We wandered around in the 1950s lifestyle. We were vacant and a bit dim. Thoughts of instant death from above seemed jokingly absurd and, at the same time, as real as milk. We drank a lot of milk. None of it came from our mothers. That may have been the problem.
Cowboys were still the heroes and the music was tame, at best. The big record collection my parents bought when we got a new console stereo contained about 10 LP's of "the best music in the world." It was an off white container with some very white American music. Much of it was classical, and I've never cared for that. I guess I'm not a classy guy. There were two or three of the LPs that I kept listening to. I can't recall all the songs, but there was some piano stuff by the likes of Floyd Cramer. There was "Twilight Time," My Blue Heaven, "Venus" and other such love songs. I caught a glimpse there of something that could be done with this stuff called music. But it was faint.
Fast forward to driving in cars drunk and groping girls when they said they didn't like it. (They did.) Here came the British invasion. The Beatles were so hot. Then there were the wannabe Beatles: Manfred Mann, the Hollies, the Byrds, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and on and on. Who could have predicted all this wave after wave of talent, flooding the open market with some new hybrid of poetry? And yet, that was what was missing. It wasn't really poetry; it was just good-sounding stuff about some girl dumping your sorry ass, or it could be some lame-ass protest stuff about how VietNam was a bad idea. If the noise could be so pleasant, why couldn't the idea be worthwhile? Why couldn't we have a worthy person step up to the plate and give us some Shakespeare or Homer, or at least T.S. Eliot? I'd venture to say that little Bobby Zimmerman at least approximated the latter of those worthy forefathers.
As with my other favorite singer/songwriter from those days, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan should have been more selective with his output. I guess you've noticed on this site that a few good writeups will earn you more respect than a whole bunch of mediocre ones? Instead of the 40 or so albums he's put out, about 10 would have been perfect. Ironically, almost the same numbers could be applied to Van Morrison.
I had turned into one of those hippie dudes who was a purist in everything except logic. I would sleep with a diseased phlemball, I would inject shit that could have been harked up by aliens for all I knew, but I would only listen to the best of music. And that meant folk music. None of this Rolling Stones or Iron Butterfly crap (and that's what it is, I might say) for moi. No, it had to be Ian and Sylvia or Patrick Skye or Buffy Sainte-Marie or Jackie Washington (most of these folks were on Vanguard, the holy label) or, at its best, Bob Dylan.
As you can see down there by the discography, the first four albums by Mr. Dylan were folk albums. He said he was inspired by Woody Guthrie. That's good. I'm glad someone kicked his ass in gear and got him out of Minnesota and to New York to do what he was meant to do. Can you imagine how close he might have come to just driving a beer truck or something? Thoughts like this should scare you and make you think about the choices you make every day.
Anyway, I had those first four albums and I was holed up in my little teen angst pit of despair and gloomy doom listening to them over and over. I tried to get worked up over the protest crap, but I kept coming back to the ballads. The ones like, "If you're traveling to the North Country fair; remember me to one who lives there." I didn't give a flying Commie rat's ass about the war in VietNam (as long as I didn't have to go) or about the evil Nixon: I wanted that hippie muffin out there who was into making love, not war.
(You might rethink the motives of your typical Greenpeace activist or the folks following around trade summits to throw rocks and insults. World peace or piece of ass? I know the truth about these matters from personal experience, but I'll not make blanket statements. You might feel strongly about this crap.)
Still and all, there was still something missing from little Bobby's work. What was it? We all found out in 1965 and 1966. This is when he either injested some serious mind-altering substance or had an epiphany worthy of the Buddah himself.
So, here's my suggestion:
If you've never really listened to Bob Dylan and want to figure out what all the hype is about, start with Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing It All Back Home, or Blonde on Blonde. If you don't like any of these, you won't like the rest. If you do like them, you can go back to his early folk days (such as The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) or you can try his recent efforts (Blood on the Tracks) or the marvelous Love and Theft.
There's a whole lot out there to choose from, so don't start with a CD that's going to turn you away from the guy who changed everything in both my life and in modern music.