Hard Rain

My time on Earth would have been far less exquisite if not for the experience, I had today at the very end of my forty -eighth year, hearing this phenomenal Bob Dylan piece. When I was young, I was raised by what I thought to be the most cynical people imaginable. In their infinite, but supposed wisdom, they cordoned off vast areas of human experience as bourgeoisie pap, mediated fluff or politically motivated distraction. Some of their guidance was of course helpful, but other parts of their lexicon were filled with their own brand of vapid slogan shouting and half-truth. One example was my stepfather, who frequently talked about free love and really meant subjugation of as many females as possible. Much to my delight, my mother was commiserating with a young woman at the Laundromat one day about her suspicions that her husband, John, was sleeping around. See love is only free when given without the attachment of sex. Her new-found friend said that her man was married and would not think of leaving his wife for her. Strangely, her man’s name was John as well, and she asked, Andries? Well, if there had been super glue back in the sixties, it may have gotten used on his genitals that night!

All this said, there were times that I wanted to learn things that the adults in my life wanted me protected from and just as often there were things I needed sheltering from that I had to learn to deal with sooner rather than later. The first Earthday celebration was off limits because my parents said that it was all just a media ploy to distract people from the injustice being perpetrated in Southeast Asia. I was not allowed to watch any media coverage of the war because john had been accosted by newsmen while he was serving in that war, asked to act like his unit was being fired upon and to shoot off a few rounds for the camera.

Bob Dylan fell into the category of things they suspected as manufactured for the masses by the establishment. I don’t think either of my parents were educated enough to understand much of what Dylan wrote, but even more disturbing was their absolute vehemence about his inability to sing. I heard the same tripe about Woody Guthrie, Roy Orbison and Elvis, although for some reason Arlo Guthrie and Frank Zappa made the cut in our house. The stinging in my eyes that brought tears welling up out of nowhere at the sound of Hard Rain came not from the fact that Dylan can’t sing, but perhaps because he can’t sing, but was willing to enter the recording studio anyway. When each of us has something to say, the vast majority would rather hold their tongue, let someone else take center stage, or just fight the urge to speak, or sing, back down inside, hiding their light under a bushel basket. For many of these same silent ones, the prevailing sentiment of their insular sub-culture fills the void that their own ideas have left in public discourse. Ban the bomb sounds catchier than stop poisoning my children, free love sounds better than I’m a fuck machine and so on.

I understand that we all must do the best we can with what we are given, but the time has come for each of us to begin thinking for ourselves, not jumping on either the politically expedient bandwagon or the let’s overthrow the government  one either. Surely there are those who would lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, many are powerful men with evil intent, but it is time to realize that by shirking our own responsibilities, we are cheating ourselves of a life of richness and beauty beyond words.