, Clinton Heylin and Howard Sounes are just a few of the
biographers and chroniclers who have had a go at explaining various aspects of
the Bob Dylan phenomenon. Nigel Williamson’s </span><b>The Rough Guide to Bob
Dylan</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, a pocketable 385-page compendium,
endeavours to summarise the other twenty-six books. There are probably others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one time I reckoned to own every over-the-counter
published book on Dylan extant in the United Kingdom. It was a mania. One
Saturday afternoon without premeditation I suddenly rushed into town and bought
every Dylan book available on the shelves of W H Smith. I came away with four
or five, including Paul Williams’ triology: </span><b>The Music of Bob Dylan</b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span><b> Bob Dylan: Performing Artist</b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span><b> Watching the River Flow</b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Williams comes closest to evoking the spirit of
Dylan’s songs – he is sensitive to intonation, a turn of phrase, a skeleton key
change. Unlike most of his rivals, Williams properly treats biographical
information as incidental to the work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, faced with Dylan’s back catalogue
and the growing number of concerts and bootleg recordings, even the tireless
Williams is overwhelmed by the task he has set himself. Dylan also has the
habit of rarely singing a song the same way in the next concert, therefore
making each performance unique. Since 1961 Dylan has played in thousands of
concerts. No one can possibly know how many illicit tape recordings have been
made in the past forty-four years, each of them revealing another side of Bob
Dylan’s art.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both Scadatu and Shelton amass
biographical detail to try to locate the authentic man behind the music and
hence the reason for it. Biography can only describe the colour of the door
facing them: neither of them succeed in unlocking it. They fall back on the
commonest mistake of all: using Dylan’s songs to describe or explain his life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fact and fiction, however, are not
synonymous. I had always thought that Shelton’s shrewd and perceptive 1961
concert review made him best placed to write the definitive Dylan book. My
excitement at the publication of </span><b>No Direction Home</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> in 1986 was matched only by my disappointment. The
writing was unilluminating, dulled by fact and too much talk. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael Gray’s </span><b>Song and Dance
Man</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, which has mushroomed into a vast tome,
tries to validate Dylan’s art by locating it in an F R Leavis-type Great
Tradition, demonstrating a connection between Dylan’s lyrics and the poetry of
Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron and Tennyson. I am not sure what purpose is
served other than to elevate modern American song-writing to the pantheon of
high art. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this is what it takes to get Dylan the
Nobel Prize, then Mr Gray deserves the thanks of Dylan’s fans. Dylan’s work has
never sought and does not require academic respectability. The increasing
tendency to separate the words from the music and to study the former in
isolation will always vitiate the arguments of Dylan’s well-meaning professors.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b>Dylan’s Visions of Sin</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is the title of Christopher Ricks’ book. I have not
read it, though I was tempted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The late John Bauldie gathered and
collated a great deal of </span>useless knowledge<span style="font-style: normal;">
in his magazine </span><b>All Along the Watchtower</b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Unless you are taking part in a Trivial Pursuit quiz, knowing the
make of Dylan’s electric guitars in 1965 or the boots he was wearing when he
met and failed to woo Francois Hardy in Paris in 1966, is entirely immaterial
to the music. Possession of such arcane knowledge bestows snob appeal of a
sort, Mr Jones.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In </span><b><i>Positively Fourth Street</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan sings, somewhat wearily, I think: </span><i>Do you
take me for such a</i> <i>fool/ to think I’d make contact/ with the one who tries to
hide/ what he don’t know to begin</i> <i>with..</i>.<span style="font-style: normal;">Bauldie,
whose love of Dylan’s music can probably be taken at face value, was
intelligent enough to concede the point. He just became immersed in Dylanology.
Fun, but ultimately pointless.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b>Bob Dylan: An Illustrated
History</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, the book by Michael Gross published
in 1978 in time for Dylan’s series of concerts at London’s Earl’s Court arena,
has evocative black and white photographs, especially of the early years in New
York, and a factually accurate text. It is one of the best of the Dylan
biographies in that Gross does not allow his admiration for Dylan’s work blind
him to the singer-songwriter’s faults. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan’s persistent attempts to create a
myth of a homeless waif, working in circuses and travelling fairs, seemed
amusing at first; now they strike me as attempts by a Jewish middle-class
mother’s boy from the sticks to cover up his social and material advantages.
During the 1966 tour of England, Pennebaker’s documentary reveals glimpses of
Dylan smiling to himself on stage. His rapid rise to fame had made him rich; he
was secretly married to a beautiful model; the future was his to command. What
did his conservative folk music detractors in Newcastle and Manchester
know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew a hell of a lot more than
they thought they knew – if only they knew! </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gross is aware of this. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bought Howard Sounes’s book having read
and enjoyed much of his biography of Charles Bukowski, </span><b>Locked in the
Arms of a Crazy Life</b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Sounes, who learned
his craft as a regional newspaper reporter in England, was aiming high. He did
not manage to obtain an interview with his subject; but he did get access to
information about Dylan’s material possessions – seventeen properties in the
United States – the divorce settlement on his first wife, Sara, and his
subsequent marriage to backing singer Carolyn Dennis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elsewhere, Dylan discloses that he owned a
yacht on which he sailed to all the islands in the Caribbean with his family. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of which explains a single line of </span><i><b>I
and I</b><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incidentally, I am not fooling myself that
the Bob Dylan in my pages is the real man. This is <u>my</u> Bob Dylan, as
heard and seen by me in England. To this extent I am just another mother of
invention, a decipherer of intention, on a road which others have taken before
me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That man named Gray linked Dylan’s lyrics
and T S Eliot’s poetry. Eliot’s preoccupation with time in its various guises
in </span><b>Four Quartets </b><span style="font-style: normal;">is one of
Dylan’s themes. In </span><i><b>Restless Farewell</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
the concluding song on </span><i><b>The Times They Are a-Changin’</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, Dylan describes the man-made time of clocks and
watches as </span><i>A false clock<span style="font-style: normal;"> that </span>tries
to tick out my time</i>. <span style="font-style: normal;">In </span><b>Four Quartets</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, Eliot considers the various ways we experience time
and how these experiences inform our understanding of our place in society,
history and civilisation. In the work of both men the past is a living entity
which shapes and pre-figures the future. Space is the medium of sight but time
is the medium of feeling. Dylan, being short-sighted, doesn’t trust too much to
sight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-style: normal;">3: I’LL LET YOU BE IN MY DREAM IF I CAN BE IN YOURS</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Who
in England in 1962 was writing witty songs about Cold War paranoia, daringly
employing a series of comic interludes about the aftermath of a nuclear attack
to punch home a truth about the selfish way we see ourselves? Noel Coward
wasn’t. Neither were Flanders and Swann. The British folk scene would not have
considered nuclear war a suitable subject for comedy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the summer of 1966, a girlfriend played
me </span><i><b>Freewheelin’</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><i><b>The
Times They Are a-Changin’</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i> </i>and, if I
remember rightly, </span><i><b>Bringing It All Back Home</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">. At the time I was listening to Jimi Hendrix, Cream,
The Who, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. These were like mighty electronic
corporations: rich, powerful and all pervasive. Then, into the room walked this
kid with his guitar and harmonica. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the summer of 1966 the Dylan of </span><b><i>Freewheelin’</i>
</b><span style="font-style: normal;">had also moved on, but I was unaware of the
import of his artistic changes then – the Newport Folk Festival of July 1965,
the concert at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in May 1966 when Keele University student
Keith Butler bawled out “<i>Judas!</i>”. I was three years behind the times, but that
turned out to my advantage. Greater familiarity with his work might have made
me a Dylan purist. I might have agreed with those who greeted his electronic
line-up with derision. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I had the advantage of ignorance.
Dylan rapidly broke down my resistance. </span><b><i>Girl From the</i></b> <b><i>North Country</i></b>,
<b><i>Masters of War,</i></b> <b><i>A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> were
self-evidently masterpieces; they struck that hidden chord deep within as soon
as I heard them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, I was not prepared for the
audacious intelligence and comic inventiveness of </span><b><i>Talkin’</i></b> <b><i>World War III
Blues</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. How could anyone so young understand the
human condition so profoundly and put this knowledge into telling words and
music? Dylan seemed so far ahead of the field. Barry McGuire tried to cash in
on the times with </span><b><i>The Eve of Destruction</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,
a song which, artistically, is a thousands miles behind Dylan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The song starts with a conflict between
the narrator and a psychiatrist. The narrator says he has dreamed of surviving
a nuclear war. The shrink at first tells him not to worry about what must be a bad dream and
then declares the boy must be insane. Modern America’s obsession with psychiatry
becomes part of the unfolding comedy. The narrator, subjected to analysis,
sanely recounts a number of bizarre incidents in his dream, each incident
emphasising an aspect of human behaviour under pressure. The psychiatrist
interrupts the narrative, admitting that he has been having the same dream, the
only difference being that he was the sole survivor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan drops his pay-load. </span><i>Everybody
sees themselves/ Walkin’ around with no one else</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
The self-deceiving folly of the mind. Nuclear war remains a policy option only
because of our innate inability to imagine ourselves suffering – the worst
always happens to someone else. Left at that the song would be brilliant. But
Dylan follows up by dead-panly repeating Abraham Lincoln’s Socratic aphorism
about the impossibility of fooling all of the people all of the time. Dylan
then caps this by adding the seemingly throw-away offer: </span><i>I’ll let you be
in my dream if I can be in yours/ Ah, I said</i> <i>that.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
This is not Woody Guthrie but Woody Allen set to music. At the age of 21,
Dylan<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>demonstrated with </span><b><i>Talkin’
World War III Blues</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i> </i></b>that he had an old head on
young shoulders. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This aspect of his character is revealed
in the photograph for the cover of </span><b><i>The Times They Are a-Changin’</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. His head sticks out from the blue collar of his
open-necked shirt like an angry ostrich. Dylan’s grave demeanour has the
seriousness of Humphrey Bogart’s lined and craggy face. On the front of the
later </span><i><b>Highway 61 Revisited</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
however, Dylan looks younger. The brushed back hair, the multi-coloured satin
shirt, the distancing look of scepticism about the eyes and mouth, denote star
quality. He’s a shape-shifter. On the cover of </span><i><b>Desire</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>,</i> the gaunt face and big teeth are reminiscent of
Joan Baez, a member of the <b>Rolling Thunder Revue</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditionally, the folk singer’s art
consisted of telling a tale chronologically in the third person. Dylan changed
all that, first of all with </span><b><i>North Country Blues</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, in which the narrator is a young married woman contemplating a bleak
future in a North American mining town. He went further in </span><i><b>Boots of
Spanish Leather</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, alternating the voices of two
lovers, a man and a woman. The woman is going away to Spain, the man tries to
ease her guilt about leaving him by bidding her to look to the future and to
the new experiences that await her. One consolation he asks for is a pair of
boots of Spanish leather. In </span><i><b>Ballad of Hollis Brown</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and later the complicated </span><b><i>Hurricane</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, Dylan slips inside the mind of his protagonists. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the pounding beat of an acoustic
guitar, representing the thudding heart of <b><i>Hollis Brown</i></b> – and the listener’s –
a set of circumstances are described which culminate in an act of despair. In
the space of three verses, Dylan succeeds in making us aware of the plight of
the poor farmer Hollis Brown, shifting our attention from exterior
circumstances to the desperation in his mind. The man is holding seven shotgun
shells in his hand – one for each member of his family. Then he contemplates
the shotgun on the wall. Next, the shotgun is in his hand, loaded and ready for
firing. But instead of pulling the trigger and describing the carnage, Dylan
shows his maturity as a dramatist by cutting immediately to the horizon and
declaring matter-of-factly: </span><i>Somewhere in the distance, seven new</i> <i>people
are born</i>.<span style="font-style: normal;"> The same situation will be repeated,
Dylan implies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b><i> </i></b></span></span><b><i>Hurricane</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, a song about injustice, is more complicated than</span> <b><i>Hollis
Brow</i></b>n<span style="font-style: normal;">. The song has a band arrangement
including an electric violin. It contains a mass of incidents and several
conflicting points of view. Following the plot demands a good deal of concentration
and working out afterwards. At the centre of the nightmare is the song’s
subject, the black boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, charged with triple murder
and subsequently jailed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan lashes the lyrics through the song
with the same panache as the drummer lashing his cymbals, amply aided by the
driving bass and the electric violin. Folk songs generally contain a fair
amount of repetition. Except for the chorus, there isn’t any in </span>Hurricane<span style="font-style: normal;">. Dylan lays out the complicated circumstances of the
offences, describes the reaction of the police, the culprits and then explains
how Carter got caught up in the tangle. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If </span><b><i>Hurricane</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;">is hard to grasp the first few times, </span><b><i>Tangled
Up in Blue</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> from the much acclaimed </span><i><b>Blood
on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> album is virtually
impossible. Events do not develop chronologically. In what is Dylan’s boldest
experiment in playing with the idea of man-made time, the conflict between the
man and the woman in the song is related out of sequence. The end of the
relationship is described shortly after the song has begun. What follows is a
series of recaptured, re-imagined and perhaps re-invented scenarios – as in a
movie. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan may well have been in </span><b>Renaldo
and Clara</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> mode when he put together </span><b><i>Tangled
Up in Blue</i></b>. <span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan also hops about from first to
second person. Any attempt to make sense of the song logically will probably
lead only to confusion. Although the main tune is immediately catchy and there
are moments of great singing, the song as a whole is not satisfactory. In
concert, Dylan has been known to change the lyrics repeatedly, as though not
satisfied himself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span style="font-style: normal;">4: A FALSE CLOCK</span></b>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Beyond
man-made chronological time, there is no unitary time common to all. The world
of longitude and latitude is divided into time zones. The only time beyond
chronological time is the time of experience, in which the sensation of time
passing externally is relative to interior emotions and feelings. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is time such a persistent theme in
Dylan’s music? It is not an original theme. Ever since Shakespeare and Andrew
Marvell, time, mutability and mortality have been consistent concerns in
English writing. In the </span><b>Crow</b><span style="font-style: normal;">
cycle of poems by Ted Hughes, time becomes death and therefore immortal. A
consideration of time, however, will tell us more about the America, real and
imagined, of Bob Dylan’s music.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider the country he comes from, which
cannot easily be imagined by an Englishman. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From a jet, thirty thousand feet above the
earth, the United States seems to have no beginning and no end, I have been
told. As no landmark in England is more than seventy miles from the sea, the
sheer scale of American geography is both awe-inspiring and alarming. By
comparison, England’s geography is more homely. The distance between Los
Angeles and San Francisco, both in the State of California, is some 400 miles.
That is roughly about the same distance between Land’s End and John O’Groats.
The clover-leaf cluster of lakes in the North East corner of the United States
stretches approximately seven hundred and fifty miles from Lake Superior to
Lake Ontario, or from Duluth, Dylan’s birthplace in Minnesota, to the mouth of
the St Lawrence river. In European terms that is farther than the distance
separating Manchester and Berlin. And yet those four Great Lakes would fit
comfortably into Texas. In the United States, distances are epic. No one should
be surprised, therefore, if other aspects of American culture tend towards the
epic, the larger-than-life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider also the channels of trade,
communication and travel: the rivers, railroads and highways – big themes in
American history, from the travels of Lewis and Clark and the founding of the
Boseman trail from Texas to Kansas to the freedom songs of escaping slaves to
Jack Kerouac, the Beat poets and Bob Dylan, on the road. The US highway system
follows two simple principles: horizontal routes running between west and east
have even numbers, like Route 66. Vertical routes have odd numbers, like
Highway 61, that concrete artery transmitting the very pulse of the country’s
negro spirituals, blues, jazz and folk music, from Memphis in Tennessee, from
Chicago in Illinois, to Hibbing in Minnesota. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul Williams makes the same connection in
his explication of Dylan’s song, </span><b><i>Blind Willie</i></b> <b><i>McTell</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">:-</span> Dylan glances out of the window and sees
this historical tableau, as though he were sitting in Minnesota’s fabulous old
St James’ Hotel gazing with some third or fifth eye all the way down the
Mississippi to the historical vista that lay at the other end decades and
centuries – time and space have been telescoped – ago. Sees it, feels it, and
cries out in pain and despair and a kind of joy which is the liberation
inherent in the blues, the liberation of being able to express and release the
‘<i>oppression of knowledge</i>’ (as John Bauldie calls it)...<b>Blind Willie McTell</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>is, not paradoxically, one of the saddest and
most uplifting songs this listener has ever heard.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan has
said he was not happy with the recording of </span><b><i>Blind Willie McTell</i></b>. <span style="font-style: normal;">Somehow the song did not get “<i>developed</i>,” his word.
Far from sounding like a jazz improvisation on the old tune of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b><i>St </i><i>James’ Infirmary</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>,</i></b> the melody of </span><b><i>Blind Willie McTell</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;">reminds me of an earlier Dylan composition, </span><b><i>If
</i><i>Your Memory Serves You Well</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, or the King
Lear-like</span> <b><i>This Wheel’s on Fire</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, recorded
in Britain by Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger and later used as the theme music
for the BBC television comedy </span><b>Absolutely Fabulous</b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Dylan, reportedly never happy to repeat himself,
may also have been struck by the </span>ships with tattooed sails<span style="font-style: normal;"> image in the song, a reprise from </span><b><i>Gates of
Eden</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>.</i></b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who unconditionally praise America
and those who unconditionally condemn it make the same mistake. They judge the
country from preconceived prejudice or political belief. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although I have not visited the country, I
did not need to read Herman Melville’s novel </span><b>Moby Dick</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, nor Charles Olson’s illuminating critique, <b>Call Me Ishmael</b>, to sense
from Dylan’s songs that the land that he lived in was a great paradox, a land
of conflicting truths. The land of the free is also the country with the
biggest prison population. Libertarians and adventure capitalists salt the
earth of California and Nevada and Shakers, Quakers, Armish and Menonites the
earth of Pennsylvania. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The country is a living biblical parable,
at once capable of inflicting great evil and bestowing great good. It suffers
storms and floods of <b>Old Testament</b> proportions. The America which finally
brought the Indians to their wounded knees in South Dakota in December, 1890,
is also the America whose Dakotas airlifted a greater tonnage of
life-preserving aid into West Berlin in 1948 than the bombs dropped by Flying
Fortresses during World War II. Violence may be as American as blueberry pie,
as a Black Panther leader once observed, but it is also a sanctuary to which
persecuted minorities most commonly emigrate or escape. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bob Dylan’s internal landscape is not
merely personal: it is also historical and musical. It is the historic
landscape of the United States transmuted by art into images, statements and
melodies that are either radiantly clear or darkly ironic. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In </span><b><i>All Along the Watchtower</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, against a stark beat of drums and bass accentuated
by piercing blasts from Dylan’s harmonica, the singer becomes the land of
America. </span>B<i>usinessmen, they drink <u>my</u></i> <i>wine/ Ploughmen dig <u>my</u>
earth</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>.</i> The businessmen and farmers in the song
know the price of things but have lost touch with their intrinsic human worth.
Towards a country grown confused, angry and self-destructive, two riders are
seen approaching out of a stormy skyline. Dylan does not tell us what message
they bring; but he says that the wind – the idiot wind, the blowing wind –
<i>begins to </i></span><i>howl</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Howl as in Allen
Ginsberg’s long anguished Jewish lament of the same name. Howl as in </span><b>King
Lear</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> or </span><b>Four Quartets</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> –</span> <i>The wave cry, the wind cry<span style="font-style: normal;">. </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-style: normal;">5: I MIGHT LOOK LIKE ROBERT FORD, BUT I FEEL JUST LIKE JESSE JAMES</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Is
Bob Dylan a Rock star?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says somewhere that he wanted to be as
a teenager. The first disc he ever cut, </span><b><i>Mixed Up Confusion</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, rocks along </span>fucking loud<span style="font-style: normal;"> although the lyric has a typical Dylan touch: </span><i>Ah,
but I’m </i>lookin’ <i>for a woman/ Whose head’s mixed up like mine</i>...<span style="font-style: normal;">Not a goddess with an Egyptian ring, not an <b><i>Isis</i></b>. At
that time in the mid-to-late 1950s, any kid wanting to come out of Minnesota
and make it as a Rock star probably had in mind as a role model Eddie Cochran,
who will ever be remembered for three great numbers:<b><i> </i></b></span><b><i>C’mon Everybody</i></b>,
<b><i>Summertime Blues</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><b><i>Three Steps to
Heaven<span style="font-style: normal;">. </span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan’s four albums through to 1964 are
dominated by acoustic guitar, harmonica and solo voice. Folk singers travel
light. All but five of the thirty-five numbers on<i> </i></span><i><b>Bringing It All
Back Home</b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></i><b> <i>Highway 61 Revisited</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> and</span><b> <i>Blonde on Blonde</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, which cover the years 1965 and 1966, have a backing
entourage of electric guitars, organ, piano, bass, drums and, on one,
trombones. Must have been wild while it lasted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>D A Pennebaker’s two fly-on-the-wall
rockumentaries. </span><b>Don’t Look Back </b><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span><b>Eat the Document</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, the first in
black and white, the second in colour, catch Dylan at a transitional time. </span><b>Don’t
Look Back</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, much more gripping and truthful
than </span><b>A Hard Day’s Night</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> and
especially</span><b> Help</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, shows Dylan on
stage and back stage during his 1965 tour of England. The film reveals a growing
tension between Dylan’s sense of his audiences’ expectations and his own
creative inclination. His fans want Dylan’s great folk hymns – </span><b><i>Masters
of War</i></b>, <b><i>A Hard Rain</i></b>, <b><i>Blowin’ in the Wind</i></b>, <b><i>The Times They Are</i></b> <b><i>a-Changin’</i></b>. <span style="font-style: normal;">On stage he exhibits weariness, boredom even, with
the songs that have made him famous. </span><b><i>Subterranean Homesick Blues</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;">is rising in the UK singles chart, but Dylan cannot
perform it because he has not brought the musicians with him. He tries out </span><b><i>Mr
Tambourine Man</i></b>, <b><i>Gates of Eden,</i></b> <b><i>It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding</i></b>) and <b><i>It’s
All Over Now Baby Blue</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>,</i></b> but these acoustic
classics do not readily fit in the category of protest song with which folk
music is associated. </span><b>Eat the Document</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, the film of the 1966 tour of England, shows the Dylan who was waiting
to appear on </span><i><b>Blonde on Blonde</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> –
the prince of darkness from New York’s demi-monde. During the filming of </span><b>Don’t
Look Back</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> Dylan’s entourage were
responsible for the safe-keeping of his cane. A bullwhip had preceded the cane
and was in evidence at the 1965 Newport Festival. In 1966 Dylan did not need
any circus devices. He had a whiplash tongue; fresh-faced irony was turning
into Siamese-eyed malice. The trusty old serge work shirts had been replaced by
silk and leather, suede and polkadots and backcombed hair. The folk purists
busily booing Dylan for betraying their expectations were deaf to the things
that had not changed: Dylan’s wit and wonderful humour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b><i> </i></b></span></span><b><i>Bob Dylan’s 115<sup>th</sup> Dream</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> on </span><b><i>Bringing It All Back Home</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, scarcely discussed by most of his biographers, is a
sustained, picaresque, satirical masterpiece in which Dylan superimposes modern
America on the America discovered by Christopher Columbus. Dylan has great fun
playing games with the language: </span>ban the bombs<span style="font-style: normal;"> is enunciated as </span>ban the bums<span style="font-style: normal;">;
the </span>harpoons <span style="font-style: normal;">carried ashore by the
ship’s crew are in modern parlance hypodermic syringes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On </span><i><b>Highway 61 Revisited</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, the song </span><b><i>Tombstone Blue</i></b>s<span style="font-style: normal;">, a fast Rock number, contains one of Dylan’s
funniest, wittiest responses to the tough guy image perpetrated by a part of
American culture: </span><i>I wish I could give Brother Bill his great thrill/ I
would set him in chains at the top of the hill/ Then send out for some pillars
and Cecille B DeMille/ He could die, hap-pily, ever
after</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>. </i>This ranks with the verse on Dylan’s earlier
</span>Bob Dylan’s Blues<span style="font-style: normal;">:- </span><i>Well, lookit
here buddy/ You wanna be like me/ Pull</i> <i>out your six shooter/ And rob every bank
you can see/ Tell the judge I said it was all right. Yeah.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="font-style: normal;">By the
time </span><i><b>Blonde on Blonde</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> was
released, the fuss had largely died down. Protestors had started to worry more
about what the US was doing in Vietnam than what Dylan was doing with an
electric guitar strapped across his shoulders. But nobody, nobody, expected a
double album. Except for operas and musicals like <i><b>Oklahoma!</b></i> double albums were
unheard of in the Tin Pan Alley world of the two-and-a-half minute 45. There
was another shock lying in wait for those easily shocked. One entire side of
the second album was taken by a single song,<b><i> </i></b></span><b><i>Sad Eyed Lady of the
Lowlands</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i> </i></b>(years later the British band Alabama
Three put out a song called </span><b><i>Sad Eyed Lady of the Low Life</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>)</i></b>. Most Dylan fans tend to think of </span><b><i>Sad Eyed
Lady of the Lowlands</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> as Dylan’s biggest song.
In fact, </span>S<b><i>tuck Inside of </i><i>Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>,</i></b> at ninety-nine lines, is almost twice as long as </span><b><i>Sad
Eyed Lady</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, which is sixty-five lines long.
Incidentally, </span><b><i>Visions of Johanna</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> has
fifty lines. For those interested in longevity, </span><b><i>Brownsville Girl</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, co-written with playwright Sam Shepard, is
eighty-seven lines long; some of the lines are very long indeed. All in all, </span><b><i>Blonde
on Blonde</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is Dylan taking his words for a
drag round the amphetamine lofts and heroin stables of hip mid-Sixties New
York. The songs are sound pictures of the artful world he was passing through
which was passing through his brain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">So
is Dylan really a folk singer?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kid who grew up not far from Thief
River in Minnesota certainly swiped a lot of traditional folk tunes for his
early compositions. He was still doing it at the time of </span><i><b>John Wesley
Harding</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for the song </span><i><b>I Dreamed I Saw
St Augustine</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> – a variation on the folk ballad
about socialist martyr Joe Hill. But as Bono says on </span><b><i>The Fly</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, <i>every poet is a thief.</i> T S Eliot borrowed freely
from the entire canon of Western European literature as well as Eastern
philosophy. Eliot does not stand accused as a plagiarist because within the
context in which these borrowed lines appear they sound as though Eliot would
have said them. He, doubtless in his own defence, declared that absolute
originality was absolutely bad because it carried no echo from the past. Anyone
not attuned to the voices of the past was unlikely to have anything worthwhile
to say beyond the age of twenty-five, he added for good measure. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time that Dylan was twenty-five he
had reached the summit of popular music. He had redefined the craft of
song-writing and along the way had broken many taboos. The length of a song was
now up to the artist. The way he or she wrote about love owed so much to
Dylan’s uncompromising versatility. </span>It<b><i> Ain’t Me Babe</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>I Don’t Believe You <span style="font-style: normal;">(</span>She Acts Like We Never Have</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>Met)</i></b>,
</span><b><i>To Ramona</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><b><i>It’s All Right, Don’t
Think Twice</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, liberated the love song from its
traditional girl-meets-boy format. But he knew his craft. His repertoire of
traditional folk, blues and ballads was enormous. Years later, the story goes,
he defeated Van Morrison in an impromptu contest in a Dublin bar, being able to
sing more traditional Irish songs than the great Van himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Eliot, Dylan is gifted with the
ability to take sounds from the past and transmute them into something modern
and vital strictly for his own purposes. Making the original sound familiar
takes genius, I would say. The quest for authenticity drives some would-be
writers into private ingenuity. What Dylan adds to past tradition is his own
unique wit, intelligence and eagle-eyed seriousness. Take the song </span><b><i>Only
a Pawn in Their Game</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. No one but Dylan could
have taken the murder of black civil rights activist Medgar Evers and turned it
into a lament for poor white trash racists who blame the blacks. Everything
comes down to the games people play. Dylan’s songs were hip to these games, the
</span>rules of the road<span style="font-style: normal;">, as he called them on </span><b><i>It’s
All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)</i></b>. <span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan’s later
career is marked by awareness of and penitence for his own mind-games. The born
again Dylan ignored the contents of </span><i><b>Blonde on Blonde</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for years although this double album, with its silk
and steel edges, contains a good deal of great music.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Goshdarn
it then, is Bobby Zee a country singer?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, that’s him tipping his hat all
neighbourly and countrified on the howdy cover of </span><b><i>Nashville Skyline</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. He’s notched up his voice too, singing in a kind of
varnished tenor. He cuts a breezier, easier, more wholesome line. The cynical
slurring that characterises the basement style of </span><b><i>Blonde on Blonde</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> has vanished. Dylan’s purified country voice was
first heard on </span><i><b>John Wesley Harding</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>,</i>
but the unfamiliar vocal sound was attributed to neck injuries sustained from
his alleged motor cycle accident. The song that everyone remembers from </span><i><b>Nashville
Skyline</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is the soupy </span><b><i>Lay, Lady Lay.</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> Women especially like this. It is without doubt one
of the six songs for which Dylan will be remembered by the general public; the
others are: </span><b><i>Blowin’ in the Wind<span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></i></b>
<b><i>The Times They Are </i></b>a<b><i>-Changin’</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>Like a
Rolling Stone</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><i>Tangled Up in Blue</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Dylan should have got a movie Oscar for </span><b><i>Knockin’ On Heaven’s
Door</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> – far more stirring, universal and
memorable than </span><b><i>Things Have Changed</i></b>. <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b>Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> was a better film too, although Dylan should have
played the part of Billy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time of </span><i><b>Nashville Skyline</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Rock music generally was halfway down suicide road.
Those who weren’t bent on blitzing their minds with drink, drugs and wild wild
women, for the entertainment of their public, took to re-evaluating their
careers, their lives. John Lennon was exploring his mangled sub-conscious and
learning to scream in public for his mummy and daddy. Progressive Rock was
about to zoom off into the superstar stratosphere of concept albums and Rock
operas. </span><i><b>Nashville Skyline</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>
</i>emphasised the virtues of a simpler, cleaner lifestyle. Dylan was not
preaching, merely celebrating coming home, having a wife and family of his own,
being out of the rat race. He was, remember, a boy from the North country. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some Dylan hagiographers proclaimed in
Rock journals that Dylan had rescued American country music from the doldrums.
Dylan would have had to go a long way to outdo Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline and
Johnny Cash, let alone Hank Williams. He may have revived interest in country
at a time when everything was heavy Rock; but I do not believe that the genre
underwent renewal, thanks to Bobby Zee. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I have no doubt that Dylan knew
and deeply valued the traditions of country music in all its forms. In 1986, he
was reported as saying that he would rather listen to a record by Bill Monroe,
the accredited father of Bluegrass, than to any other type of record released
in the United States. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>“</i></span><i>It’s what America is all about</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,” he said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Perhaps
Dylan is a bit Tex-Mex, then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never say so within a hundred feet of my
hearing. He dabbled in it for a while, following the filming of Sam Peckinpah’s
</span><b>Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid</b><span style="font-style: normal;">
down in Durango; but that kind of trumpeting yodel – </span><i>Hot chilli peppers
in the blistering sun</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> – was an artistic error
of judgement. </span><b><i>Street Legal</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">
contains the last few strains of this style, most notably in the song<b><i> </i></b></span><b><i>Senor:
Tales of Yankee </i><i>Power</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>,</i></b> a strong melody but
nowhere near as good a song as some have claimed. </span><b><i>Romance in </i><i>Durango</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is one of Dylan’s regrettable songs, with the
inevitable </span><i>cantinas</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">and</span> <i>seno</i>ritas<span style="font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a
style of music he would have ridiculed during his dark prince of the demi-monde
days in New York City. Jingling spurs, leather chaps and tequila sundowners are
camply gypsy. I feel like shouting: “<i>Take the flowers out of your hatband</i>!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan is too much of a natural-born
surrealist to sound convincing as a knife-throwing outlaw down in old Mexico. </span><i>How
many ears must one man have, before he hears people cry</i>?<span style="font-style: normal;"> Indeed. Only a gifted imagination could have pitched the question in
that new and startling way. No, no, Angelina, the man who can make you see a
solitary table at the edge of an ocean is neither a country hick nor a
gratuitous wetback. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">So
what is the real Bob Dylan?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone seeking to delineate the one and
only Bob Dylan is bound to stumble and fall among a maze of tracks. Joan Baez
says she was never able to figure him out. Dylan himself said he was no
respecter of mere fact. Martin Scorsese’s documentary contains archive material
of a radio interview in New York, between 1961 and 1963, in which Dylan says he
was raised in Gallup, New Mexico. He told Scorsese that when he first heard the
songs of Woody Guthrie he felt as though he had been born to the wrong parents.
Liam Clancy declared that Dylan was born to be a receiver who could in turn
articulate things that everybody wanted to put into words but could not. Allen
Ginsberg, in an archive film, said that upon hearing </span><b><i>A Hard Rain</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> he wept. The torch had been passed, he said, to a
younger generation. Dylan was able to objectify subjective experience that was
not his own. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is an amalgam of American musical
culture embodying John Jacob Niles, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Huddy
Leadbelly, Dave Van Ronk, Rambling Jack Elliott, Ric Von Schmidt, Odetta,
Howlin’ Wolf, the logger rhythms of lonesome Hank Williams and hundreds more.
Let’s just say that Bob Dylan is a gift, a fiery angel come to stir us up. Why
not? What matters is the music, the wealth of it, the best of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Factual information can cast little or no
light upon the inspirational songs he felt moved to write, simultaneously
professing to Joan Baez that he had no idea what these songs were about. And
yet when asked that very question by an unwary journalist, Dylan replied that
his songs were about<i> six</i> <i>minutes, eleven minutes.</i> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can rasp across your mind like an
avenging angel or breeze into your ear like a country zephyr. Dylan knows what
it is to be both Robert Ford and Jesse James – the betrayer and the betrayed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"></span><b><span style="font-style: normal;">6: IT AIN’T ME BABE</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Rock
star, folk singer, snake in the Blue Grass, gringo in Durango, surrealist,
Christian Jew or Jewish Christian: take all the various Dylans together and
what have we got? A polyglot melting pot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a word: America. A land of many
peoples, tongues, backgrounds and expectations. Small-minded Europeans look
down their noses at the gross of America, wondering how a bunch of
burger-bloated, gum-chewing Homer Simpsons managed to land a man on the moon.
Purists forget that America is both Sodom and Gomorra and Jerusalem. Millions
of persecuted Europeans have been glad to call America home. To them it must
seem like the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey, opportunity and money.
Their Jordan river was the Atlantic ocean. Dylan’s antecedents were Russian
Jews.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the world’s poor huddled masses
retain folk memories of their place of origin, American music readily lends
itself to the expression of feelings of displacement and alienation. Spirituals
and the blues commonly dramatise a sense of estrangement and a desire for what
Blind Willie Johnson called </span>the city of refuge<span style="font-style: normal;">. America has been Bob Dylan’s inexhaustible source book.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The North Country’s wide open spaces in
summer, closed in by snow during winter, sang to his boyish ears. In New York
City the ceaseless babel of the its population excited his imagination. The
nobility of sunlit canyons and monumental mountains struck a chord. One of the songs
not included on </span><i><b>Nashville Skyline</b></i> <span style="font-style: normal;">is</span>
<b><i>Wanted Man</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> in which Dylan exercises his
ingenuity in a litany of American place names:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i>Wanted man in
Albuquerque, wanted man in Syracuse</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wanted man in
Tallahassee, wanted man in Baton Rouge</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s somebody set
to grab me anywhere that I might be</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And wherever you
might look tonight, you might get a glimpse of me...</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan once summed up the true meaning of his
minstrelsy as the </span><i>unwindin’ of my happiness</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Taken as a whole, his 500 songs amount to a many-faceted song of America.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inhabitants of God’s own country
sometimes carry on as though they are indestructible. Pride begets vanity and
conceit. If vanity comes down to uncritical self-love, conceit is the
projection of that belief on to an imagined audience. Americans believe they
are the best and make the mistake of thinking that the rest of the world shares
their belief. Truth comes as a rude awakening. In the old days black Americans
sang about death and Heaven, giving perspective to the troubles of this life.
With the end of the Cold War, however, Americans carried on as though they were
going to live forever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan’s </span><b><i>Disease of Conceit</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> mockingly observes the American mind contemplating
its own importance. Accompanying himself on an old time jangly piano, plenty of
back echo for effect, Dylan muses in an enthralled whisper on the sad futility
all around him:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i>There’s a whole lot of
people suffering tonight from the disease of conceit,</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whole lotta people in trouble
tonight from the disease of conceit...</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
country, the world, is full of sad bastards, lonely egotists, who think they
only need someone else to share and reflect their self-love and everything in
the garden will be all right. We look at our reflection and cannot imagine the
world without us. We think we’re too good to die, to disappear into a
loveless nothingness. This is the mentality of people who only see themselves
in man-made time, outside historical time, God’s time. A world full of people
who see themselves </span><i>walkin’ around with no one else<span style="font-style: normal;">. </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t look back. Lot’s wife did not heed
this warning and was turned into a pillar of salt. Just like a woman, you might
say. This cautionary tale has served Dylan well. Remembering how things used to
be is harmless enough; but judging someone by how they used to be, how we
choose to remember them, is not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More than most, Dylan has been the victim
of retrospective wishful thinking. An artist does not want to be judged, he
wants to be heard, felt, seen, understood perhaps. Throughout his protean
career Dylan has been judged by what he used to be. </span><b><i>Mr Tambourine Man</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is a weary psalm on the theme of deliverance in
which the singer craves to be allowed to </span>forget about today until
tomorrow<span style="font-style: normal;">. Artistically, Dylan was going through
changes very fast when he recorded this song in the summer of 1965. Though hip
to the ploys of Madison Avenue marketing men, the growing weight of expectation
on his shoulders from his record company, his manager, his fans, must have been
hard to bear. One way or another all of these people saw in Dylan the
embodiment of their hopes, their dreams, their fantasies. One French magazine
hailed him as the new god. Dylan was a bull market in which everyone wanted a
stake.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Dylan in whom everyone was
investing had moved on. The Dylan which the British public saw and heard in
concert in 1965 was the Dylan of 1963. While their ears were tingling to </span><b><i>Don’t
Think Twice</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><b><i>A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>Masters of War</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span><b><i>The Times Are a-Changin’</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><b><i>Only a
Pawn in Their Game</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i> </i></b>and </span><b><i>It Ain’t Me Babe</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, Dylan was busy being born again with an electric
guitar in his hands. He was already experimenting with other ways of singing
and performing when he toured England, barely able to stop yawning on stage as
he goes through his acoustic repertoire to adoring audiences who, in turn, are
observed by astonished reporters. The latter had only just accustomed
themselves to the phenomenon of Beatlemania. Now they had to explain and
account for the attentive silence that greeted Dylan’s songs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A year later, back with a five-piece band,
Dylan was back to a chorus of boos wherever he went; hardened folkies accused
him of selling out to commercial Rock ‘n’ Roll. “</span><i>Aw, c’mon now...this is</i>
<i>American music</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,” Dylan pleaded. They didn’t
like his music, even less they liked his voice. The pure, clear-throated,
swooping and soaring of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his first four
albums was low-pitched and slurring. Dylan sounded like a stoned piano-player
in a New Orleans bordello. The clean-cut kid had gone. In 1965 he wore a
leather jacket like a coat of sin. In 1966, wearing his two-tone
check-patterned suit, Dylan lisped his New York parables at these bewildered
audiences. This was another side of Bob Dylan they had not expected. Was Dylan
ahead of the times or were his admirers just too far behind, stuck in the
past?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of Dylan’s songs contain a
protagonist, an opponent. The flourishing Dylan industry speculated on the
real-life identity of their prodigy’s latest truth attack in </span><b><i>Positively
4<sup>th</sup> Street</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><b><i>It’s All </i><i>Over Now
Baby Blue</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><b><i>Ballad of a Thin Man</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But none of
these songs would mean an iota more if we knew because we would have to know
personally the suggested contenders – Joan Baez, Max Jones. Instead of this
futile exercise, trying thinking of a composite person, a universal Everyman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan is often said to be elusive as
though this was his definitive characteristic. I think he is allusive, too much
so at times for me (does anyone understand </span><b><i>Jokerman</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">?). He pitches his truths and meanings beyond
datelines, deadlines, the particularities of time, place and circumstance. Fans
do not readily understand the artistic process. Hero-worship makes time stand
still. To an artist, however, stasis is creative death. He must move with the
spirit that moves him, but it is neither his job nor his obligation to explain
this. That is what critics are for. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Dylan had told that Gerde’s Folk City
audience of 1961 that he was “</span><i>consciously trying to recapture the rude
beauty of a Southern field-hand musing in melody on his porch</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,” the effect would have been embarrassing and
ridiculous. Robert Shelton wrote that and, in the context of his <b>New</b> <b>York Times</b>
review, it made sense. Shelton prepares you for the panache and comic genius of
a new talent. But fans do not like critics; a fan’s pleasure is irreducible,
not to be examined and analysed. An artist who panders to the expectations of
his fans is doomed to be a hostage to their likes and dislikes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prophet, guru, voice of his generation,
shape-shifter, visionary, mystic, the new god: right from the start Dylan
eschewed the labels that others stuck on him. I would like to think this was
because he knew the worth of the work of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, the wondrous
Pete Seeger and others, that surrounded him. Fans resort to adjectives when
they are unable to explain the cause of their emotions. Without being overtly
flip or arch, Dylan was able to ramble round the interior of the mind and
expose its self-deluding tricks; he could shine this light into the darkest
corners of society and history and make of his experiences stories for all to
understand. Long before he was famous he was hip to the danger of
hero-worship:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i>Lookit here
buddy, you wanna be like me?</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pull out your six
shooter</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and rob every bank you
can see.</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tell the judge I said it
was all right. Yeah.</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<b><span style="font-style: normal;">7: I CAN’T THINK FOR YOU, YOU’LL HAVE TO DECIDE</span></b><span style="font-style: normal;"></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
climax of the 1985 American Live Aid concert climaxed with Bob Dylan top of the
bill. An unhappy choice in the circumstances. Jack Nicholson was invited on
stage to make the introduction. The acclamation he accorded Dylan – “</span><i>America’s
great voice of freedom</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” – jarred then and still
does. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Californian actor’s idea of freedom
and Dylan’s are likely to be two very different things. Nicholson, famous for
playing dysfunctional existential types in movies such as </span><b>Five Easy
Pieces</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> and</span><b> One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, is the jolly sybarite, a
self-confessed hedonist in whose kitchen one of his female conquests found
seven types of vodka. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan the artist has always been a
moralist; even when doing his best to sound like a libertine on </span><i><b>Blonde
on Blonde</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> the note of judgement still
gleams on the edge of his voice. In the mid-1980s he was calling down God’s
wrath to crush the unrighteous. Twenty years earlier he sang:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i>Now I’m liberal,
but to a degree</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want ev’rybody to
be free</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you think
that I’ll let Barry Goldwater</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Move in next door
and marry my daughter</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You must think I’m crazy!</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wouldn’t let him
do it for all the farms in Cuba.</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
freedom which Dylan’s music celebrates is the freedom to be one’s self – not
the freedom to do whatever one likes. It is authenticity he hungers for, not
indulgence. To thine own self be true is a constant theme. Beyond the pleasure
principle, the self is the guardian of the conscience. The born again Dylan
looks upon conscience as God’s tuning fork. Conformity, an early Dylan target,
is an obstacle that must be overcome.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b><i>Like a Rolling Stone</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>Positively 4<sup>th</sup> Street</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> and</span> <b><i>Desolation Row</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> each address the accusation of betrayal – a familiar situation for
Dylan after he went electric. The first song is a howl of triumph. The un-named
protagonist, once in a position to judge and mock, is now out of luck, out of
fashion and evidently out on the streets. </span><i>How does it feel</i>?<span style="font-style: normal;"> Dylan asks repeatedly. The question is rhetorical:
the singer, the erstwhile </span><i>Napoleon in rags</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
knows how it feels to </span>be <i>a complete unknown</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span>without a home<span style="font-style: normal;">. The tables have turned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b><i> </i></b></span></span><b><i>Positively 4<sup>th</sup> Street</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is another way of saying this sucks. It is
proclaimed as Dylan’s cruellest song because the protagonist is assumed to be
one person, a former friend. The song’s tempo is deceptively upbeat. Dylan
sings, to my ears at least, with exasperation rather than malice. Dylan refutes
the charges against him by examining the motives of the accuser. He
acknowledges their disastisfaction with their place in society but says doing
something about it is not the singer’s problem. Another target is presumption,
pretending to possess knowledge that one does not have.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b><i> </i></b></span></span><b><i>Desolation Row</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is like a final summation. Against a pattern of
bass, acoustic guitars and what sounds like a plucked harp, Dylan launches into
this epic with the mordant observation that postcards of hangings are now on
sale, sailors fill the beauty parlours, the circus is in town. He then proceeds
to pan his mind’s camera along a vast parade, a madis gras of freaks and fallen
heroes outside Desolation Row – the place, the condition, of ultimate reality
where wisdom abides. <b><i>Desolation Row</i></b> validates the learned wisdom of real
experience over mere knowledge, a theme of </span><b><i>Gates of Eden</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><b><i>Ballad of a Thin Man</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. In the latter song the imagined inquisitor, it
could be a reporter, is portrayed as a hapless voyeur, peering into realities
he does not understand and wondering how he is going to explain it when he gets
back to the safety of his home. There is more sneering in this song than there
is in </span><b><i>Positively 4<sup>th</sup> Street</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan perceives a gulf between those who dare
to live and those who live to trade in knowledge or gossip which leads to
idolatry and conceit. In Dylan’s imaginary tableau of real and fictional heroes
and heroines, their symbolic significance is contrasted with what is really
going on in <b><i>Desolation Row.</i></b> </span><i>I know no truths and I don’t have answers
for anyone</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, Dylan wrote on an album cover.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dylan’s songs might indeed be the
unwinding of his happiness, but the movement is usually outward and includes
the wider world. He is a time-traveller through the mental landscape of the
United States as formed by its culture, its history, its people. His ability to
get inside the mind of his protagonist has always marked him out as an original
and exceptional sensibility. If this sensibility makes him difficult in real
life then that is the price that has to be paid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone once said of </span><i><b>John Wesley
Harding</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> that the final two songs were
pleasant but that overall he preferred the songs that were apocalyptic. After
Dylan embraced Christianity he was wont to address his audiences, warning them
that the world was in the end time, that judgement was coming (like a train)
whether they were ready or not. Again, he was heckled and booed. He was
undeterred. Christian or Jew, believer or lapsed sceptic, Dylan’s temperament
has something of the apocalyptic about it. Dylan was more inclined to accept
the description of prophet in the late1970s and early years of the decade that
followed because the word had lost its glamour. In these dark times a prophet
implied a wilderness. Also, was it not true that Dylan was not honoured in his
own land at that time? He went stomping round the country like Bob the Baptist,
warning people to wake up. He was a modern day Paul Revere travelling through
the land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Warning of what? Ultimate doom, of course.
And, as always, the danger of feeling betrayed. People who feel betrayed nurse
destructive anger and they seek revenge. And no one feels more betrayed than a
fan, a patriot, a lover, a friend, a family member. The world is full of sad
and dangerous people who feel let down because they live vicariously through
others and are encouraged to do so by the media.<i> </i></span><b><i>Like a Rolling Stone</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> carries the warning:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i>You’ve never understood
that it ain’t no good</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You shouldn’t let other people
get your kicks for you...</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Mark
Chapman was John Lennon’s biggest fan, until the moment he felt betrayed and
decided to seek revenge. Lennon paid with his life for Chapman’s disatisfaction
with his particular position and his place. Dylan’s categorical imperative has
always been: think for yourself and take responsibility for the words that you
use. Even under the rule of God, Dylan cannot cease struggling to assert his
autonomy:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i>This time I’m asking for
my freedom</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freedom from a world which you
deny</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you’ll give it to me now</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll take it anyhow</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the night comes falling
from the sky</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Dylan speaks his truth in images in the way
that Christ speaks his truth in parables, it is incumbent on Dylan’s
self-appointed disciples to do a little thinking for themselves. The fan who
regards Dylan’s work as a set of symbols leading to ultimate wisdom is probably
suffering from mania. Dylan’s work symbolises nothing but the artist’s historic
quest to convert real or imagined experiences into rhythm, rhyme and metaphor.
What may be dying is our ability to respond to symbol and metaphor and to
differentiate them from daily life. The fan who demands the same thing from
life that he gets from art is heading for one of two places: a cell in a
monastery or a cell in a prison.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-style: normal;">8: BLOOD ON THE TRACKS</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Most
Dylan fans and those not so enthusiastic about his music would probably agree
that </span><b><i>Blood on the Tracks</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is among
his most compelling albums. I disagree. Given a choice between that and, say, </span><i><b>Planet
Waves</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, I would choose the latter. With all
its flaws, these exhilarating recollections of his youth among the Lake
Superior hills still provoke a hair-tingling thrill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i><b>Blood on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> was greeted with almost universal acclaim in 1975
and, looking back five years, it is easy to understand why that was so. The
album arrived in the UK with reports of an unusual series of concerts in the
United States. Dylan was back on stage with a host of friends, cronies and
side-kicks from his past – Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Scarlet Rivera, the
electric violinist, David Blue, and many others. What’s more, they were rolling
from town to town in a coupe of buses, stopping at small venues and putting on
impromptu shows. This story did not quite match up with another one, that
tickets for the <b>Rolling Thunder Revue</b> had sold out in advance almost
immediately, thus lessening the spontaneity implicit in the first story.
Whatever the truth, Dylan was on the move again, this time wearing slap and
flowers in a big white stetson. On a more personal note, Dylan’s marriage was
said to be on the rocks if not completely wrecked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Naturally, most people assumed that </span><i><b>Blood
on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i> </i>must be a blow-by-blow
account of lost love from Dylan’s point of view. The album’s title was not
merely a metaphor but close to the literal truth. Well, that is how I heard it
at the time. I do not hear that now because I no longer listen to any of it. Of
the songs which impressed me thirty years ago – </span><b><i>Tangled Up in Blue</i></b><i><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></i> <b><i>Simple Twist of Fate</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <i><b>You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>Idiot Wind</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><i>Shelter From the Storm</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;">– the last one and the latter part of<b><i> </i></b></span><b><i>Idiot Wind</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i> </i></b>would still have the capacity to thrill, I think.
The playing throughout is of a high quality; Dylan sings his best songs with
passion, wit and panache. But for me there is something maudlin that wearies me
now. Stronger passions are mingled with cajoling sentimentality that, in 1965,
Dylan would have deleted at an early stage. People either like this looseness
or, after the novelty has worn off, can’t help but compare it unfavourably with
the overall mastery of </span><b><i>Blonde on Blonde</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>.</i></b> I especially dislike the note of special pleading in the singing on </span><b>You’re
Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go</b><span style="font-style: normal;">. It is as if
Dylan is trying to mitigate the harshness elsewhere on the album, particularly
the searingly accusative </span><b><i>Idiot Wind</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. I
think </span><b><i>If You See Her Say </i><i>Hello</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> should
not even be on the album. </span><b><i>You’re a Big Girl Now</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> is ever so slightly sardonic. It is a vehicle for Dylan to try to come
to terms with the big kiss off. The hip genius who declared </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i>All the rules of
the road have been lodged,</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s only people’s games
that you got to dodge...</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">had
been caught out. Dylan has dealt with this theme of emotional rejection before
and, in my view, much more successfully. </span><b><i>Don’t Think Twice<span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></i></b> <b><i>Most Likely You Go Your Wa</i></b>y<span style="font-style: normal;">,</span> <b><i>To Ramona</i><i><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span>
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">and the defiant</span><b><i> It Ain’t Me Babe</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">.
In these songs the referential possibilities are free of any definitive
association: Dylan could be singing about one person or many. I prefer that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b>Blood on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is Dylan caught in a period of transition,
artistically speaking. He is up<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
something but quite what does not become clear until his next album, </span><i><b>Desire</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">. </span><i><b>Blood on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> was on general release when Dylan reportedly
returned to the recording studio to re-take five tracks including </span><b><i>Tangled
Up in Blue</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Paul Williams, who has attended
more Dylan concerts than most Dylan commentators, said he had heard at least
three radically different versions of </span><b><i>Tangled Up in</i></b> <b>Blue</b><span style="font-style: normal;">. This indicates to me that Dylan was not happy with
the structure of the song. He told an interviewer that he saw it as a kind of
painting with events removed from time and place and edited into a different
sequence. In a Chagall painting, the figures frequently defy the laws of
physics by flying about or standing on the edge of high places. The break-up of
the relationship occurs in the second verse. Thereafter, Dylan tries to escape
the constraints of the straight narrative by messing about with grammar -
changing tenses and persons. None of which sits well with the more
straight-forward </span><b><i>You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">. Even the way Dylan tries to inflect a little irony
in the word </span>lonesome<span style="font-style: normal;"> doesn’t quite come
off. Instead, the intonation is rueful. </span><b><i>Tangled Up</i></b> <i><b>in Blue</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> sits even less well with the dire </span><b><i>If You See
Her Say Hello</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> with lines such as:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span><i>If you get close to
her, kiss her once for me</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Always have
respected her for busting out and getting free...</i><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Compare
that with the mounting wrath of </span><b><i>Idiot Wind</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span><i>There’s a lone soldier on the cross,
smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it
could be done, in the final end he won the war</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After losing every battle...</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan’s
at his best when he’s apocalyptic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evidently </span><i><b>Blood on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> got him moving again. The experience of swinging his
way across America with a band of friends loosened him up for the much more joyous
</span><i><b>Desire</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Whereas </span><b><i>John</i>
<i>Wesley Harding</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> leaves you on the edge of a
dark plain waiting<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for a message out of
the wilderness, </span><i><b>Blood on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">
leaves you slumped in introspective melancholy thinking about your own divorce.
</span><i><b>Desire</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> makes you want to get off
your arse. Dylan sings and plays with the conviction of a man who has
rediscovered the source of his exuberance and is free once again to tap into
it. The maroon gloom of </span><i><b>Blood on the Tracks</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"> has been replaced with variegated colours. No, this
is not exactly the Dylan of </span><b><i>Freewheelin</i>’</b><span style="font-style: normal;"> or</span><b> <i>Blonde on Blonde</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">;
this is another Dylan. True to his foolish mission Dylan has succeeded in
keeping a step ahead of himself, the self that belongs to the past, the self
that is idolised by folk groupies and acid rock freaks. </span><b><i>Desire</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">owes a good deal to the writer Jacques Levy with whom
Dylan closely co-operated on the lyrics. Levy brought to the writing of </span><b><i>Hurricane</i></b>
<span style="font-style: normal;">the freshness and vigour of street vernacular –<i>
</i></span><i>pig circus</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, meaning a farce,</span> <i>heat</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, meaning the police, </span><i>they want to put his ass
in stir</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>,</i> meaning prison, </span><i>with no idea of
what kind of shit was about</i> <i>to go down</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, meaning
trouble that was coming his way. Then there is the way Dylan enunciates words
and phrases, most memorably:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i>They want to pin
this triple mur-</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>der on him, he ain’t no
Gentleman Jim</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">as
in Gentleman Jim Corbett, a white boxer of the old days who was reportedly a
racist. In the song </span><b><i>Sara</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> the elusive
Zimm actually refers to his back catalogue, telling the world how one of his
masterpieces was written:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span><i>Staying up for days in
the Chelsea Hotel</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Writing Sad Eyed Lady of
the Lowlands for You</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Although
this admission does not provide the key to the song’s mystery, hearing Dylan
come out with it was thrilling at the time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-style: normal;">9: HOW MANY EARS MUST ONE MAN HAVE?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Bob
Dylan’s most important instrument is his voice. Setting aside the periods in
the past 45 years when Dylan’s voice has been more like nose singing and face
pulling, he has always put great emphasis on the sound he wanted to create -
the swooping humour and seriousness of </span><i><b>Freewheelin’</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="font-style: normal;">the throaty slurring cynicism of </span><i><b>Blonde on
Blonde</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, the fresh country-style tenor of </span><b><i>John
Wesley</i> <i>Harding</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i><b>Nashville
Skyline</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Assume, if you will, Dylan’s voice
at its strongest, clearest, most understandable – at least to English ears.
Given that, you still mis-hear certain words and phrases.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take that thrilling anthem </span><b><i>Chimes
of Freedom</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> in which Dylan, trapped in a New
York doorway by a terrific thunder storm, imagines Heaven tolling out
absolution and redemption for all the wretched of the earth. He appears to sing
</span><i>midnight’s broken toe</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a fantastic image
for the crippled landscape of New York in a storm. Disappointingly, however,
the actual phrase is </span><i>midnight’s broken</i> <i>toll</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
an altogether less graphic image. In the same song he sings that <i>the </i></span><i>sky
cracked its palms in naked wonder</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>.</i> When I first
heard that I felt like leaping up in affirmation of a marvellously original
image. Dylan’s official lyric book, however (itself full of errors), has the
more obviously poetical and less poetic </span><i>cracked its poem</i>s<i> in naked
wonder<span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My heart nearly broke when I found out
that in </span><i><b>Visions of Johanna</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, in which
Dylan tries to preserve the memory of a woman he has lost against the spite of
the woman he is with, the magnificent </span>the harmonica<i> plays the skeleton
keys of the rain</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> was in fact </span>the
skeleton keys <i>and</i> the rain<span style="font-style: normal;">. My mind had fused
the two images into one because </span>skeleton keys<span style="font-style: normal;"> instantly struck me as such an evocative image for the mood of the
song. The sound of rain hitting skylights, lofts, falling in silver streaks
down the dark canyons of nocturnal New York City like the quality of mercy,
drumming rooftops, an obligato unlocking guarded emotions. It’s all there. How
could Dylan not make the same connection? </span>The harmonica <i>plays the
skeleton keys of the rain</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> coheres perfectly
with the mood of the song whereas </span>the <i>harmonica plays the skeleton keys
and the rain</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><i> </i>is descriptive, poetical, but
nonsensical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the same song the most commonly
mis-heard line is the description of Louise, the woman in the same room as the
singer. Most hear it as </span><i>she’s delicate and seems like veneer</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. The real simile is </span><i>she’s delicate and seems
like the mirro</i>r<span style="font-style: normal;">. In my opinion the latter
image, denoting smoothness, artificiality, self-regard, is hackneyed. </span>Delicate<span style="font-style: normal;"> and</span> veneer <span style="font-style: normal;">are
better matched because veneer is artificial, decorative.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b><i> </i></b> </span></span><b><i>Desolation Row</i></b> <span style="font-style: normal;">is one of Dylan’s greatest achievements, yet I defy
anyone to tell me, on first hearing, what Dylan sings after the line </span><i>They
are spoon-feeding Casanova</i>...<span style="font-style: normal;">To me the next
line sounds like </span>to give him the field mora shock<span style="font-style: normal;">, which sounds like an implement of torture. The actual line is </span><i>to
get him to feel more assured</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. In this instance
Dylan’s line perfectly sets up his terrific pay-off:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span><i>Then they’ll kill
him with self-confidence</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After poisoning
him with words...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On </span><b><i>Tangled Up in Blue</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> Dylan does not sing </span><i>Jimmy, don’t I know your
name?</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">The line which the female stripper says
is </span><i>Tell me, don’t I know your name. </i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan’s
voice has varied in quality with age. I dislike the nasal whining, the
grimacing, of the mid-1980s, but like the throaty gruffness of </span><b><i>Time
Out of Mind</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Love and Thef</i>t</b><span style="font-style: normal;">, his last two albums at the time of writing. Dylan has succeeded in
finding a voice to fit the lyrics. He can no longer sing with the range and
freedom that he had as a young man in the coffee houses of New York City. But
what he has lost in range he has gained in experience. He no longer has to try
to sound older than his years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span style="font-style: normal;">10: EVERYTHING IS BROKEN</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan
said that as he got older he had to learn to do consciously what he had been
able to do unconsciously as a young man. All artists whose creativity survives
the promise of its first flowering encounter the same problems: repeating
themselves and trying too hard to find something new to say. The Bob Dylan of </span><b><i>Freewheelin</i>’</b><b><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></b><span style="font-style: normal;">had
little behind him to impede his progress. He had the energy and self-confidence
of youth backed up, I suspect, by a very secure and loving upbringing. Young
Robert Zimmerman had no reason to doubt his own strength of purpose. The Dylan
of </span><i><b>Desire</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span><b> <i>Oh! Mercy</i> </b><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span><b> <i>Time Out of Mind</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">, his 44<sup>th</sup> album, had an accumulating back
catalogue and a consciousness of his own significance as an artist that had yet
to be tested in 1961. Popular music, song writing itself, changed because of
Dylan. As his stature as an artist grew Dylan had to contend with comparisons
with what he had already created in the past as well as expectations about what
he might do in the future. In such circumstances, writing with the carefree
unconsciousness of youth is no longer possible; in a mature artist it is not
even desirable, I would say. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Writing to outwit the treachery of time
may have induced Dylan to become too conscious about his artistic effects. In
the mid-1970s he became a writer of words rather than a singer of them. The
decline of his vocal powers did not help. The young Dylan could carry any tune
he cared to write. Dylan singing </span><b><i>Subterranean Homesick Blues</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> in 1989 was somewhat embarrassing. The performances
of his later years are marked by a tendency to gabble lines rather than sing
them. Sometimes those lines are over-charged with imagery and ideas. Where
allusion is too dense feeling is obscured by verbiage and meaning is lost. For
me </span><b><i>Jokerman </i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span> <b><i>Changing of the
Guard</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"> are examples. In both songs the tunes and
the rhythm are great, but the listener is always behind the delivery of the
words, trying to estimate the effect of what he has just heard. The problem is
similar with </span><b><i>It’s All Right Ma <span style="font-style: normal;">(</span>I’m
Only Bleeding</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><i>)</i></b>, but in this song the rapid
stockpiling of imagery is mitigated by Dylan’s clear delivery. This is Dylan’s
State of the Union address, only the state that he is examining is the
country’s state of mind. The formal structures of folk, question and response,
have been abandoned because of the nature of Dylan’s artistic journey. In the
1970s, however, Dylan appears to have self-consciously graduated from metaphor
to symbolism. Allusion has turned into elusiveness, as though Dylan has become
someone else to avoid a description on a wanted poster.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Outlaws.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In American culture the outlaw is the
equivalent to the European outsider, alienated from a corrupt society; a loner
who learns to trust only to himself. In fictional guise, usually through the
medium of movies, the outlaw is either the bad guy who was never anything else
or the good guy gone wrong. American culture is permeated by outlaws and
gangsters. In folk lore they are free beings who remain true to their own code
of values, men who take risks and live by their wits in a society inherently
crooked, corrupt and vengeful. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Dylan’s songs an outlaw might be the
righteous John Wesley Hardin (Dylan added a ‘g’) or the uncompromising stand up
truth teller Lenny Bruce. His work is replete with references to these
outsiders and the deceitful civilisation that opposes them:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The cops don’t need you and man
they expect the same</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (</span><i><b>Queen Jane
Approximately</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The senator came down here
showing everyone his gun</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Handing out free tickets to the
wedding of his son</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i> </span><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span><i><b>Stuck Inside of Mobile...</b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The six white horse that you
did promise</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Were finally delivered to the
penitentiary</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>But to live outside the law you
must be honest</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>I know you always say that you
agree</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i> </span><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span><b><i>Absolutely Sweet Mari</i>e</b><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You’ve been with the professors
and they’ve all liked your looks</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>With great lawyers you have
discussed lepers and crooks</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You’ve been through all of F
Scott Fitzgerald’s books</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You’re very well read it’s well
known</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>But something is happening here
and you don’t know what it is</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Do you, Mr Jones?</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i>
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span><i><b>Ballad of a Thin Man</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Now all of the criminals in
their coats and their ties</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Are free to drink martinis and
to watch the sun rise</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>While Rubin sits like Buddha in
a ten foot cell</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>An innocent man in a living
hell</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i>
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span><b><i>Hurricane</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>He did ten years in Attica
reading Nieztsche and Wilhelm Reich</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>They threw him in the hole one
time for tryin’ to stop a strike</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>His closest friends were black
men for they seemed to understand</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>What it’s like to be in society
with a shackle on your hand</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i>
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span><i><b>Joey</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Everyone
lives by rules of some kind, outlaws and officers of the law included. Those
who pretend to live within society’s rules are often hypocrites, people on the
make, using honesty as a mask to conceal their real preoccupation:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Steal a little and they throw
you in jail</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Steal a lot and they make you
king</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(</span><i><b>Sweetheart
Like You</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Dylan
is easily the shrewdest commentator on the often crooked road of justice. He
observes it with irony and sometimes with anger:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>And you who philosophise
disgrace and criticise all fears</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Take the rag away from your
face, now ain’t the time for your tears</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(</span><i><b>Hattie
Carroll</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
latter song is particularly angry in its howl against injustice. Dylan knows,
he has always known, that all of us have to answer to somebody. Freedom may be
a trap. To simply call Dylan<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“</span><i>America’s
great voice of freedom</i>,<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">”
as Jack Nicholsoin did, is to do a great dis-service to a subtle and passionate
intelligence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The ultimate outlaw in Western culture is Christ.
His trial was the same kind of </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pig
circus</span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">
endured by Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. He too was falsely tried and done to death
by the authorities for expedient political ends. Dylan, as I have said before,
was always a moralist; even at his hippest, his judging eye was always
measuring words against deeds. </span><i><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blonde
on Blonde</span></b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>
</i>is full of it. I believe that Dylan has always felt the weight of the world on
his shoulders; he probably feels like a character in a parable, that all of
life is a parable, the meaning of which is being acted out every day. The
ultimate purpose no man can fathom because God has ways of confounding the wise
to remind them of their mortality. Sometimes, indeed, Satan may well </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">come as a man of peace</span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
Dylan’s vision of judgement is sometimes severe, sometimes it is roused to
pity. </span><i><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Licence to Kill</span></b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i> </i>is not an angry song, at
least not in the way Dylan sings it: the tempo is far too mellow. Nevertheless,
this, I believe, sums up what Dylan thinks of Mankind:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And when he sees his reflection he’s fulfilled</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh, man is opposed to fair play</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">He wants it all and he wants it his way.</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now there’s a woman on my block</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She just sit there as the night grows still</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She say: Who gonna take away his licence to kill.</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dylan almost enunciates the last word as </span><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">keel</span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of
the time Dylan’s fans expect him to ramble round the circles of Hell on their
behalf, occasionally reporting back on what he has found in a style that is
both entertaining and illuminating. In 1986 he released </span><i><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Biograph</span></b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i>,</i> a triple set of recordings and out-takes.
Every song is accompanied by Dylan’s memories and musings. The following is
what he had to say about </span><b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Every
Grain of Sand</span></i></b><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">,
a wondrously touching meditation on mortality:-</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everything is crooked now and the signs all point you the wrong way –
it’s like we’re living at the time of the Tower of Babel...</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>The Bible </b></span><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">says ‘Even
a fool when he keeps his mouth shut is counted wise,’ but it comes from the
Bible, so it can be cast off as too religious. Make something religious and
people don’t have to deal with it, they can say it’s irrelevant. ‘Repent, the
Kingdom of God is at hand.’ That scares the shit out of people...People are
just parading around in disguises, wearing faces that don’t let you know what
they think...I’ll tell you this much – when you tell somebody your dreams and
hopes you better make sure they love you like a brother or your dreams and
hopes probably won’t come true...You got to be somewhat superstitious to
survive...When did Abraham break his father’s idols? I think it was last
Tuesday. God is still the judge and the devil still rules the world so what’s
different? No matter how big you think you are history is gonna roll over
you...To the aspiring songwriter and singer I say disregard all current stuff,
forget it, you’re better off, read John Keats, Melville, listen to Robert
Johnson and Woody Guthrie. Movies too, I’ve seen hundreds of them, how many of
them stay with you? <b>Shane</b>, <b>Red River</b>, <b>On the Waterfront</b>,<b> Freaks</b>? Maybe a
handful of others...I just saw one the other night, as soon as it was over I
couldn’t remember a thing about it. Seemed real important at the time though.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">One could justifiably say something similar about
half or more of Dylan’s back catalogue. The best songs that seemed real
important when first heard still carry that weight even though we may not play
them as often. Just the other day I played </span><i><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">John Wesley Harding</span></b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> through and experienced the original thrill I felt
upon a second or third playing. At the end – Dylan concludes with two gentle
love songs – I was of the opinion that this album was among the greatest of his
recording career and, overall, superior to </span><i><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blood on the Tracks</span></b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> in every way – technique, consistency, surprise
and artistry. These are like biblical prophetic songs, cautionary tales with
messages: -</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i> </i></span></span><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The moral of this story, the moral of this
song</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>is simply that one should never be where one does not belong.</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So if you see a neighbour carryin’ somethin’</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>help him with his load,
and don’t go mistakin’ paradise</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>for that home across the road...</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And if you don’t under-estimate me</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I won’t under-estimate you...</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And he was told but these few words which opened up his heart</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>if you cannot bring good news then don’t bring any...</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I did not trust my brother, I carried him to blame,</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>which led me to this fatal doom to wander off in shame...</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I pity the poor immigrant when his gladness comes to pass...</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just
then a bolt of lightning knocked the courthouse out of shape</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <i>
</i></span><i>And as everybody knelt to pray the drifter did escape...</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The looser form inherent throughout </span><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i>Blood on the Tracks</i> </span></b><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">and</span><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <i>Desire</i> </span></b><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">suggests to me a different intellectual
environment, a more self-orientated climate. Few admirers of Dylan’s songs up
to the mid-1970s were thrilled by his move from the East Coast to Malibu beach
on the West Coast. Bringing more personal elements of his life into his songs,
Dylan undoubtedly reached a larger audience. For myself, although I was in awe
of his artistry and staying power - there seemed nothing that he could not do,
no mood he could not render, in song</span><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">- I didn’t think of Dylan as being anything other
than human. Therefore he is not infallible. I just don’t like him wearing his
heart on his sleeve. You could say I want to see him remain at the pinnacle of
his creativity, those incredible years from </span><i><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Freewheelin’</span></b></i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> to</span><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <i>John Wesley
Harding</i></span></b><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.
Despite the class work which he has continued to do to a greater or lesser
degree since then, those years and those seven albums contain the essence of
Bob Dylan’s protean art.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Bradford: September-October 2005 and
November 2010.</span></b><b><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b>
</div>
Jim Greenhalfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04349505979909950809noreply@blogger.com1