Dylan on the tube

Despite my recent published (and therefore quotable) opinions about television, we opted for a lazy evening last night to watch the entire three hours of Scorcese’s Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home.

It portrays Dylan’s unfathomable rise from Woody Guthrie covers man to beat poet extraordinaire and household name.

The film starts with a full band performance of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, performed in the City Hall of my cultural hometown, Newcastle. After screaming every ounce of energy available from his soul and announcing, ‘Goodnight!’, he runs offstage to a cacophony of cheers and boos. He is bundled into a car with entourage, fans, foes and cameramen in tow.

It seems that even Newcastle, no doubt in the mid-sixities, the forward-thinking cultural capital that it is now (ahem), found Dylan’s electric sound somewhat offensive.

“We came ‘ere to see Bob Dylan, the folk singer. Not some pop group!”

Scorcese delights in presenting an inspiring version of Dylan's story with the backdrop of the increasingly weird folk scene he emerged from.

It seems that even to hold a guitar was a dangerous political act in the wake of McCarthyist America, let alone to get up in public and sing prophetic songs of revolution.

While the folk movement became more overtly political, Dylan was generally suspicious of championing obscure agendas.

What I really appreciated was watching him give press calls and take interviews. He was greatly amused/increasingly frustrated by the idiotic, reductive process of being quizzed about his ‘authenticity’ or his political leanings by journalists openly admitting they’d never even listened to his music.

If he was asked a stupid question, he wouldn’t answer it. He’d tell them it was a stupid question. He would ridicule them. It was hilarious to watch.

It seems he spent years on tour performing a schizophrenic (to use a word incorrectly) bill. The first half would consist of a set of solo acoustic folk songs. To his audience, it seemed he could do no wrong in this department. Then the second half would be performed to a hostile, bating crowd, disgusted at his dirtying of ‘pure’ folk music, by the inclusion of drums and electric guitars.

Each performance was a battle. Dylan became accustomed to the dichotomy of the day, triumphantly (and quietly) beginning the night as a heralded folk troubadour and escaping the building with death threats as a noisy pop traitor.

But boy, he fucking rocked. With pure vitriol he screamed out his poetry; he audibly encouraged his band to play louder to piss off the crowd, and he would continue to rile them with words like “here’s a protest song for ya…” BOSH!

Here was a man who had a vision of purpose. He knew what he was about and despite a nightly shaking of confidence by a new anonymous single-minded fuckwit crowd, bent on destroying him, he continued to make music. For the rest of his life.

See, television’s not all bad. Sometimes you watch it and afterwards you’re given the urge to chuck the damn thing out of a window, and take up the guitar.