Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑20 Oct 2017, 12:41pm
That would be extremely weird given how seriously he was treated in the 60s. Whether it was the straight Freedom Summer kids or the student radicals later in the decade, Dylan was that touchstone for the both those who embraced popular music and those who were suspicious of it.
I think there's a mistake to conflate Dylan's abandonment of straight-forward protest/political music with a general rejection of him being politically serious post-65 (or whenever). Ignoring the fact that he continued to write straightforwardly political songs throughout his career (Workingman's Blues #2 is as good a political song as he ever wrote, and that came out on
Modern Times!), I don't know if I've seen much effort to frame the bulk of his post-going electric career in terms of concrete political ideology (i.e. Christian Anarchism, or what-have-you). Now, there's about 20 billion books on Dylan out there, so I'm sure I've missed plenty, but that's certainly the general sense that I get.
Certainly amongst fans, that seems to be the case. I know in college, there was a tendency to be dismissive of his post-60s material as lacking politically.
Addendum: Plus, I mean, the guy still performs songs like Masters of War and Blowin' in the Wind. He's obviously still politically engaged.
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