Re: the genuine article
Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Sat, 26 Jun 1999 11:22:20 -0400
On Fri, Jun 25, 1999 at 01:44:41PM -0400, Paul Kennedy wrote:
> >> You can be in my dream if I can be in yours....
> >> --Robert Zimmerman
>
> I'm sorry to have apparently misled the pond by assuming that Mr. Dylan's
> REAL name was general knowledge.....
Another reply, late, with little, if any, relevance to Salinger,
except, perhaps, for the number of commas in this sentence.
There's a great old David Bowie song, whose title of course escapes me
completely because it's been pushed aside in my head by lumber of more
recent vintage and density, called something like "Song for Bob Dylan."
It starts something like:
Hear this, Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you,
About a strange young man called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
And Simon & Garfunkel did a funny song with a phrase that could be
considered, for all practical purposes, to have been mouthed by a
"section man":
I knew a man, his brain so small,
He couldn't think of nothing at all.
He's not the same as you and me.
He doesn't dig poetry. He's so unhip that
When you say "Dylan," he thinks you're
talking about Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was.
The man ain't got no culture,
But it's all right ma,
Everybody must get stoned.
All of which (I suppose) demonstrates how deep is the thread, at least
in the U.S., Bob Dylan has become insinuated in our lives. I scarcely
find myself in a situation that doesn't cause at least one Dylan phrase
to come to mind. And I know on great authority (e.g., personal
knowledge!) that I only speak with 1/100th the command of the subject
compared to at least one of our subscribers....
--tim