Age is just a three-letter word

Cartoonist Jeff Danziger (68) with a salute to Bob Dylan which I assume editors got in time to run yesterday though it only went on-line this morning.

A college friend noted the landmark on Facebook and I remarked that, the funny thing is, it doesn't seem that old to me anymore. And another from that cohort -- and in fact who plays in a band with the original poster -- asked, "How many music 'celebs' of today will people still be listening to when they're 70?"

Which raises the question, how many people are actually listening to Dylan himself these days, compared to people who are listening to people cover Dylan, or to people writing songs that wouldn't have been written without Dylan?

Now, granted there is that group who can't get past the fact that the guy doesn't sing like Caruso. But most of them are so unhip that, when you mention "Caruso," they think you're talking about David Caruso, whoever he is. The kids ain't got no culture.

But there's also that group of bright, thoughtful but still unformed kids who stumble over Dylan the same way college sophomores stumble over Rousseau and at the same age, and are blown away by the sorts of expansive concepts that bright, thoughtful kids ought to be blown away by.

And they need to hear the songs from the master, in order to get it, because that's where it started, that's the first-generation original source, even though it's encouraging when they branch out and also argue whether the best cover of "Tangled Up In Blue" is by The Indigo Girls or KT Tunstall. Or why the best covers of a first-person narrative by a male character are by women, which is part of the thing.

And the thing is, it's not all about the music and it's also not all about Bob Dylan, either. If anyone embodies Whitman's containing of multitudes, it's Dylan, who isn't so much a chameleon as simply one of those figures who is whoever you think you see, and then some other things, too, that you're gonna see some other time, if you take another look.

I remember being disillusioned by Pennebaker's documentary, Dont Look Back, because he came across in it as such an arrogant prick. But then I realized he didn't care what I thought about him, and I liked him more for that.

Dylan doesn't have to still be around to be influential, and most of what he's going to do to change the world has probably already happened, but it's nice that he is still on this side of the turf and that he still tours and people can still go see him if they'd like.

As for Danziger's cartoon, it's good we're still around, too, but the scene is pretty much imaginary. Fact is, it's been a long time since we've all sat around the table like that.

Comments

[Sherwood]

Tell you what, just reading this gave me the munchies -- and using that Crumb cartoon was *inspired*, man.

Bet we're gonna be doing a lot of the same thinking in a couple of years when Chris Jagger's older brother turns 70, and he can't sing for shit either.

[Mike]

I'm a fan of the British Blues Stones rather than the Rock and Roll Stones, but find it hard to sort out their influence from that of, for extreme instance, John Mayall, the Yardbirds, the Animals and others of the moment. Not a "better or worse" issue, but simply one of influence. It could have all happened without the Stones, though they made it happen better. Dylan transcends his actual music in a way they don't -- which is a statement more about his legacy than theirs.

In any case, don't knock Mick's vocal chops unless you can sing "Ruby Tuesday" or "19th Nervous Breakdown" without a key shift -- aka "a helpless dive into falsetto" -- halfway through.

[Gilda92]

Anybody ever calls me "Grandma" I'll force them to listen to me sing "19th Nervous Breakdown" They'll be sorry about that key shift!

[f]

Sorry if I've told this one before: I'm a hospital librarian, and recently I was talking to a medical resident who was bemoaning how old he was. I asked him his age, then said "I'm old enough to be your father." I'm fifty (but I read at the fifty-five-year-old level). True, I would have had to be a father at around thirteen, but it's possible. Turning fifty was somehow very liberating, and being in a room of brilliant people half my age lets me play the geezer card for all it's worth.