The times they are enragin'
So, uh... I just saw a commercial for Kaiser Permenente featuring Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changin'"...
When did this happen? What the FUCK? It's layers of irony, one upon another, like an irony onion. I mean, one of America's most beautiful protest songs used to whore for The Man... and not just The Man, but Big Healthcare... one of the greediest of all The Men. Jesus christ, the balls on that guy!
But I have to ask myself ... why does it feel so terrible and wrong? Dylan's practically a senior citizen by now, should he be allowed to cash in on himself if he wants? Or does someone like Dylan -- a 'voice of a generation' type icon -- have a responsibility to maintain that legacy as long as he's alive?
Ugh, I dunno. It just makes me feel sick. Even though I haven't listened to Bob Dylan much since I was a teenager, I still feel like something inside me has been ripped out and stomped on.
I mean, I never thought I'd live to see the day that a citizen activist coalition would be urging the public to protest Bob Dylan for lending his music to a faceless, multi-billion-dollar corporation.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
When did this happen? What the FUCK? It's layers of irony, one upon another, like an irony onion. I mean, one of America's most beautiful protest songs used to whore for The Man... and not just The Man, but Big Healthcare... one of the greediest of all The Men. Jesus christ, the balls on that guy!
But I have to ask myself ... why does it feel so terrible and wrong? Dylan's practically a senior citizen by now, should he be allowed to cash in on himself if he wants? Or does someone like Dylan -- a 'voice of a generation' type icon -- have a responsibility to maintain that legacy as long as he's alive?
Ugh, I dunno. It just makes me feel sick. Even though I haven't listened to Bob Dylan much since I was a teenager, I still feel like something inside me has been ripped out and stomped on.
I mean, I never thought I'd live to see the day that a citizen activist coalition would be urging the public to protest Bob Dylan for lending his music to a faceless, multi-billion-dollar corporation.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
8 Comments:
As has been documented elsewhere, the viewing of Metallica: Some Kind of Monster filled me with a deep, deep depression. I had come to the screening expecting some sort of angst, to be sure, but the level of ugliness in that film was beyond anything I anticipated. So complete was Metallica's perceived renunciation of their past that on the way home, I was unable to listen to their music, and, indeed, it was several months before I could do so without feeling slightly sick.
During that film, I had this overpowering wish I could somehow let the 20-something James Hetfield confront the 40-something James Hetfield. What would he say to him? What would he make of the unsure, self-conscious, apologetic Beta male that fronted Metallica in the 21st century?
So it is with Bob Dylan. One can only wonder what the young author of "Masters of War" would think of this latest commercial travesty. One can only imagine what he'd sing about it.
Musicians are only human, to be sure, and change is necessary, but a wholesale rejection of (and betrayal of) one's past work is disrespectful not only to the work itself, but to anyone and everyone who found part of themselves reflected in those creations.
Shame on you, Bob Dylan. May history treat your art more kindly than you have.
However, I think that in the realm of wholesale renunciations of ones past work, one cannot forget the "apology" for "Lisence to Ill". I for one was renwed with respect for the Beasties when I heard them renounce their major label debut. Sure everyone is going to go off about how great No Sleep Till Brooklyn was but c'mon man that album has all the meaning of a late night masturbatory session in front of a broadband connection. I mean it may be fun but ultimately you shrug and walk away. We all know that the later Beasties stuff is incredible. So sometimes a well meant apology can mean alot to fans. In Metallicas case, man they just suck anymore. I can't believe that the band that gave my musical taste life with Back to the Front and Master of Puppets and Sanitarium gave me the trite pablum that was "the black album" (like they are some witty send off to the Beatles or something).
As for selling your music to corporations, fuck'em who cares. It's like Robert Plant said "It's been a long time since I bought a Cadillac, a lonely lonely lonely lonely time......."
I know that nothing is pure and nothing is sacred, but when you're filled with a frustrating and impotent rage over something like ... say ... your greedy and corrupt healthcare provider, sometimes just hearing a contrary voice is all you need to feel a little hopeful, like perhaps things could still change. Yeah, maybe it's all bullshit. Maybe protest music was and is and will always be just fashion, but generations of people feel otherwise. It meant something, it had value. Nothing that would mean much to a Ferengi, but that's not a yardstick I care to measure anything by anyway.
Heh, I sound seventeen again.
I don't like you anymore.
You have cooties and you smell.
I think I want to be Chris when I grow up!
It's also worth noting the use of "Dust in the Wind" in the new Subaru TriBeca commercial.
I wonder what other creative agreements we could come up with to help other "struggling" artists sell out...
I'll start with 2..
..."Strawberry Fields Forever" for a Burgerville strawberry milkshake commercial?
...G'N'R's "Civil War" for the annual showdown between OSU and UO (Go Ducks!)?
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