Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Bob Dylan




Maureen Dowd is an opinion writer for the New York Times - political stuff.
But lately she's been talking about Bob Dylan.
He did a concert in China.
Perhaps because the Chinese are nervous about all the civilian uprisings lately, he was required to tell them what he was going to sing.

Maureen Dowd was incensed.  She implied that Dylan was "selling out",  that he's a protest singer and should have sung protest songs in China.
Lots of writers came to his defense.
What interested me in all the background material about him was that he himself never thought he was political.  "I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of."
Some folks are even saying that he put one over on the Chinese, and sang lots of stuff that should have made them angry.
I heard that he was on the top of his game at the concert and that his harmonica was sizzling - so that would have made the crowd extremely happy.
Leave him alone, Maureen.  He's an icon and we want our icons unsullied.
Her column garnered 300 letters, most of which supported him.  I read every one of them.

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