nobly BaD

For Bob, Forever Ago. 71 years young today.

  nobly BaD

     When Judy Collins first met the great Bob Dylan, she walked away from the conversation thinking he was a complete idiot—a blithering fool barely able to form a coherent thought. Joan Baez, the first time she heard him sing, was astonished, she said—stunned that something “so powerful could come out of that little toad.” So stunned in fact, she fell madly in love with him and promptly bought him a toothbrush—a welcome gift for a man when considering the times of day such a gift is normally used.
     In 2006, Dylan released his 44th album adding to his over 500 songs—an artist whose output and relevance are paralleled maybe by Lennon and McCartney. This towering musical legacy, however, remains largely unexamined and thoroughly misunderstood. Dylan, notoriously reticent with interviewers, offers very little by way of explanation and rarely indulges the "messianic-poet-of-the-generation" label heaped on him. In an interview, he once said about himself that if he weren’t Bob Dylan, he probably would think Bob Dylan had a lot of answers. Yet how could the songwriter who did so much to redefine the role of popular music have nothing to say about the very songs he wrote? How could such musicological mythology be occupied by such a dull, unimpressive man? Could a song ever just be a song…………?
     Dylan never wanted to be anything, he admitted, least of all ordinary. So when young Robert Zimmerman, the newly bar-mitzvahed boy from suburban Minnesota, met the devil, Lucifer himself, in the stacks at the Hibbing library somewhere between Welte and Wordsworth, he couldn’t keep from being seduced.
     “No please, call me Lou,” the devil said. He smiled, casually flipping his shoulder-length, well-conditioned blonde hair out of his eyes and showing his perfect, white teeth.
     “Alright, Mr. D—um, Lou,” the young man smiled back.
     “So then, Robert, how would you like to make your mark on the world? What do you want to do to make this a better place?”
     “Ummmm…I don’t know…Maybe be a doctor. I always liked medicine and the human body.”
     “Doctor? That’s what this world needs. Another Jew doctor. C’mon, Bob. I’m the friggin’ devil, damn it.”
     “Please don’t call me Bob, sir. My mother says it’s a goyim name.”
     “Please don’t call me Bob,” Lucifer mocked. “Listen kid. You’re sitting on a winning lottery ticket, a trip to the moon, and you feed me your mom’s dreams? What do you want?” He pointed a long, slender finger at young Robert’s head, barely touching the space between and just above his eyes.
Robert jerked backwards, stunned. His mind’s eyes filled with images of him dressed in regal attire and ascending stairs to a gilded throne while trumpets sounded and drums pounded, his mother and father looking on proudly; his heart began to beat quickly; beads of sweat gathered on his brow and lip. He felt a faint throb in the place Lucifer touched him and smelled burnt hair.
      When he finally gathered himself, he tried to tell Lucifer of his vision but could manage only a sluggish, garbled stutter, “I-I-I my m-m-m-muu—”
     “Musician, did you say, Robert?” Lucifer said, suddenly convivial, stroking his chin and smirking. “Musician. Hmmmmmm…I like the sound of that. Very subtle. You clever little boy.”
     Lucifer proceeded to ramble on about his plans—how a musician, if given the right tools and direction, could “so easily capture and control hearts and minds" and how "the masses will be lining up to vouch for your deft genius.”
     Of course, poor, brave thirteen-year old Robert heard none of this. He was still wandering in his kingdom reverie, walking on rose pedals and listening to odes written about his heroic and generous deeds. He could hear the music playing at the feasts called for in his honor. Every day for the first year after his coronation, he would attend lavish banquets where he would be entertained by belly dancers and fire spinners and fighting dwarves. He would dine on the finest meats, drink the sweetest wines and then retire to his harem to make love to dozens of virginal women each night.
     “And with me as your manager,” Lucifer said, “we will change the world. What do you think?”
     “Uh—oh," he stammered, "well...I’m not so sure that—“
     “Not sure about what? You do want to make your mark on the world? Don’t you?”
     “Oh, I do. But, I don’t know—“
     The devil held up his hand and looked into Robert’s eyes.
    “Clear you mind, boy. Ask questions if you must, but never question me, son. I know exactly what I am doing. This world needs us. They need to see things differently. Music is not spreading evil; we’re spreading awareness—We’re nobly BaD.”
     “Nobly bad?”
     “Uh, more like—nobly BaD. Think about it.”
     “I don’t understand.”
     “You don’t need to.” The devil pulled a vinyl record out of his briefcase and handed it to his protégé.
     “But we don’t have a player at home.”
     The devil looked at Robert and slowly shook his head, tsking the young man’s vapidness.
    “A tad slow, you are. But you’ll have to do. When you go home tonight, look in your closet. Put this on immediately.”
     Robert turned the cover sleeve in his hands.
    “Who is Woody Guthrie?”
     “It’s pronounced Guthrie, and he’s a guitar player and songwriter you should know. In fact, I’m going to put you on a steady diet of Woody. No more of that Kingston Trio bullshit.”
    “But I like the Trio. In fact—“
    “In fact—you’ll listen to Woody and only Woody every day before and after school. We have lots of ground to cover and precious little time.” The devil stroked his reddish-blonde goatee while looking at his new find. “Eventually we’re going to have to do something about your name. It’s too Jewy. We need something more in line with us—more nobly BaD.”
    “Too Jewy? Forget it, Lou. I’m not going to change my name and you cannot make it so.”
   “Oh, Bob. You have so much to learn.”

1—Any serious journalism in this article should be credited to Louis Menand’s “Bob on Bob” article in the September 4, 2006 issue of The New Yorker