Bob Dylan song about JFK assassination

[Pete Mellor]

9 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Bob Dylan at 80: in praise of a mighty and unbowed singer-songwriter | Bob Dylan | The Guardian

Nice one!  Docx is a brilliant writer.

[Karl Kinaski]

Only a Dylan could write and release an assassination-(protest)song half a century too late and than be praised for ... I do it

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

11 hours ago, Karl Kinaski said:

Only a Dylan could write and release an assassination-(protest)song half a century too late and than be praised for ... I do it

 

 

Well, in Dylan's defense, much more is known about JFK's assassination now than we knew half a century ago.

How many people are even familiar with the quality research on the JFK assassination during the past 30 years?

So, IMO, Dylan has provided a valuable public service by challenging the persistent M$M promotion of the Warren Commission Report.  Better late than never.

The media coverage of Murder Most Foul prompted a few people who were skeptical about my (recent) interest in the JFKA research to contact me with some questions.   (One of them thought that I had become an erstwhile  conspiracy nut.)

How many respected celebrities have ever been able to break through the M$M censorship of the truth about the JFK assassination -- other than Oliver Stone and Bob Dylan?  No one ever took Jesse Ventura seriously.

[Pamela Brown]

9 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Well, in Dylan's defense, much more is known about JFK's assassination now than we knew half a century ago.

How many people are even familiar with the quality research on the JFK assassination during the past 30 years?

So, IMO, Dylan has provided a valuable public service by challenging the persistent M$M promotion of the Warren Commission Report.  Better late than never.

The media coverage of Murder Most Foul prompted a few people who were skeptical about my (recent) interest in the JFKA research to contact me with some questions.   (One of them thought that I had become an erstwhile  conspiracy nut.)

How many respected celebrities have ever been able to break through the M$M censorship of the truth about the JFK assassination -- other than Oliver Stone and Bob Dylan?  No one ever took Jesse Ventura seriously.

Based on my research for my Dylagence blog, and the connection between Dylan's family and mine, I am becoming increasingly convinced that if we ever want to fully understand what happened to JFK we need to start over by examining Dylan's connection, occult though it may be, to these events...

[Pamela Brown]

It looks like Bob Dylan and his team have been getting information about me and my children from my birth family. This may have been going on for a long time. This is reflected in the myriad odd references and connections that I have been sharing on my blog Dylagence...https://dylagence.wordpress.com/

The objective seems to be to attempt to control the Zauberflote, which I play, from 'within'...

As I am finding more information about this connection of my family to Bob Dylan's, it is starting to have the earmarks of some sort of a psy op.  Would anyone like to help get to the bottom of this?  I would appreciate it. 

[Andrew Prutsok]

Just read your Dylan connection piece and enjoyed it. A few pages back I mentioned, sadly, that the one time I saw him was during the Slow Train Coming Tour and he didn't play a single old song. Your response -- "lucky you" -- puzzled me until now. Maybe I'll give it another listen, too.

[Pamela Brown]

On 6/1/2021 at 12:06 PM, Andrew Prutsok said:

Just read your Dylan connection piece and enjoyed it. A few pages back I mentioned, sadly, that the one time I saw him was during the Slow Train Coming Tour and he didn't play a single old song. Your response -- "lucky you" -- puzzled me until now. Maybe I'll give it another listen, too.

Listen to Trouble No More. The live performances have terrific energy and the songs really come alive...you might even find something from the concert you attended.

I can't imagine what it was like for Bob's regular fans to experience this profound and unexpected change in demeanor and songs.  I went through an analogous phase of disbelief when I listened to Infidels, after only listening to the gospel albums.  The songs were great but some didn't make sense to me emotionally as they are so secular.  

Edited June 3, 2021 by Pamela Brown

[Andrew Prutsok]

19 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

Listen to Trouble No More. The live performances have terrific energy and the songs really come alive...you might even find something from the concert you attended.

I can't imagine what it was like for Bob's regular fans to experience this profound and unexpected change in demeanor and songs.  I went through an analogous phase of disbelief when I listened to Infidels, after only listening to the gospel albums.  The songs were great but some didn't make sense to me emotionally as they are so secular.  

I remember now why I rejected the album. I was a 17-year-old college freshman when it was released in 1979. I had been a huge fan since my brother brought Blood on the Tracks home from college when I was  13. I liked the subsequent "Desire" and "Street Legal" as well, which were generally panned by critics. My junior/senior year in high school in 1978, a bunch of my partying buddies came under the influence of a charismatic young Baptist preacher that came to our town and got saved, started having prayer meetings at school, etc., and we drifted apart. It just pissed me off to see Dylan go there, too, and I  refused to have anything to do with it.

[Pamela Brown]

4 hours ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

I remember now why I rejected the album. I was a 17-year-old college freshman when it was released in 1979. I had been a huge fan since my brother brought Blood on the Tracks home from college when I was  13. I liked the subsequent "Desire" and "Street Legal" as well, which were generally panned by critics. My junior/senior year in high school in 1978, a bunch of my partying buddies came under the influence of a charismatic young Baptist preacher that came to our town and got saved, started having prayer meetings at school, etc., and we drifted apart. It just pissed me off to see Dylan go there, too, and I  refused to have anything to do with it.

Totally understandable.  As it turns out, the Vineyard fellowship that Dylan gravitated to, with the help of his girlfriend Mary Alice Artes, may have been something of a cult.  There are some long-term Dylan fans on the google group rec.music.dylan who think. he was brainwashed. I didn't think that was likely until I read somewhere that someone in Dylan's production crew was barred from backstage because he was an "Infidel".  So, as with all things Dylan, there is a lot more to this than we know.  

I was disappointed that Dylan backed away from gospel and went into Infidels, but now can see he had dead-ended himself and needed to get back to his real voice, which is sarcastic and nasty and all those subtle things that everyone likes him for.  He did that in Infidels, and then came up with Every Grain of Sand which, to my thinking, is one of his most beautiful non-secular songs...

And, in another irony, his Shot of Love contains one of his best nasty blues songs that nobody does better than Dylan...The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar...

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Pamela Brown

[Robert Burrows]

1 hour ago, Pamela Brown said:

Totally understandable.  As it turns out, the Vineyard fellowship that Dylan gravitated to, with the help of his girlfriend Mary Alice Artes, may have been something of a cult.  There are some long-term Dylan fans on the google group rec.music.dylan who think. he was brainwashed. I didn't think that was likely until I read somewhere that someone in Dylan's production crew was barred from backstage because he was an "Infidel".  So, as with all things Dylan, there is a lot more to this than we know.  

I was disappointed that Dylan backed away from gospel and went into Infidels, but now can see he had dead-ended himself and needed to get back to his real voice, which is sarcastic and nasty and all those subtle things that everyone likes him for.  He did that in Infidels, and then came up with Every Grain of Sand which, to my thinking, is one of his most beautiful non-secular songs...

And, in another irony, his Shot of Love contains one of his best nasty blues songs that nobody does better than Dylan...The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar...

 

Every Grain Of Sand appeared on 1981's Shot Of Love. Infidels came out two years later. The next installment of The Bootleg Series is rumored to be from the  Infidels sessions. 

[Pamela Brown]

On 6/3/2021 at 10:14 PM, Robert Burrows said:

Every Grain Of Sand appeared on 1981's Shot Of Love. Infidels came out two years later. The next installment of The Bootleg Series is rumored to be from the  Infidels sessions. 

You're right.  Thank you for correcting me. 

Another underrated song from those years is Caribbean Wind.  I find it just mesmerizing...

I think the Bootleg Series are incredible.  I listened to the More Blood More Tracks cds not long ago, with all the different versions of those songs, and it is really fascinating to understand Dylan's creative process...

Bass guitarist Rob Stoner posts in Dylan groups on FB, and he talks a lot about the performing/recording experiences he had with Dylan on the RT tour as well as Desire....really interesting...

[Dennis Berube]

Any thoughts on Joni Mitchell's comments on Dylan being a fake? I've read some analyses that make a case for his career being "guided" so to speak.

Also, its worth noting she has Morgellon's Disease...

[W. Niederhut]

4 hours ago, Dennis Berube said:

Any thoughts on Joni Mitchell's comments on Dylan being a fake? I've read some analyses that make a case for his career being "guided" so to speak.

Also, its worth noting she has Morgellon's Disease...

Dennis,

     Do you have a source/link for Joni Mitchell's comment about Dylan being fake?  I have followed her career, and Dylan's, quite closely through the years, and I'm curious about the context.  Was it related to the Rolling Thunder shows?

    I know that Mitchell joined Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour for awhile shortly after she wrote the songs on her Hejira album, but I've never read much about her experiences with Dylan.  I had the impression from Scorcese's film that her Hejira songs weren't a great fit with the Rolling Thunder entourage.

   Was she referring to Dylan's deliberately circus-like Rolling Thunder persona as "fake?"

   

[Robert Burrows]

12 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Dennis,

     Do you have a source/link for Joni Mitchell's comment about Dylan being fake?  I have followed her career, and Dylan's, quite closely through the years, and I'm curious about the context.  Was it related to the Rolling Thunder shows?

    I know that Mitchell joined Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour for awhile shortly after she wrote the songs on her Hejira album, but I've never read much about her experiences with Dylan.  I had the impression from Scorcese's film that her Hejira songs weren't a great fit with the Rolling Thunder entourage.

   Was she referring to Dylan's deliberately circus-like Rolling Thunder persona as "fake?"

   

“Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.”

-Joni Mitchell 

 

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/joni-mitchell-bob-dylan-fake-plagiarist-comments-feud/?amp

Edited June 6, 2021 by Robert Burrows

[Kirk Gallaway]

That's a good link, Bob. She certainly is mean spirited. That video clip of Joni doing  "Coyote" is great!  Notice the scowl on Dylan's face. It's because he's way over his head and he's just sort strumming the root chord senselessly. Up to that point, I know I'd never heard Dylan in an open tuning so he's sort of up sh-t creek without a paddle in that video.

But in the interview, when she's given the opportunity to redeem herself for her attack, she says :

Musically, Dylan’s not very gifted.---That's actually true. But Dylan followers don't rave about Dylan for his musicality, but for his lyrics and poetry. A lot of the early  Dylan melodies in the 60's were actually articulated in the public mind much better by the people/ groups that covered Dylan songs.

He’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies.He’s got a lot of borrowed things. Maybe not sensitively said, but that's undoubtedly true.

He’s not a great guitar player.  She actually understates it. At least up to that point when the video was made.  Dylan was a mid level coffee house guitar player, and he'd been at it for a good part of 20 years!  heh heh

He’s invented a character to deliver his songs … it’s a mask of sorts.” That doesn't sound very kind, does it? But when you consider Joni Mitchell's music style was similar to Neil Young. Sort of a revealing, vulnerable catharsis. To her Dylan comes off as a guy whose afraid to get very real or personal,  which is sort of true, but solely from her viewpoint.

Most people don't get into the weeds about musicianship and musicality. I saw the Joni Mitchell "Hejira' concert, with no less than Pat Metheny and Jaco Patorius backing her up! I'll take that to a Dylan concert any day and know a minority of people who would but that's me.

As  Dennis said. She at least did have Morgellon's disease. And at one point, she would swear that tiny mites were crawling under her skin. So to partisans, some may say Dylan's not so penetrative approach won out!