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Chronicles, Volume 1 - 27/06/15 - 11:19 am

If theres one word to describe Bob Dylans character, I think that it would be laconic. Thats exactly what shines through when you read _Chronicles, Volume 1_. It isnt your usual autobiography, and thats clearly because of the fact that Bob Dylan isnt your average human being. This is what he says of himself.

> It wasnt money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot.

> The madly complicated modern world was something I took little interest in. It had no relevancy, no weight. I wasnt seduced by it.

What shines through in this book is the intimacy. Dylan leads a very private and secluded life, but when you read, you feel as if youre being treated to a sneak peek, an exclusive preview into his life and the life of the 1960s. I actually thought that Dylan had hired another author to get the book written for him. Boy, does he write good. He reads a lot, and had a very good taste in literature.> He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders

if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious.He has an amazing aptitude for poetry, which shines forth when you read the lyrics to his songs.

> I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like Id been pulling an empty wagon for a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture. I was changing in other ways, too.

Dylan is an intellectual. Its imperative that you understand that. Hes not your everyday musician. He has deep questions about the world, he wants life to be a lot simpler than our modern lives make it. He likes talking to people who have views about the world, and has a contempt for people with shallow character.

> If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. However, he isnt politically inclined, and disliked it when he was called to lead movements, marches and activism because he had written protest songs. He never attended any.

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Chronicles, Volume 1 - 27/06/15 - 11:19 am

Bob Dylan never wanted to change the world. He never wanted to be the face of any sort of counterculture. He hated titles like Prophet, Messiah. Once hed married and settled down, he hated the fame he received. He hated each and every moment of it. Read this :

> What kind of alchemy, I wondered, could create a perfume that would make reaction to a person lukewarm, indifferent and apathetic?

He didnt want to be renowned, he didnt want the fame. This is what I really admire. The man is so down-to-earth, all he did was just for music. For his Art. But then, fame came and nearly made him abandon his art.

> Its hard to live like this. It takes all your effort. The first thing that has to go is any form of artistic self-expression thats dear to you. Art is unimportant next to life, and you have no choice. I had no hunger for it anymore, anyway.

> After a while you learn that privacy is something you can sell, but you cant buy it back.

One thing that also struck me is that this is the reason for Dylans music being so far-reaching. He distances himself from his music to an extent. He doesnt really care whether a song tops the charts or not. This is what makes his songs carefree in a sense; all Dylan wants is for them to be true and sincere, and to reflect what he feels. He doesnt change things to garner more attention, or get more raving reviews.He writes this when hes not yet a star and all he gets is an appraising look :

> Sometimes thats all it takes, the kind of recognition that comes when youre doing the thing for the things sake and youre on to something its just that nobody recognizes it yet.

That is what he did. He decided that folk music was just right, that Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Odetta were just right, and then he dived into it, with no care about what the world thought about folk music. He knew that he was making music that no one else was making, and that made him happy, that he was following his true calling.

> You have to believe. Folk music, if nothing else, makes a believer out of you.

> As long as my own form of certainty stayed intact, I owed nobody

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Chronicles, Volume 1 - 27/06/15 - 11:19 am

nothing.If theres one thing that Id like to see him do better, it would be his sense of humour.

> Oh, the wicked ironies of life. Id gotten a cosmic kick in the pants. I probably should have been wearing steel underwear.

Theres something about Dylan, something that binds him to you and me, something that makes you think that hes not so great after all, that hes just a frail human being who got lucky because he got the inspiration to write the amazing songs that he did. And that is his greatness. He took that inspiration and wrote some of the most true and biting songs of the last century. When I listen to Dylan, I feel him, I feel what he felt, and best of all, I feel that he can feel me too, and that he can understand what Im feeling.To conclude, Ill quote this :

> I really was never any more than what I was a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze.

And Ill also say that Bob Dylan is much much more than a folk musician. Hes an icon. Hes a wise old man full of quaint truths and epiphanies. He understands human nature better than most. For me, hes this immovable pillar upon which I can always lean, and which always has an answer to whatever question I pose to it.