Labels

Never Just One Thing, Pt. VIII: Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift, and Genius Inflation

I was reading a culturally-oriented website of a certain pedigree online a few weeks ago and was taken aback when I encountered an article called, "Taylor Swift Is Our Generation's Dylan." That, quite simply, struck me as preposterous. Not that a person might consider that to be the case, but that the nature of their art and achievement could in no way be understood as commensurate. But in the interest of open-mindedness and my own edification, I paused and decided to look into her work a bit more, conscious of the fact that she is indeed an accomplished songwriter, along with being an inescapable public. 

One good source I found was one that collected 75 or so of what the author saw as her greatest lyric passages. And, sure enough, they are flawlessly constructed and memorably phrased, with their fair share of striking imagery, to say nothing of the nice amount of ironic humor. As I reviewed her lyrics further, it seemed to me that the problem with the Dylan comparison is two-fold: First is what the lyrics actually attempt and do and second is the closely-related matter of the overall scope and variety of the songs themselves. In terms of the former, Dylan's lyrics burst with ideas that send the reader's in so many unanticipated directions that have little to do with the subject or topic at hand and which reveal Dylan's desire for his art to be considered alongside the great art of the ages. Just looking at some of the songs I have discussed in this series or on this site: passages from "Idiot Wind" leave me pondering the Christian idea of spiritual triumph, "Blind Willie McTell" does nothing less than consider aesthetics as a response to evil, and "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" presents an authentically Zen take on love. "License to Kill," a song whose closest relative is Joni Mitchell's "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow," critiques modern humanity's tragic stance toward the natural world, characterized by a perverse blending of spiritual alienation and technological domination. These are just the barest sampling demonstrating the ambition of where the lyrics point. 

The scope of Dylan's work is also unparalleled. Because all of Dylan's music is based either on the blues or ancient folk music, his songs incorporate many modes of form and expression that predate modern pop music. And they have more of an anything-goes attitude, representing as they do that "old, weird America." And beyond that, Dylan writes every type of song, from the simplest love songs like "If Not For You" or "I Threw It All Away" to epics like "Idiot Wind" and "Desolation Row" and especially "Like a Rolling Stone," a song unmatched in popular music for cutting so close to the existential bone. Further, there is what might be called the Biblical or sacred mode of prophesy, prayer, supplication, and benediction in songs such as "Hard Rain," "I Shall be Released," "Oh Sister," "Every Grain of Sand," and "Forever Young." One could go on and on, but no one else really does this mode except for Leonard Cohen and maybe Paul Simon (neither one of whom I see in Dylan's class either). Generally speaking, I think the best music of the 60s and 70s was more ambitious in terms of what it sought to express and achieve than most of what happens now, which strikes me as more introverted in nature and tone.

To return to Taylor Swift, correct me if I'm wrong but she doesn't have anywhere near Dylan's kind of ambition and scope. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of her songs are about personal relationships (with heavy emphasis on break up songs), be they romantic or among friends. And she does this exceedingly well. If she sets your mind spinning it doesn't spin out into the unknown or into the sweep of history a la Dylan, but rather into the relationship details. One song of hers that I have encountered that does seem Dylanesque in the ambition and allusiveness of the lyrics is "loml." Quite good. Now, if she writes 100 of those I might be persuaded by the Swift-Dylan thing! So if compare her to Dylan we must, let's call her The Dylan of Instagram. Or is she more accurately the Elton John-Bernie Taupin of social media? 

The question still asserts itself, though, Why am I even talking about Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift, together? It has to do with a weird trend in popular culture in which certain figures are not only popular but are deemed infallible and sacred, with Swift currently the exemplar. Freddie deBoer has a great piece up at his site on this phenomenon, which even posits dissent from the worship of certain stars as a moral or ethical failing. Or even an ethical affront, as when Taylor Swift beat out Beyonce for a Video Music Award and Kanye West commandeered the fucking microphone to declare the injustice of the decision or, a few years later, when Beck beat Kanye for Record of the Year Grammy and actually apologized for winning, because, well, one mustn't go against popular opinion of what constitutes "the best." Of course, number one among those among Those Who Mustn't Be Criticized is Beyonce herself, or, as they say, Queen Bey. I'm sorry: her music is just fine, excellent even, but settle down. 

And the Internet seems to be at the heart of our problem, does it not? In the early days, when visions of a digital utopia flourished, it was imagined that an immense democratization of expression would happen, with the voiceless gaining voice and the intelligent now having a platform for widely sharing their insights and wisdom. Yes, these voices are out there now, but for the most part with very few readers. So, that's all well and good, but it appears that what the Internet is really good at is engendering mass conformity.

What's weird is how genius worship and inflation has even come for Dylan. It seems that as young people have gotten hip to Dylan, which is always a very good thing, they have brought the same tendency, which is the tendency is to argue that because he is a genius that must mean that everything he does is good. This is a mind virus that seems even to be reaching into the ranks of us Boomers. Case in point: I recently saw a feature where 30 writers and musicians named their favorite Dylan song, and among the most popular was last year's "Murder Most Foul." What? As someone said in the comments, What does it mean when "Murder Most Foul" gets four selections and "Simple Twist of Fate" gets none? It means, I think, that people aren't thinking clearly. "Murder" is a stream-of-consciousness piece with an extraordinary number of slack lines in it. I mean, "Here come the Beatles / They're going to take you by the hand"? And what does it mean when people are virtually unanimous in their praise for Dylan's tossed off and sloppy new book, The Philosophy of Song? I looked assiduously for skeptical reviews, and did find a handful, thank God, including from my old acquaintance, the music critic and prolific author Tim Riley, who called it something that seems put together by your drunk uncle.

The operative principle in general appears to be that if you are truly into an artist, then you are into all their work, even, or especially, the later stuff. This is because you really get the artist and aren't a Johnny-Come-Lately. Except that sometimes the later stuff just isn't that good, comparatively speaking. Yes, I'm saying that Dylan's early work is better, and I think Bob would agree. But he's a songwriter, and he's going to keep writing. Which is the way it should be. But that doesn't mean we have to be uncritically accepting, or, indeed, worshipful. Note that when I say, early Dylan, I mean through the 80s or early 90s, with a smattering of good-to-great songs during the second half of his career, the last 30 years. Some people will draw the line for his prime at the end of the 60s, some through Desire in the 70s. What is beyond debate about 60s Dylan is the sheer volume and consistency of brilliant, groundbreaking work then. 

Which begs the question: Wasn't Dylan always subject to genius worship? I would say: Not in the same way. The worshipful Voice of A Generation phase just corresponded to his earliest years, when he wrote protest songs that matched well with the ideals of the Civil Rights generation as well as the dreams and critiques of young people in general. ("There's somethin' goin' on here / and you don't know what it is / Do you, Mr. Jones?") But this is easily qualified. There were always people who hated his voice, and said so. There were many who were highly offended when he "went electric," and jumped off the bus then. Then there was the way that Dylan willfully turned his back on stardom in the late 60s, to say nothing of the almost perverse hectoring of his audience with his evangelical preaching in the late 70s. 

Add to that the truth that, though he wanted to make art that was widely heard, Dylan was at heart a counter-cultural Bohemian. Someone ping me when Taylor Swift writes a song as far out there on the ragged edge of life as "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and maybe I'll start to see the Dylan-of-her-generation thing. Earlier in this series, I referenced Raymond Faye's account of being there the night in the 80s when Dylan came by Allen Ginsberg's tiny Lower East Side flat, six pack in hand, to play him the yet-to-be released tracks from his LP Empire Burlesque. (Ginzy threw the key down in a sock so Dylan could come up.) That's who Dylan was and is: a guy who cared most of all what a Beat poet thought, someone not inclined to flatter him. For all her artistry, Swift does care about appealing to the masses, and though she does this at a very high artistic level it sets certain limits on how high or wide her achievement can go.

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"


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts