Never Just One Thing, Part VI: On Dylan's Identity Tricksterism

May 27, 2023

Never Just One Thing, Part VI: On Dylan's Identity Tricksterism

History is bunk. Or so Henry Ford said. As a history major all those decades ago, I found this to be an appalling assertion. I was a Santayana "those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it" guy. Then I went to Israel and Palestine and found that, in fact, the opposite is true. These people know their history, especially as it concerns grievances accrued over many centuries, even millennia. And the way it looked to me was that, contra Santayana, there could be no progress until they forgot their history. And it occurred to me, quite literally, that maybe Henry Ford was right. If we're not careful our histories box us in and reduce our options.

And this is the angle I suspect Bob Dylan is coming from when he plays fast and loose with facts and offers conflicting takes on who is is, where he hails from, and what his motivations are. Speaking personally, I have no doubt that even now, as I sit here writing this, I'm in some ways constrained by my biography and identity; or more accurately, by my excessive concern for what I think these things require me to do, and even more than that, what I think others think these things demand of me.

So when, upon arriving in Greenwich Village, when Dylan told people he was an orphan from Oklahoma, it wasn't because he wanted them to believe that, but instead to indirectly say to others that it doesn't matter, and, more importantly, to confirm that for himself. And he wasn't just trying to mess with people's heads. Okay, the adolescent part of him was doing that that when he exploded on the scene. But the messing did point to the larger issue of narrative straitjackets. Folk singers don't go electric, protest singers don't romanticize the inner life, and on and on with all those assumptions that kneecap creativity.

A big part of this, of course, was the name change. At a basic level, Bob Zimmerman is just no good as a show biz name. While he was in high school he tried out Elston Gunnn, with three Ns, which was too teenage, too gimmicky. But Bob Dylan, now that sings. True to form he would never say why he chose that name, or would give competing versions. The most plausible speculation was that he was inspired by the name Dylan Thomas. But to acknowledge this would set up another potential restriction, with people striving to see how he was a Thomas disciple.

So the question arises: how essential is a nom de plume to artistic freedom? For Dylan, totally essential. But let's look at his closest mid-to-late 20th century artist analogue, Miles Davis. Like Dylan, Miles was protean, casting off modes and forms as quickly as he defined them, not giving a shit, except to the extent that he could challenge every preconception about jazz music along the way. Unlike Dylan, for Miles, not changing names was essential. It was important that he be Miles Dewey Davis, son of a black doctor from East Saint Louis. This way it would be perfectly clear who it was that was busting expectations. What Miles did to keep himself from getting boxed in was to make wildly contradictory statements all the time. Sometimes to hear him talk, he was the fiercest critic of white people in general and in jazz in particular. Yet through his entire career, white people were among his closest collaborators: the master arranger Gil Evans, the influential pianist Bill Evans, the producer Teo Macero, the keyboardist and visionary Joe Zawinul, the guitar virtuoso John McLaughlin, the wicked cool guitarist John Scofield. He even called Gil Evans his best friend.

Ultimately all this talk about identities, invented or otherwise, brings us to the question of authenticity. Let us consider Bruce Springsteen, that most authentic-seeming of artists, the poet of the Jersey Shore working man. As he himself confessed in his Broadway show, when he wrote all those songs about finding freedom in automobiles, he actually didn't even know how to drive. Authenticity is Springsteen's artifice. But that doesn't make him inauthentic any more than Dylan's shape-shifting does. The authenticity isn't located in identity. It's found in the truth of the emotions being evoked in the listener, the believability or relatability of the experiences being rendered. Let's take Dylan's pared-down lost-love song, "I Threw It All Away." It matters not if it is about a specific relationship that he squandered or even whether he actually did do that at some point, lose a love he took for granted. No, it feels real and it makes you think. That's enough.

ADDENDUM: 8-13-23

A couple weeks after writing this, I was reading a book of Dylan interviews and came across an exchange that presented another view on this question of identity. "there has always been a Bob Dylan," he said. This is a notion of an impersonal identity, or perhaps a universal one, with this Bob Dylan playing a role that has always had a place or meaning in human history. In certain occult traditions there is the notion of Speakers who continually appear to impart esoteric wisdom, wisdom of the sort that inspires thought and insight but leads to no formal organization of followers. It is said that Emerson was a Speaker. I always insist on Dylan's Emersonian character. Perhaps he is a Speaker too.

THE "NEVER JUST ONE THING" SERIES

Part I: Dylan’s Mysterious Musical Maturation

Part II: The Nature of Dylan’s Art

Part III: Dylan's Verbosity and the Path to Poetry

Part IV: Close Reading Dylan's "Idiot Wind"

Part V: Don't Overlook Dylan's Musicality

Part VI: On Dylan's Identity Tricksterism

Part VII: What Dylan Knows and Doesn't Know

Part VIII: Dylan, Taylor Swift, and Genius Inflation

Part IX: Close Reading "Simple Twist of Fate"

Part X: The Authentic Zen of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit"

Part XI: Mr. Tambourine Man's Tale of Comin' Down

Part XII: A True Song - Dylan's "I Threw It All Away"