I had this conversation on my Facebook page awhile back with a person I know who is a big big Dylan fan, I called Dylan a hyporcrite and have lost much respect for him unless someone can produce some type of explanation from him to make me feel better. My facebook friend said Dylan never claimed to be anti war etc.

I guess you had to be on that "magic, swirling ship."

May 29, 2012 -- 9:16PM, arielg wrote:

I doubt  he was thinking of "securing his place in history" when he was singing "Damn you masters of war". If he is concerned with it now, he is a sell out and an old fool. 

I agree with that he probably wasn't thinking of securing his place in history when he was young. Those who are great and worthy of remembrance tend to do their thing (whatever that thing is), and do it well, with little or no concern about a possible legacy after their deaths, and then fade away. And oftentimes, like in the case of Thoreau, and Emily Bronte, and Anne Frank, and Sylvia Plath, and so many others, the thing that they do is not considered important -- and sometimes is not even known or at least not widely known -- until they have faded away and become only a memory. I doubt that those who are truly great think about "securing their place in history" when they are young because they are too busy and too concerned with doing their great thing and doing it well, even if they do it in obscurity. (Even Shakespeare, who lived long enough to retire from the theatre, apparently was not concerned, or at least not overly concerned, with preserving his plays, since his actor friends were the ones who put together the First Folio seven years after he had died.)

Yet those who live a long time can become an institution, and respectable, as well as become stale, "an old hat," etc. They can also end up pondering their mortality and concern themselves with their legacy. In addition, those who live a long time, like Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, Lord Tennyson, John Dos Passos, Meridel Le Sueur, etc. (to choose but a few authors as examples), can end up doing their best and strongest and most powerful work when they are still young. Even Shakespeare's late plays, with the exception of The Tempest, tend to be viewed as poorly written, uneven and hastily constructed, and largely ineffective when both read and performed. I know virtually nothing about Bob Dylan, but has he composed any music of late that would be comparable to the celebrated music he composed in his youth? Or does his fame largely rest on the artistic accomplishments of his younger days? 

GREAT posts Costrel

May 29, 2012 -- 5:25PM, fodaoson wrote:

I just retired ( effective May 31). I hope I do not get as cynical, biased, closed minded and opinionated as some folk.   

lol.   Is that how you see it?    I find it highly ironic or surely an oxymoran at best.   Double Speak fer sure.     Frankly without knowing the circumstances or even reading the comments, just by the title alone my first thought was I wouldn't be surprised.    up is down   down is up.  

Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before he even unpacks his suitcase and with that pre election rhetoric!?!    Now Dylan awarded the Medal of Freedom for work done 50 years ago.    congrats Bob better late than never.    The anti war movement has a legacy, one we need to honor, should honor   so says the newseum.   a medal of freedom maybe even a commemorative stamp in the future.     don't ya get it,  the anti war movement was just given an obituary from the President hisself.