(I’ve
been sitting on this post for a while. Sometimes I like to wait for all the
initial reactions to a new Dylan story to die down. Usually time offers a
clearer perspective. I haven’t seen any blogs accusing Dylan of being a “fascist”
lately, so hopefully the stupidity has ebbed.)
The few of you who
have read this blog in the past might notice I have been long absent. Last time
around I wrote about my trip to Minnesota in July to see Bob Dylan in his home
town, Duluth, and in mine, St. Paul. I’m a public school teacher so in the summer
I have time to make trips like that, and write about them. This time of year,
not so much, although I have just made plans to go to Hawaii (!!!) at the end
of April for two more shows of the Someday-It-Actually-Will-End-Tour.
In
the meantime, I was happy to get a glimpse of the man during a timeout while my
Seahawks were busily thrashing the Broncos in the huge spectacle sporting event
of the year. So I was already in a good mood when I got to hear that voice I
love. We don’t usually do sports championships here in Seattle, but this team
was the real thing from the get-go. These Hawks had the power and the confidence
and skill that went some distance toward healing decades of Seattle sports
pain.
I
shushed the teenagers and we all listened in. Oh man. Bob said more in two
minutes than he’s said from the stage in the last two years. My seventeen year
old boy’s only reaction was “that was a really long commercial.” I was still turning over the images of
middle America in my head when Joe Buck came back on screen and tried to make
the blowout football game more interesting to middle America. I was thinking about
Dylan saying, “we believe in the zoom and the roar and the thrust.” It seemed
to capture perfectly my adrenaline filled, Seahawks pumped, American moment.
Never mind that the car I just bought was made in Austria; I immediately wanted
to drive out on some back road that doesn’t even exist around here on Seattle’s
traffic choked streets, that hasn’t existed since 1953, and take it up to
ninety.
That’s
what Bob makes me think I can do. Time travel. Limitless possibilities. One
hand waving free. That’s what I’m inspired to imagine. Now I might have it a
little backwards, because I was drinking a delicious locally made American beer
and I am quite happy with my sporty little Austrian car, but frankly I don’t
think it matters one bit. I don’t think Bob is quite as literal about his
American products as some might have you believe. I hear some Michigan brewers are upset because Dylan said
“Let Germany brew your beer.” Come on. It’s just a verbal device to set up a
great line, that Dylan, an American worker himself, a maker of songs, says in
stutter speak: “WE will build your cars.” To me, that line promises a mythic
America, where there are plenty of good jobs making real things that earn a
real wage and real respect. But did it ever really exist? Is Bob Dylan ever
describing a reality that exists outside the story-time? Even the when Motor
City was thriving, when it was also Motown, I bet it was also a racist, sexist,
desperate place for many people. Parts of that American dream existed and parts
still exist. But whether it’s cars or beer or another craft, it’s what you
build in your own head that counts. Some people see that ad, and all they see
is the darkness. Yes, it’s there, of course it is. God knows Dylan has explored
that side of things plenty in his tunes, even about the fall of the auto
industry. “I was up on Black
Mountain the day Detroit fell. They killed them all off and they sent them to hell.”
But for some reason then they pin that darkness on Dylan, when all he is doing here
is talking decent work, open roads
and imagination. And earning a check. Why would anyone take the ad so
literally, that Dylan wants you to buy a certain car?
Honestly, let’s
just pretend the ad was for some Michigan microbrew and Bob was standing in
their facility next to a big vat of mash. He’s surrounded by dedicated and
happy American brewery workers and he says, “Let Austria build your cars. WE
will brew your beer.” Just as moving for me personally and it could have
happened.
Maybe
I am being a little funny, but I am not joking. I was thrilled to see Bob
selling Chryslers and I was thrilled to see him selling ladies undergarments
and I would be pretty darn happy to see him selling beer. Not everyday of
course, but on special occasions. I have always been happy to see him: on my
little black and white TV in “Hard Rain” in 1976, in the rare commercial, or in
the parking lot outside the Moore theater here in Seattle a few years ago
getting into a SUV (not sure, but I think it was an American model) and most
especially on a stage singing the tune they used in that particular ad: “Things
Have Changed.” That one always rocks and it is a consistent acknowledgment in this
particular age of Bob that it’s all a dream. That you can be sincere as you
like that you love your mother and half the people will swear you hate her. The
images are not to be taken literally as a political statement. They do not
exist in your political world.
I
doubt Dylan cares exactly what the product is, as long as it’s decent. I’m sure
he’s intrigued by quality lingerie and cars and yogurt. Why not? One thing he seems to be doing in that commercial is
offering Americans another reflection. What do you see? What do you see, during
the Super Bowl — the ultimate American entertainment/recreational event of the
year — when Bob Dylan try to sells you a car? When he talks about the
originality and vigor of Americans? A lot of people that I’ve been reading on
the internet see something busted, something corrupt, something old, something
laughable, something just a little bit sick. I’m not sure why. It’s not what
not Dylan is talking about. He is talking some mythic America, again. How does
a car ad indict the singer as a hypocrite? What does Dylan betray by this
vision? Why is he Judas again, because he like cars and American iconography? Again,
I think these critics are seeing something in themselves and in their country,
perhaps something valid, but it’s not Dylan’s fault.
It’s
interesting how some folks are finding such disturbing images in the Chrysler
commercial. I saw a cowboy and a weathered man in a diner. I saw a woman
laughing in a moving car and man playing pool and some folks on assembly lines.
Of course none of these symbols are very original or cutting edge. Some people
say they are “banal.” Some people must be so hip that any image of regular
American shit must be “banal.” It must be a burden to be so hip. It was only an
advertisement, but I liked the pictures. What pulled them together was Dylan describing
an idea of the America he loves, the America of the people he grew up among on
the iron range in his home state, my home state. Here is Bob talking to us, one
of the largest television crowds in history, about the basic decency of working
people and the heart that they put into their work. He extols the automobile
and its historical significance to that worker, and its current significance in
that same Midwestern heartland he grew up in. He never mentions Chrysler by name.
It seems to be at least in part an ad for the integrity of a laborer, and for
the necessity of supporting those labors. But I think Dylan trusts that any
thoughtful, feeling listener knows that history is more complicated and
terrible than any single romantic image. It was in Duluth, Dylan’s place of
birth, that the postcards of the hanging were sold. Home, in a Bob Dylan song,
is not the America of the cynics and literalists. It is a far more mysterious
place, an older place, a place of the imagination. What’s more American than America is a complex question,
involving brotherhood and slavery both.
The
scenes in Bob Dylan’s Chrysler commercial are similar to the pictures that
Dylan has been singing about for fifty years, realities that live in libraries
and forgotten manuscripts and folk songs, even if they no longer exist on our
streets. “Things Have Changed,” the signature song of latter day Dylan, plays
in the background, because Dylan is aware that the America he extols no longer
exists except in the sacred space of his childhood. It only lives where he
hears the whistle of that Duquesne train. According to one commentator on the
internet, these ideas are “protectionist.” Another says the entertainer is selling
cars with images of “exceptional” America. Those politics have nothing to do
with the songwriter. These people accuse Bob of being the cynic, but they only
projecting their own callousness. On the ground level, Dylan is sometimes as
straightforward as it comes, as direct as his Christian gospel: I Believe in
You. In one vital sense, you CAN take him at his word: this ad contains a
sincere concern about the value and integrity of the American worker. And what
is more American than advertising, anyway?
But Dylan
questions our ideas of time itself, and whether an individual life should be
viewed in the context of a single historical period only, or in the more
limitless world of the imagination and folk story. We know he steals sometimes,
from the past and distant lands, and he makes you doubt his own authorship. He
makes us doubt our own authorship of anything. What new art do we really create
in this age? He makes you know you don’t know who he is. He might be someone else. At some point
we all will change into someone else.
Have the critics ever
listened to “Cross the Green Mountain,” Dylan’s civil war dirge? Pretty much
everything you ever want to know about America is in that song. I remember
saying the same thing once about “Desolation Row,” but that’s true as well. How
dare these two-bit writers tell Dylan that a simple tribute to his country is
banal when his entire body of work has shown the complexities of his nation? If
folks are going to cry sell-out again, we better go a few songs deeper than “The
Times They are a Changing.” In Dylan’s music, the times have changed so much
that time itself is often moving backwards.
In “Cross the
Green Mountain,” a soldier, a lone survivor of a terrible battle, stands on the
“dim Atlantic line,” watching the enemy advance upon his position,
contemplating his coming death. We don’t know if he is Union or Confederate. He
sees the soldiers across the ridge not as enemies but as brothers in arms. All
are pawns in the game. As the “foe crosses over from the other side,” they “tip their caps.”
“I dreamt a monstrous dream.
Something rose up out of the sea. Swept through the land of the rich and the
free.”
“Pride will vanish and glory will
rot, but virtue lives, cannot be forgot.”
Dylan’s vision of America cannot be sold out. A Bob Dylan song may take a point of
view, it may even articulate that point of view better than anyone else has done,
it may be sincere, but we make a mistake to raise it up the flagpole. It is a
dream and everyone is fallible, including the singer. From “Rolling Stone” to
“Idiot Wind,” the finger points not at the other, but at the human heart. The
enemy is within.
“The bells of evening have rung,
there’s blasphemy on every tongue.”
“You’re walking in dreams, whoever
you are.”
I’m dreaming about Maui in late
April. Time travel. Limitless possibilities. One hand waving free.
many words for a Commercial ad - that is what you are talking about, right? what about "nespresso-what else?" any words about george clooneys Vision of middleclass People all over the world?
ReplyDeleteI am not qualified to comment on the mysteries of George Clooney. Perhaps you were looking for another blog? The Hollywood Reporter? Really loved that "Michael Connelly" movie however. Tilda Swinton was so evil.
DeleteBut I do look forward to a Dylan coffee ad, as long as it's not Starbucks. In that case, even I might begin to have an issue.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4244934.stm
DeleteHMV stores in Canada have removed Bob Dylan CDs from their shelves in protest at the singer's deal to only sell his new album in Starbucks!
It is not the first time Dylan has joined forces with a major company to promote his music. Last year, an exclusive compilation CD of his work was sold by lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret.
Good post, enjoy the Hawaii shows!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I will! Aloha! And the photo at the top is on Kauai's north shore.
DeleteInteresting threads at the Caf on the advertisement.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=674360179293609&set=gm.661382020567000
EDLIS Café
http://www.facebook.com/groups/edlis.cafe/
http://www.edlis.org/cafe
"I am not joking. I was thrilled to see Bob selling Chryslers and I was thrilled to see him selling ladies undergarments and I would be pretty darn happy to see him selling beer."
ReplyDeleteThe Turkey Chase Greek beer advertisement was in 1979! Bob Dylan has been selling beer for over 30 years, ask any serious Dylan fan about that advertisement.
Well, let me ask you then! You seem pretty serious! Where can I see it?
Deletehttp://www.edlis.org/twice/threads/advertising.html#greek_beer
DeleteTurkey Chase which was used in a television advertising campaign for beer in Greece in 1979. Does anyone recall the brand of beer?
It was a real Greek beer, not like the fake Greek yoghurt he sells jingles to now.
I'm glad to see that you are writing again. you have an excellent blog here. Why "The Idiot Child"? As for the Chrysler commercial, I have no problem with it except that I was disappointed and more importantly, shocked by Dylan's physical appearance in it. I was expecting to see him as he has been so brilliantly captured lately in photographs by Paolo Brillo. The Dylan in the add looked grotesquely phony, like a figure in a wax museum. I can't, for the life of me, understand how or why this happened, and I think the ad would have been much more acceptable if he was seen the way he looks today, beautiful and dignified and real. I also, do not care how many commercials he makes, why he makes them, or how much money he gets for doing them. All of that is his business. I'm just baffled by his appearance in that particular ad and to be truthful, I would not be surprised to learn that it was not him at all, but an impersonator as in "I'm not there". I have suggested just that to many who think I'm either joking or just plain nuts.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The idiot child is a folk tale motif. It refers to the youngest child in a family, scorned as a simpleton, who is actually more open-minded than his elders. This leads him to discover hidden treasures and experiences that cannot be perceived by the others. As for Bob's appearance in the ad, I think it must be intentional and part of the play. Maybe another form of the whiteface he wore during Rolling Thunder. I think you are on the right track when you say "impersonator" though no doubt it was really Dylan. But it was Dylan impersonating Dylan. Dylan pretending to be a celebrity selling cars. I am fascinated by this late period thing he has going on, interposing authenticity and an identity that is a collage, a creation of other people's words and images of him. I think the pallor and artificiality of his appearance in the ad is a way of hiding from the millions watching. He won't be known and on the other hand he will also put the truth right in front of you. Especially live on stage.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the pictures you refer to are very beautiful and they do show the "real" Dylan in my opinion. I'm not sure he wants us to see that beauty.
ReplyDeleteI’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but
ReplyDeleteyour blogs really nice, keep it up! I'll go ahead and bookmark your website to come back down the
road. Cheers
Feel free to surf to my website raskt forbrukslån