Rolling Stone magazine now has an India edition. Glancing through it I can only feel great joy for the new generation of today, for whom music is truly international. In my youth, India was at the heights of socialist isolationism, and music was hard to come by. I still remember when Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was released (1980 or thereabouts). One guy got the double album (in long playing records) because of some foreign connections - and half the town descended on him to get a copy taped! So MTV, VH1 and now Rolling Stone are all GOOD FOR YOU. Appreciate freedom and defend it. Especially from the culture vultures.
Jann Wenner, who founded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, says in a foreword to the first Indian edition that he was inspired by Bob Dylan. In that decade and the next, music was also about powerful lyrics, and few could equal Dylan's power.
I am placing below a powerful verse from a lesser known song of Dylan, one that dates back to 1964, entitled "My Back Pages":
Jann Wenner, who founded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, says in a foreword to the first Indian edition that he was inspired by Bob Dylan. In that decade and the next, music was also about powerful lyrics, and few could equal Dylan's power.
I am placing below a powerful verse from a lesser known song of Dylan, one that dates back to 1964, entitled "My Back Pages":
A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
I have always wondered why such a great song of Dylan has never had a cover version. Other songs of his, like "Blowin' in the Wind" have so many covers that one has lost count. Why not this one?
However, just a few months ago, I bought a fantastic double CD called the "Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert". This concert was held in Madison Square Garden in New York to mark 30 years since Dylan's first recording. A host of great musicians - Neil Young, Lou Reed, John Mellencamp, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and more - paid tribute to Dylan by singing his songs.
It is here that I found a cover version of "My Back Pages", sung verse by verse by all the musicians present, with Dylan himself singing just one verse (but a crucial one) that went:
However, just a few months ago, I bought a fantastic double CD called the "Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert". This concert was held in Madison Square Garden in New York to mark 30 years since Dylan's first recording. A host of great musicians - Neil Young, Lou Reed, John Mellencamp, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and more - paid tribute to Dylan by singing his songs.
It is here that I found a cover version of "My Back Pages", sung verse by verse by all the musicians present, with Dylan himself singing just one verse (but a crucial one) that went:
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
That's the power of Dylan. And I must confess that, what with Rolling Stone magazine coming into India, I am myself feeing much younger today than I felt in India of the 70s - when socialism made us all age before our time.
I especially like the line "mutiny from stern to bow".
Sets you thinking, doesn't it?
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