Yesterday I walked into a Cape Cod golf shop that had music playing in the background. Not just any music, but the song "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan. The song first appeared in 1965, and I've been in awe of it for more than 40 years. It is an anti-love song, venomous in its resentment of the unidentified person it attacks. It is the voice of an angry young man, directed at the target of its rage and pulling no punches. Yet like so much of Dylan's writing, it surprises by taking familiar words or phrases and turning them into something new and, in this case, startling. (As I write this, a silly Dylan phrase, "the sun isn't yellow, it's chicken," comes to mind.) Nowhere does Dylan accomplish this turn of phrase more effectively than in the last two stanzas:
As I thought more about it, I had to revise my conclusion." Positively 4th Street" may be the most spite-filled song, but certainly not the most hate-filled. That honor, in my estimation, belongs to another early Dylan song, "Masters of War." Written before "Positively 4th Street", at a time when the superpowers (remember when there were two of them?) were building their nuclear arsenals, and belonging to the era of the "Ban the Bomb" protest movement, this song too attacks a target, or rather multiple targets, the people who profit from war and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (a/k/a, the atomic bomb). Unlike "Blowin' in the Wind," which airs anti-war themes by flinging questions like daggers at listeners, or "A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall," featuring a tender parent-child dialogue under the dark cloud of threatened atomic fallout, "Masters of War" spews hatred directly at its target in the same vein as "Positively 4th Street," but at a far more visceral level. Both songs build to climaxes designed to strike at their targets' cores, but the earlier "Masters of War" does so to a concrete and graphic extreme:
Despite their other similarities and differences, though, perhaps the most important thing that these songs have in common is that they were both written by the artist as a young man. After 1965, Dylan certainly matured as an artist, and no song that comes to mind equals or even attempts the level of rage evident in these two early pieces. A former colleague of mine who, coincidentally, met Dylan through a common friend at the top of the music industry, once told me that music is a young person's game. I think rage is also a young person's game. It takes a certain form and level of energy to sustain the kind of anger that populates these songs, and a certain youthful innocence to provoke such unbridled anger in response to the acts of others, no matter how heinous those acts may be. The most recent exhibition of rage in our country, "Occupy Wall Street," was animated mostly by young people who feel displaced by an increasingly polarizing economy. Although the "99-Percenters" who were huddled in tents in Manhattan, Boston, and other cities spanned generations, most were in their late teens or early twenties, the same demographic as Dylan when he wrote these songs and as the millions of fans who embraced them. The truth is, most of us mellow as we get older, and over time, rage gives way to age.
There is much in today's world to justify the kind of anger these songs expressed, and the closer hateful acts hit home, the angrier we become. The Dylan generation had the wind of rage knocked out of them when four innocent students were gunned down at Kent State. Although that massacre provoked a short-lived fury, young people started running for cover, and once the main source of rage -- the conscription of 19-year-old males into an unpopular war -- was removed, the path was cleared for the rage-less and mindless era where disco, not Dylan, was king.
Letting go of rage as one matures is a good thing. It leads to a healthier and happier life and a more peaceful society. Still, as our nation becomes more polarized, as inequality, corruption and injustice continue to abound, I can't help but wonder if a little more rage among the young, a little Jesus-and-the-money-changers kind of rage, a little "Masters of War" kind of rage, a little "stand inside my shoes" kind of rage, might not serve as antidote to some of the hypocrisy and greed that seem perpetually to engulf us.
I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. And just for that one moment, I could be you. Yes I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you.After I heard the song incongruously playing as background music in the golf shop (the man working behind the counter said that the piped-in music was soothing; I don't think he was listening to the lyrics), I thought that this stanza has to be the most hate-filled verse in all of music.
As I thought more about it, I had to revise my conclusion." Positively 4th Street" may be the most spite-filled song, but certainly not the most hate-filled. That honor, in my estimation, belongs to another early Dylan song, "Masters of War." Written before "Positively 4th Street", at a time when the superpowers (remember when there were two of them?) were building their nuclear arsenals, and belonging to the era of the "Ban the Bomb" protest movement, this song too attacks a target, or rather multiple targets, the people who profit from war and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (a/k/a, the atomic bomb). Unlike "Blowin' in the Wind," which airs anti-war themes by flinging questions like daggers at listeners, or "A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall," featuring a tender parent-child dialogue under the dark cloud of threatened atomic fallout, "Masters of War" spews hatred directly at its target in the same vein as "Positively 4th Street," but at a far more visceral level. Both songs build to climaxes designed to strike at their targets' cores, but the earlier "Masters of War" does so to a concrete and graphic extreme:
And I hope that you die. And your death will come soon. I will follow your casket in a pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed. And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead.It's hard to imagine more hate-filled lyrics than these. But if "Masters of War" out-hates "Positively 4th Street" emotionally, the latter out-does the former artistically. "Positively 4th Street" wins the artistic prize for Dylan's exercise of restraint, and his clever turn of phrase. "Masters of War" may have reflected the anger of a coming-of-age segment of Dylan's generation, and its lyrics are powerful, but they resemble more the rantings of an angry child than the artistic expression of a talented writer.
Despite their other similarities and differences, though, perhaps the most important thing that these songs have in common is that they were both written by the artist as a young man. After 1965, Dylan certainly matured as an artist, and no song that comes to mind equals or even attempts the level of rage evident in these two early pieces. A former colleague of mine who, coincidentally, met Dylan through a common friend at the top of the music industry, once told me that music is a young person's game. I think rage is also a young person's game. It takes a certain form and level of energy to sustain the kind of anger that populates these songs, and a certain youthful innocence to provoke such unbridled anger in response to the acts of others, no matter how heinous those acts may be. The most recent exhibition of rage in our country, "Occupy Wall Street," was animated mostly by young people who feel displaced by an increasingly polarizing economy. Although the "99-Percenters" who were huddled in tents in Manhattan, Boston, and other cities spanned generations, most were in their late teens or early twenties, the same demographic as Dylan when he wrote these songs and as the millions of fans who embraced them. The truth is, most of us mellow as we get older, and over time, rage gives way to age.
There is much in today's world to justify the kind of anger these songs expressed, and the closer hateful acts hit home, the angrier we become. The Dylan generation had the wind of rage knocked out of them when four innocent students were gunned down at Kent State. Although that massacre provoked a short-lived fury, young people started running for cover, and once the main source of rage -- the conscription of 19-year-old males into an unpopular war -- was removed, the path was cleared for the rage-less and mindless era where disco, not Dylan, was king.
Letting go of rage as one matures is a good thing. It leads to a healthier and happier life and a more peaceful society. Still, as our nation becomes more polarized, as inequality, corruption and injustice continue to abound, I can't help but wonder if a little more rage among the young, a little Jesus-and-the-money-changers kind of rage, a little "Masters of War" kind of rage, a little "stand inside my shoes" kind of rage, might not serve as antidote to some of the hypocrisy and greed that seem perpetually to engulf us.
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