I received an e-mail from another critic, and it’s one which I feel like answering, although I’m very pressed for time today. I’ll be AWOL for the next week or more, so it’s kind of like a now or never thing.

I’m happy again to note that people who disagree with me nonetheless read this website (potential deep-pocketed sponsors take note!). The e-mail takes me to task not only for Dylan-related matters but also for broader issues of politics and religion. Those will be amply addressed in other contexts as this election year progresses. I’d mainly like to address the correspondent’s central point that the “raison d’etre” for this website is false, because no one characterizes Dylan as being of the left anymore. He says:

While you might not be trying to ‘Steal Dylan for conservatism’, your arguments claiming otherwise evince a standard conservative trope: asserting a false premise which you can argue against, tearing up your straw man with relish, then, dextrously, hoping no-one will notice, claim that your small and spurious victory proves a larger point.

Case in point: your recurring justification for your blog: you are an antidote to the myths propagated in the media that Dylan stands ‘fullsquare behind a basically leftist agenda’ and that he’s been ‘caricatured’ as a leftist ‘for three decades in the media’.

Quite frankly, I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. I would be interested if you were able to provide some quotes from the last ten years, say, in which Dylan has been caricatured as a leftist. As a ‘nasal folk singer’, as he was identified on Page Six of the New York Post, for sure. I remember SNL sketches from the eighties in which he was depicted as an addled, incomprehensible relic from the Sixties. But as a spokeperson for leftism, no.

[...]

So: your basic premise that Dylan is portrayed continually, in a vast conspiracy by the liberal media, as a leftist, is non-existent. The raison d’etre of your blog, its great mission, is false.

The e-mail is signed “Mel,” but the e-mail address says “Bruce.” (If it’s you again, Springsteen, don’t you have better things to do?)

Anyhow, I have to thank my correspondent for setting the bar so low, given how pressed for time I am today. He requests “some quotes from the last ten years … in which Dylan has been caricatured as a leftist.”

Well. I guess it’s somewhat understandable that someone who is himself of the left would not particularly notice the ways in which the media commonly assume that Dylan and his work are essentially of the left. I used to respond in this space to many of these instances; these days, I let most of them go. It gets boring for me, frankly. (And I think the frequency of the references has somewhat declined in the last year or two, although I’m not taking credit for that.) But when you are yourself a conservative who is also a Dylan fan, as I think many readers could attest, you notice these things all the time, and it grates on you to no end. (It might even drive you to launch a website.)

So, without further ado, just a few examples:

As addressed here, the Seattle Times characterizes It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) as “a classic anti-war song.”

As addressed here, the U.K. Times characterizes A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall as Dylan’s “anti-war classic.” (Yes, there’s a theme here. For one thing, I thought the quickest way of finding a couple of examples in the database was to go the “anti-war” route.)

As addressed here, Greil Marcus gave a talk — one he repeated in other venues and the general text of which is at this link — in which he discussed particular performances by Bob Dylan of Masters of War as if they were directed purposefully towards Republicans (in particular George W. Bush).

Finally (since I must really get going today) there was the episode in 2006, heavily covered in this space, where the Christian Science Monitor, in a story related to the release of Modern Times, casually quoted Bob Dylan describing himself as a “62-year-old Jewish atheist.” The quote — which was made by an entirely different human being — was erroneously attributed to Dylan by a reporter who told me that it just sounded like something Dylan would say. The editors also obviously saw no need to question it, or even to source it. Were it not for the vociferous demands for correction which came directly from the owner and operator of this very website, I believe it is highly doubtful that it would ever have been corrected. (Link to correction here.) It would have gotten out there in the ether, like other false quotes, and been regurgitated by other outlets ad infinitum. Indeed, none other than the VOA did regurgitate it shortly afterwards. That outlet also made a correction after communications from yours-truly. (You’re welcome!)

So, the above are just a few instances in which Dylan, and his work, have continued to be characterized in ways which suit the world-view of individuals on the left, but which do not stand up to scrutiny. (I should also point out that the above sources are not isolated wackos; they are sources widely considered to hold authority.) Yes, I do consider it to be “caricaturing”. I’m glad that I’ve often pointed it out and sometimes mocked it and on certain occasions even gotten it corrected. It may be a humble raison d’etre, but in between I try to do some other things too.

And now, with thanks to Bruce, I really have to vamoose.

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