Um fascinating if it’s true or not. A great website for making you think about history and media and journalism. Dylan remains a mystery to me but some may believe this piece has some truth. dg
Here’s the last red flag I will offer, although I could continue all day. In 1997, Bill Clinton presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center Honor, and said this:
He probably had more impact on people of my generation than any other creative artist. His voice and lyrics haven’t always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He’s disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful.
What a load of crap! Discomforted the powerful?[lol DC] You have to kidding me. This is like Mick Jagger getting knighted. It makes no sense. If Dylan had truly discomforted the powerful, why would they be giving him an award? Do you think the powerful enjoy being discomforted? Have they learned their lesson? Have they been chastened? Who do you think is behind the Kennedy Center and President Clinton? Poor people? You and me? President Clinton and the Kennedy Center represent the average person? C’mon. The super rich run the country and always have, and they are giving Dylan awards because he did his job of misdirection pretty well (for a few years, at least). He fooled a majority of the non-discriminating, and earned his medals and other dog treats.
In conclusion, I repeat that this is no easier for me than for you. I don’t like losing “Shelter from the Storm,” for one thing. It hurts. Talent and real art have been rare enough in the past century without losing what little we had to these government disinfo programs. It isn’t just Dylan I am losing here, it is Cohen—who was in many ways the real thing. But how can I ever listen to anything by him again without being reminded of his part in all this?* If Joni Mitchell is bitter, I think we can now see she has every right to be. We all do. All the arts, including popular music, have been mangled and destroyed to suit the financial interests of a few vulgar families. And if you think you have it bad— having your old heroes ripped out from under you—think of kids now. You find that the beauties you grew up on were partial and compromised and ultimately in the service of a great ugliness. But turn on the radio now: the Wasteland is here in its gasping totality and the youth are being sucked utterly dry by its sirocco. What they wouldn’t give for the relative richness of your upbringing. This is the predictable outcome of art controlled by trade.
But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.