There were quite a lot of e-mails in response to the “Dylan endorses Barack Obama” story. Here’s one from a reader named Allan that touches on a lot of things at once, so I’m printing it all. (Bolding is mine.)

I have read your posts for quite some time (why Im not sure, because I think blogs are quite ridiculous, but then again, so are the people that read them and worse the people who respond) . Probably the only reason I read it is because it combines Dylan w/ politics which is always an interesting subject. And I initially agreed with you that Dylan is always Pigeon Holed as a liberal. However with your recent post I had to respond. I have not read the actual article in question and did not even know it was done. My point to this is not necessarily to argue with you, and quite honestly, I don’t expect a response nor do I expect you will read this as Im you get your share of emails. So to the point…

I agree that withdrawing from that article that somehow “Dylan endorses Obama” is quite the stretch, and quite frankly wrong. What Dylan does say is that America is in need of change and that here is a guy offering that. Dylan even goes so far as to say he’s hopeful for change. Now I dont want to blow your conservative mind away, but Dylan isnt endorsing the republican party either. In case you havent noticed change would involve doing away with the status quo, namely 8 years of George W and republican rule. So I guess I’m agreeing with you part way about the article but your also trying to put your own spin on it as well. And that is the thing that disappoints me the most. It initially seemed to me when I discovered your website that you got that Dylan cant be claimed as anyones spoke person. The problem is you have committed the same crime through your website, trying to steal Dylan for conservatism.

In response to your constant mention of Dylan’s “favorite politician” Barry Goldwater, did Dylan say that? Yes? But lets look at the context in which he said it. He made the remark during a period of general distrust towards the media and to people trying to “claim” him. At that point he was being asked ridiculous questions to which he started giving equally ridiculous answers. I could find examples to quote but quite frankly Im not that much of a freak to do so. This email is where I draw my line in taking part in IBCS (Internet blogger conceited syndrome) Lest you forget it was also dylan who wrote :
“Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.

Post that the next time you want to mention Barry Goldwater.

And lets not forget that Dylan played live for Clintons inauguration. How many republicans has he done that for? ANd to play your game lets analyze it a little bit. Clintons inauguration came at the end of republican rule in the White House following Reagan and Bush administrations which arguably was not the brightest spot in Americas past. And dont give me that fall of communism stuff, the SU was well on its way to collapse before Reagan came along.

I’m sure you will blow this off as a rant from some whacked out liberal. But to be honest I dont consider myself Conservative or Liberal, and I hate the terms. In my opinion, part of Americas problem is has become so divided over those two terms thanks in part to media organizations capitalizing on that divide. People dont even know what those terms mean. And to be honest those words are nothing more than tools. So please dont think I’m looking to pick a fight, though I’m sure you’ve gotten worse emails than this.

Well actually I always appreciate hearing from someone who disagrees with me on many things but who nevertheless has regularly read my little website, and who takes the time to take issue in a reasoned manner.

There are some issues of fact to deal with, but in responding to this I want to first go to what I think is the core issue: that I’m “trying to steal Dylan for conservatism.” I wouldn’t put it that way (not surprisingly). Firstly, I’d challenge anyone to find where I’ve made any bland statement about what Dylan’s politics are — as opposed to what they are not. I’ve never said that I think he votes Republican, or that he supports George W. Bush or anyone else (we’ll get back to Barry Goldwater).

Fundamentally, in dealing with Dylan’s politics, I believe that I’ve maintained that he is not the leftist he has been caricatured as for decades in the mainstream media, and further, that his work contains themes that are arguably best appreciable by people who in this day and age would be characterized as conservative. It’s not my fault that belief in God, belief in the Bible, and an understanding of human nature flowing from those two things are now considered to be the sole province of conservatives in 21st century America. (Some may have a similar sense of human nature absent a well-defined belief in God, but that’s another subject.) It perhaps has not always been so. I am neither the historian nor the political scientist to say, but of-course these terms — liberal and conservative, left and right — vary in their meaning and usage by time and place. Bob himself has expressed that point explicitly in an interview or two, and any serious thinking individual ought to face up to the limitations of such labels. A “conservative” in Moscow in 1985 would have been rather different to a conservative in Washington D.C. at the same time; likewise, a “conservative” in Tehran would have little usefully in common with a self-described conservative in the U.S.A. at this moment. They’re all just words, just labels, which, separated from issues of substance, hardly get beyond the clanging of cymbals. Nevertheless, achieving anything in politics requires alliances with like-minded folk, and labels appear to be unavoidable both for creating such alliances and for carrying on public debate. I didn’t start it, but I find it impossible to be so precious as to pretend that they do not exist, or that I’m floating somewhere so high above it all that I can’t be bothered to dirty my hands with such terms. Dylan can do that; he is a genius and an artist whose contributions to humanity were already incalculable thirty years ago or more. What does it matter whether he votes or not? Me, I’m a more humble example of humanity, and, for what it’s worth, I feel like I need to take a stand on the issues of the day — in order to justify my existence, you might say.

While I don’t care whether Dylan votes, I do nevertheless care when, based on a flawed interpretation of song or a misrepresented remark, he is portrayed as being full square behind a basically leftist agenda. It’s simply question of truth, and the truth about anything is sacrificed only at our peril. I am very aware of the absurdity of arguing about the opinion of someone who is walking around and breathing and can speak very well for himself, and yet, people do argue about it. Witness the worldwide conflagration regarding these most recent remarks about Obama. People care, for some reason, what this guy, Bob Dylan, thinks — in particular about politics. (Also about religion, of-course.) His seeming elusiveness appears to fan the interest. So, while I would ideally limit myself to observations about his work, I can’t just put aside remarks in interviews and such like that those on the left inevitably seize upon to maintain that he agrees with them. He doesn’t agree with them. He doesn’t agree with me either, I’m sure, but clearly I believe that my reading of his remarks is fairer and more on the money than his standard leftist interpreters.

Let’s go to a few issues of fact as expressed by my kind correspondent, Allan. He says — following on from what Dylan said in the Times about how things have to change — that, “In case you havent noticed change would involve doing away with the status quo, namely 8 years of George W and Republican rule.”

Is that what Dylan’s referring to? Is it Dubya that’s bugging him in particular — were things a lot better before Dubya? Let’s go back to 2001 (pre-9/11), and an interview with Robert Hilburn in the LA Times:

I am not a forecaster of the times. But if we’re not careful, we’ll wake up in a multinational, multi-ethnic police state — not that America can’t reverse itself. Whoever invented America were the greatest minds we’ve ever seen, and people who understand what the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are all about will come to the forefront sooner or later.

So, after eight full years of the Democrat President Bill Clinton, and in the first year of Dubya’s presidency, apparently Dylan wasn’t all that happy with the status-quo in America. Maybe he’s thinking on a level beyond the occupant of the White House? Could it be? The question for today is whether he thinks that Barack Obama better represents the kind of minds that created the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. That’s for Bob to decide (I can’t think for ya!). I do know what I think on the matter at this point, and it is at variance with that. Mind you, John McCain is certainly no John Adams.

As to Dylan’s fear of a “multi-ethnic police state” — which is very well illustrated in his film “Masked and Anonymous” — it’s conceivable that he sees Obama as someone who might break down the ingrained divisions and identity politics that afflict the political scene in America today. Many have seen Obama that way. What the reality may be is another question.

As for Dylan playing at Bill Clinton’s inauguration (i.e. for the man who can take you from crayons to perfume): please. I would have happily played if I were asked, just as I’ll happily play at Obama’s if asked. It’s an honor to be asked to play for the President of the United States. The thing only has political meaning if he were asked to play at a Republican’s inauguration and he explicitly refused. That’s it. To maintain otherwise is to promulgate a foolish canard.

Now to Goldwater: I think that my correspondent Allan mixes up the context of Dylan’s statement that Republican Senator Barry Goldwater was his favorite politician. Bob stated it only in 2004, when “Chronicles” was published — long after the “period of general distrust towards the media and to people trying to ‘claim’ him,” surely. And Dylan was referring to the period around 1961/62, when he felt this way towards the conservative Goldwater but was unwilling to tell anyone in Greenwich Village about it.

This context ought to shed light on that verse from Dylan’s song, I Shall Be Free No. 10, which is supposed to be my undoing.

Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.

First off, I hope we all can stipulate that Dylan is being funny here. It’s a joke song. (The next verse goes: Well, I set my monkey on the log / And ordered him to do the Dog / He wagged his tail and shook his head / And he went and did the Cat instead / He’s a weird monkey, very funky.)

The question with the Goldwater verse is who you think the joke is on. You can maintain that the joke is on Goldwater, if you like. No one can prove you wrong — you can laugh at whatever you find to be funny. To me, however, the deeper and better joke in this verse is on the liberal ( “to a degree”) who wants “ev’rybody to be free,” but distinctly draws the line at freedom for a conservative Republican like Goldwater. That kind of person just shouldn’t be free, you see. Not for all the farms in Cuba! A funny kind of tolerance, no?

This verse was brought up in rebuttal right away when Dylan’s “Chronicles” came out, by people who would like to maintain that Dylan was effectively lying in the book; reinventing his past self for some reasons of his own. I never saw it that way for a moment.

It makes me happy to share with quite a few others a view of Dylan’s work — and even an acceptance of his personality — that doesn’t require the belief that he freely lies and contradicts himself in order to deliberately mislead and confuse people. He’s a human being, of-course — he fumbles and falls and doesn’t always express himself perfectly. But the great consistency in his body of work, its very steadiness and the way that it’s rooted in timeless truths, the way that the years pass and yet the songs do not become out of date — this is something for which he deserves great credit. It’s what distinguishes his work from so many of his contemporaries. And it is something that I find that the more conservative-minded fans tend to get about Dylan. He’s not six or seven different people, as Todd Haynes might maintain (however entertainingly). He is one fascinating artist, greatly misunderstood and misrepresented by a ravenous popular media and bounced around in an agenda-driven popular culture. He’s just done his thing. Others have reacted strangely and dramatically to it. It’s an ongoing story.

…

Well, I was going to quote a few more e-mails in this post, but this all seems enough for the moment. And congratulations if you got through the whole thing.

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