Writes Jeff Gee in the comments to the post about the Harvard classics professor who teaches a course called Bob Dylan.
In the post, I quoted from "Ballad of a Thin Man" — "You’ve been with the professors/And they’ve all liked your looks/With great lawyers you have/Discussed lepers and crooks/You’ve been through all of/F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books...." That's a line that hits close to home for me, being a professor and a lawyer and an F.-Scott-Fitzgerald blogger.
I loved the video: 1. "Ballad of a Thin Man" is one of the very best Dylan songs, 2. It's close up and in clear focus and the microphone in the way is compositionally interesting, and 3. I'm fascinated to watch his face because he's doing what he's done so many times before but he has this sudden amazing new honor, the Nobel Prize. Is he feeling gratified? Inflated? Surreal? Or is he not changed at all?
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools...
Well, don’t know which one is worse
Doing your own thing or just being cool
You remember only about the brass ring
You forget all about the golden rule
