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Dandelion shadows • click to embiggenThe Resident Contrarian has struck once again.
Relative to Monday's entry, man & nature # 139, wherein I opined that it pleased me no end that "Bob Dylan, on his latest album, takes a rather unsubtle (for him) swipe at the relativists in the crowd ... [I]n his song, It’s all good ...", the Resident Contrarian parried with:
What truly baffles me, though, is Mark’s assertion that this is an “unsubtle swipe at the relativists in the crowd”. Huh? Are we looking at the same words? If Dylan is indeed doing that, it’s not exactly what I’d call an in – your – face indictment. It may, in fact, represent one of the most subtle uses of language in the history of songwriting. That is, if that’s the message he’s trying to convey.
Most certainly, reasonable people might disagree about Dylan's message / meaning in this song. However, thoughtful and curious people might have a leg up, message / meaning-wise, on those who only hear it as a stand-alone bit of word-smithing.
Now it should be stated that, while I do not consider myself to be a Dylanologist, not by a long shot - although I have been to a fair number of his concerts, own most of his recordings, and have a few of his published writings, I must admit to having made a rather continuous effort to read as many interviews with the man as I can get my hands on. It is also worth noting that IMO and that of many others, Mr. Tambourine Man has become quite a bit more lucid of late when speaking with the press. Maybe it's all part of that late-in-life desire to "set the record straight" that many engage in, or, maybe not.
Whatever. Nevertheless, Dylan has been engaged in a great deal of "straight talk" recently. In this month's Rolling Stone interview, he makes a pretty clear case regarding his thoughts and feeling regarding "relativism" when he talks about the American film director John Ford (he considers him to be a great American artist):
I like his old films. He was a man's man, and he thought that way ... (he) put courage and bravery, redemption and a particular mix of agony and ecstasy on the screen in a dramatic manner. His movies were easy to understand.
He also added:
Some say you can't legislate morality. Well, maybe not. But morality has gotten a bad rap.
Now, without a doubt, one could parse those words from here to hell and back. However, it seems pretty damn clear to me that Dylan is advocating both "morality" and a morality that's "easy to understand" at that. Hell, there's even more than hint of the notion of actually codifying, aka - legislating, morality in those words - that is to say, stating rules and principles in a systematic form or code - just in case the relativists don't find them "easy to understand".
So, here's what I'm suggesting re: Dylan's message / meaning in it's All Good - when one looks at the author of that song in a wholistic manner and then applies that knowledge - some might call it "insight" - to the work in question, it requires only the smallest of leaps - if any are needed at all - to deduce that Dylan is not a fellow traveler with the devotees of relativism.
As for the Resident Contrarian's view that I wouldn't "know a 'Relativist' if one came up and bit him in the ass", let me just say that I'd be around the corner and halfway out of town long before a relativist could figure out - if he/she could ever come to a firm conclusion - exactly what "bit" or "ass" actually means.
PS I forgot to mention one reviewer's opinion of It's All Good (relative to the RC's notion that it's "... it’s not exactly what I’d call an in – your – face indictment. It may, in fact, represent one of the most subtle uses of language in the history of songwriting." -
The word "caustic" takes on a whole new meaning in Together through Life's final cut, the sure-to-be-canonical "It's All Good." Dylan belittles all those arrogant narcissists who constantly say it all good, even when the world crumbles around them. Drums and guitar rumble in a mad-attic rush of grunge blues while Dylan spits out sarcasm with such lines as "Big politicians telling lies / Restaurant kitchens all full of flies / Don't make a bit of difference / Don't see why it should ... it's all good." It's a raucous affair. ~ Douglas Brinkley