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Never Just One Thing, Pt. VIII: 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 (and of course mega-megastar). 

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 of the work. 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. 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 a Zen take on love. 

As for the overall scope of the work, these are just the barest sampling of where the lyrics point. Because all of Dylan's music is based either on the blues our ancient folk music, the music has a deeper, more soulful foundation, as well as more of an anything goes attitude. And beyond that, Dylan writes every type of song, from the simplest love song like If Not For You 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 that except for Leonard Cohen and maybe Paul Simon.

To return to Taylor Swift, correct me if I'm wrong but she doesn't have anywhere near that kind of ambition. Basically, every one of her songs is 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 but rather into the relationship details. So if compare her to Dylan we must, let's call her The Dylan of Instagram. Or is she more accurately the Carole King of social media? (Carole King is great, a genius even, but no Bob Dylan.) Essentially, unlike Dylan she's never been countercultural. Even after becoming famous, Dylan worked hard to maintain an outsider's stance.

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 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." What's pathetic is that Beck, as opposed to being humble, merely appears to have internalized The Culture of Groveling. 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, but settle down. My own "favorite" in this category is Wes Anderson, whose work is inevitably cutesy and predictable and uneven but whose every new release is hailed as genius, with a few lonely dissenters crying out from the far corners of the Internet.

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, with a profusion of a Gen Z Stasi monitoring communications relentlessly, ever-on the-lookout for heresy, salivating at the prospect of bagging another cancellation.

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 songs during the second half of his career, the last 30 years. Some people will draw the line at the end of the 60s, some through Desire in the 70s. What is beyond debate about 60s Dylan was the sheer volume and consistency of brilliant, groundbreaking work. 

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 important, Dylan was at heart a Bohemian. 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. And 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.

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"


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