Robert,
I'm an infrequent reader of RightWingBob and an ole fan of Dylan's.
I use to go hear him sing in Denver in the early 60's. Imagine my amazement at reading the interview earlier today when I stopped by RWB. Even more amazing is the synchronicity of thought for the body of Dylan's work we share. Now an infrequent reader of JW, but a fan of yours nonetheless, I came over here to post a comment and link in some thread so folks could see Another Side of Robert Spencer. Very good to see you went ahead and put up this post.

Posted by: Malinois at October 16, 2007 7:01 PM

(PLEASE POST THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AT OTHER WEBSITES)

The Jihad Awareness Project (to wake up the U.S. Senate and Congress) currently has 107 volunteers in 44 states.

WE ARE STILL SEEKING ADDITIONAL CITIZEN VOLUNTEERS
FROM ALL 50 STATES, ESPECIALLY THE FOLLOWING 6:

Delaware
Mississippi
North Dakota
South Dakota
Vermont
West Virginia

THE PROJECT: We're looking for people in every state of the Union who would be willing to purchase, from Amazon or any other source, a copy of Robert Spencer's new book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is And Islam Isn't and mail it, on an agreed upon date, to one of the senators in your state. We want to get the book simultaneously to all 100 senators, in order to send a strong message. If we get more than two people per state, books can also be sent to the U.S. House of Representatives.

If you'd like to participate (or you just have questions), please write to me at traehnam@yahoo.com under the subject heading "Senate," and tell me the state your senator represents, and a nickname. No need for your real name. And I will never share your email address with anyone, not even with other volunteers for this project.

And visit jihadawareness.blogspot.com to get more info on this project and to leave comments other volunteers can read. You can also see there the growing list of participants in this project, and the states their senators represent. I've also designed a graphic that might amuse. Scroll down when you get to the site.

Once we have at least two people from every state, we can agree on a mailing date and then each of us can mail a copy of the book on that date.

Right before each of us mails the book, we’ll issue a press release to media outlets in as many states as possible, and in that way announce and explain the mailing. And perhaps we can come up with some other ways of maximizing the effectiveness of this project and gaining as much positive attention as possible.

One of the project's volunteers suggested contacting Rep. Sue Myrick, who started the Anti-Jihad Caucus in Congress. When we reach the goal of having all 100 senators covered, I'll call Rep. Myrick's office and see if she can help. I've called several congressional offices to get advice on how best to proceed.

Posted by: traeh at October 16, 2007 7:02 PM

Thge world of Dylyn and the world of Islam as far from each other as Benny Goodman or Glen Miller in New York in 1944 and Hitler in Germany's Berlin of 1944.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2007-37,GGLJ:en&q=glen+miller&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv

Music is the language of the soul. God bless the USA-forever. Choo-choo....

Posted by: Frank at October 16, 2007 7:12 PM

the pumps don't work cause the vandals took the han-dles..

Posted by: traeh at October 16, 2007 7:15 PM

Sean Curnyn, who maintains the blog RightWingBob, is writing a book on the political and moral themes in the work of Bob Dylan. He wrote an interesting essay last spring, The Pope and the Pop Star. It's posted here at First Things.

Posted by: Malinois at October 16, 2007 7:17 PM

"...
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."

Bob D.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at October 16, 2007 7:27 PM

The title of your next book:

Islam and Dylan: The Clash of Civilizations

or

Islam, Jihad and Dylan: What will happen to Bob Dylan if we lose?

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at October 16, 2007 7:32 PM

In the mood....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7246642142967290371

This stuff will outlast Islam...take the A train....

Posted by: Frank at October 16, 2007 7:39 PM

I just saw Dylan in Detroit last Friday night. Great show. First time in years when going to a concert didn't involve witnessing a scuffle between drunk fans.

Posted by: JSobieski at October 16, 2007 7:43 PM

Dylan now goes to Chabad; he's back to being the Bob Zimmerman he really is.
His music shows sympathy for the downtrodden and the powerless, in diametric opposition to the sadism and megalomania of Islamofascism. No wonder Robert likes him.

Posted by: jewdog at October 16, 2007 7:58 PM

It's not really a digression. It is the soul of the difference. It is the difference between the American Music of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glen Miller and the world of the Nazis. The generation that beat Hitler loved the big bands. Hitler banned that kind of thing. But it is the stuff of live, the celebration of life-it is dance...it is music..

Posted by: Frank at October 16, 2007 8:01 PM

Very unsharia. I love it-LOL...love it..

The stuff GI's heard on June 6, 1944....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00giGIsauiQ

Posted by: Frank at October 16, 2007 8:15 PM

Personally, I'm a huge Johnny Cash (PBUH) fan. Johnny, like Dylan, is sympathetic to the underdog. I find that his lyrics are simpler and his music is more melodic than Dylan's, and, of course, he has a great voice.
In 1986, Johnny won the Jewish National Fund's Shalom Peace Award. The biographical film "Walk the Line" should have at least been nominated for Best Picture.

Posted by: jewdog at October 16, 2007 8:18 PM

JD-I too am a Johnny Cash fan. Dylan is ok. You don't back down either...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSRL87g6mKU

Posted by: Frank at October 16, 2007 8:31 PM

Robert, you need to open up to Blood on the Tracks. Also, don't neglect Desire or Blond on Blond. Loved the interview, enjoyed your insights.

Posted by: gfinoaktown at October 16, 2007 8:33 PM

Hey! You left Cat Stevens off of the list!

Posted by: silent_rage at October 16, 2007 8:37 PM

I'd love to see a young apostate from Islam address the imams with "Masters of War".

Regardless though, we all know that a hard rain a-gonna fall.

Posted by: kuchuklambat at October 16, 2007 8:46 PM

Hey! You left Cat Stevens off of the list!
Posted by: silent_rage at October 16, 2007 8:37 PM

Car Stevens put himself on the shelf sometime ago. He may realize that at some level. Jump off the shelf, Cat.

Posted by: Frank at October 16, 2007 8:52 PM

Some months ago part of a post consisted of a certain verse from Bob Dylan:

"I finally found your reference to those sheikhs in Amsterdam and Paris, in "Slow Train," by that Mr. Robert Dylan you and those crisrixians like so much.

Here be the non-Larkinian verse:

"All that foreign oil controlling American soil,
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed.
Sheiks walkin' around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings,
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend."

So Bob Dylan is apparently on the right side, with those "sheiks walkin' around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings/Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris" and so on.

[Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007]

Posted by: Hugh at October 16, 2007 9:03 PM

Just as fun to read. You clearly love Dylan's stuff and I agree with your estimation of his best period, though I can't claim half your expertise. Musically, I can listen to Bruce Cockburn, who is Dylan's lyrical equal and musical superior, but just hasn't quite got his ageless mystical attraction (and Cockburn's politics can be pretty flaky).

Anyway I wrote in to say this is the FIRST music review ever that has motivated me to go listen to an album again -- I gotta hear that 3-chord figure in Solid Rock that you mention -- I know the song pretty well, and it's uncharacteristic of me to miss something like that, I pride myself in listening closely enough to music to see the unique touches that artists add, that they don't really care if anyone notices. I'm off to give it a listen...

Posted by: Archimedes2 at October 16, 2007 9:05 PM

How about this early Bobsong?

Especially the second part:

I want that bomb - I want it hangin' out a' my pocket an' danglin'
On my key-chain - I want it strapped to my belt buckle -
I want it stickin' out a' my boot
I want it fallin' out a' my sock
I wanna wear it on my wedding finger an' I wanna tie it with bandanas
To my head
I want that Bomb -
I want it settin in my mouth like a cigar
I want it stickin from my ears like a carrot
I wanna look in the mirror an' see it in my eyes
I want one in both hands
I want two in both arms
I want that bomb to be hangin' an' hurtin' an' shinin' an' burnin'
I want it glowing and backbiting - and whistling an' side winding
I want it showin' all over my living self
I want it breathin' from every porthole
I want it blowin' from every pore
I want it weightin' me down so I can't even walk right
I wanna get up in the mornin' an scare the day right out a' it's dawn
Then I walk into the White House an' say "DIG YOURSELVE'S".

(GO AWAY YOU BOMB by Bob Dylan)

http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2198&a=699913&rss=554

Posted by: L_Hogthrob at October 16, 2007 9:20 PM

I wonder if Bob Dylan knows of this site. That would be cool.

Posted by: wrathofasma at October 16, 2007 9:45 PM

Robert,
You had already won my utmost respect and admiration, but knowing now that you are a Dylan fan officially makes you my hero.

I think it's interesting to note that in his memoir "Chronicles" Dylan describes the great pains he took in the 1960s to distance himself from the lunatic fringes of the Left. They wanted to make him their spokesman, but he had the artistic integrity to forcefully expel anyone who would try to exploit his celebrity for political gain.

As a lifelong Dylan fan, I have often found myself having to "explain" my political views to other Dylan fans who completely assumed that I was of a hippie/left-leaning liberal bent. Some of these people even claimed to be offended when they discovered I was not swallowing the liberal poison. Of course, I responded that it was me who should be offended. And I was.

To me Dylan has always occupied a very innocent and raw place in the American landscape that is above and sacred from the political arena. His is a soulful, howling voice that celebrates the beauty, loneliness, and honesty inherent to the journey of true human freedom.

In the context of the struggle against Islamic Jihad, Dylan rests safely above the fray along with the likes of Mozart, DaVinci, Frank Lloyd Wright, and on and on.

The brilliance and legacy of these great artists is the Grail of our civilization and the reason we all care so passionately about an absolute and resolute stonewall against Islam.

Posted by: JohnAdams at October 16, 2007 10:25 PM

Ahh, back from a good listen; haven't given Saved a complete play-through for years. Didn't quite get what you meant about the "3-chord figure" on Solid Rock but once more being dragged into the tidal effect of the tonal staircase that oozes such drama in In the Garden , mirrored in the controlled rising energy in Pressing On reminded me why I love Dylan's music and how gripping his understated musical elements can be, with that penetrating, croaking voice that probably had reached its coarsest for that album.

My 16 year old daughter, whose is deeply into jazz and symphonic music, came in and asked who I was listening to. Dylan reaches yet another generation.

As Hogthrob notes some of his lyrics such as "Go Away You Bomb" can be unexpectedly prophetic. Perhaps an even better example from Slow Train Coming , which might have fit right in on DhimmiWatch:

All that foreign oil controlling American soil

Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed

Sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings

Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris

And there's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

.....

Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters

Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition

But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency

All non-believers and men stealers talking in the name of religion

And there's slow, there's slow train coming up around the bend.

My personal all-time favourite Dylan song: Every Grain of Sand I'm glad he didn't, but if Dylan had made an early exit to the next world halfway through his career like too many of his musical contemporaries, it would have been a tragedy had it happened before he penned this one.

......

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night

In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,

In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,

In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea

Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man

Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Posted by: Archimedes2 at October 16, 2007 11:27 PM

Great interview Robert. I'm sending it off to my brothers who are, like myself, musicians.

Like so many others, I'm partial to the mid-60s to mid-70s period. But your interview has inspired me to revisit the late 70s/early 80s.

'Blood on the Tracks' ('75) is my favorite Dylan album....several killer songs, among them 'Tangled Up in Blue' and 'You're Gonna Make Me Loansome When You Go.'

'4th Time Around' is perhaps (there are so many) my favorite Dylan song. It's an obscure number on 'Blond on Blond' ('66)....with impenetrable lyrics...and a beautiful acoustic progression that gravitates to a sus4.

Because of his voice "like sand and glue," alot of people overlook the fact that Dylan wrote some incredibly beautiful melodies and arrangements.

Posted by: Cornelius at October 16, 2007 11:40 PM

Yes, a very surprising and interesting interview.

'Another Side of' Robert Spencer!

I also came to Dylan late, in college, around the release of Slow Train Coming, then worked backwards.
Finally burned out on it (Dylan's music) for the same reason I burned out on Mahler. Powerful, but fatiguing. Too many calories; Too much angst. For those personal reasons (i.e. weltschmerz overload) my favorite Dylan album ended up being New Morning which I loved for its heartfelt simplicity and centered affections. I'm sure it's not his most original work but it touched just the right chords for me at that time.

I still have quite the collection of Dylan albums which I've never parted with even though I don't listen anymore. Too much a part of me from that time I guess.

Too bad we can't have your Dylan book too! I for one would love to read it.

Posted by: alexon at October 17, 2007 3:33 AM

I remember when Bob Dyan won the Grammy a few years back, when I had seen him do the song from the album that won the Grammy for album of the year, had seen a young man dancing with with some words on scrawed on his bare chest. He was quickly takening out from the stage. Learned that in a Bob Dyan concert there are NO ONE WHO DOES DANCING. He lets the music do the presentation.

Do you also remember when Bob Dylan came to Rome to perform for his late holiness, Pope John Paul II? That even suprised me that a RC Pope would even invite Mr. Dylan to an audience and to do a concert.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at October 17, 2007 8:07 AM

Well, to be honest I stopped listening to Dylan in the early '70s as I began to listen to Richard Thompson.

Please don't be put off by Richard's "Islamic" period. He was intrigued by some Sufis that he had met. The Sufi is the mystical side of Islam, much more interested in a direct experience with the divine than sharia or jihad.

If you like Dylan, you'll like Thompson.

Posted by: tanstaafl at October 17, 2007 4:40 PM

To extend the spirit of the digression, is that a Thomas Hart Benton illustration on the cover of "Slow Train Coming"? Thanks for the change-up.

Posted by: Bock at October 17, 2007 5:38 PM

Who Killed Davey Moore?

Posted by: Martin Beauchamp at October 17, 2007 9:36 PM

Wow, Robert you're even more into Dylan than I
thought you were. I've seen Bob about twenty times myself, but beginning with the '74 tour with The Band, a pretty monumental introduction.
I saw him again on the Alimony Tour '78, the
Gospel Tour the next year, and many times since.
I even met his aunt once, from Hibbing. Growing up
she said they all thought his brother had all the talent. Actually, she was more interested in talking about her time as Peggy Lee's accompanist. Relatives...I loved his recent band with Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell on guitars, I saw them three times and thought they were a great rock & roll band, of course they also coincided with Love & Theft, the return of good humor to Bob Dylan. Bob the lead guitar player (great till he inevitably hit that wrong note), Bob and the group outstaring the audience at the end of the show.

As to his work, well, I still find myself playing
Highway 61 Revisted, Live 66, The Genuine
Basement Tapes (with I'm Not There & I am a Teenage Prayer) & John Wesley Harding.Planet
Waves is more of a guilty pleasure. I haven't felt like listening to Blood on the Tracks for years, same for Desire. Street Legal has a certain brave ambition, the digital remix cleared up the mud in it, but I think it's a strange brew of inspiration and forced poetics ("trying to do consciously what I once did subconsciously" he said, but I don't think he quite succeeds). Same can be said for Renaldo & Clara, both terrible and wonderful at given moments. Slow Train and Saved were more powerful in concert, it was a little disappointing hearing Saved after first hearing the songs live. Shot of Love is a great song recorded with Bumps Blackwell, the rest of the album I find rather mediocre (Every Grain of Sand is I think overrated). Infidels I loved, great band, again with Mark Knopfler, again Dylan's penchant for leaving off some of his best songs--like Blind Willie McTell (he does this with his live albums too). Of the rest, some lousy- Under the Red Sky, Empire Burlesque;
some outstanding--the two Daniel Lanois albums,
World Gone Wrong, Love & Theft, Modern Times.
And then there's Masked & Anonymous...the only film of recent times featuring the Hollow Earth theory.

You should write that book, Robert, Bob's lived most of his life in Secure, Undisclosed Locationville.

Posted by: Nick Danger at October 17, 2007 11:48 PM