i wrote you a song

as you might have gathered, surprisingly, what this election has me thinking about the most today is music.  bob dylan specifically, but music and change in general. 

this type of thing, for example is incredible to me.  rollingstone set up a playlist of music to commemorate rumsfeld's departure. 

music's role in our society, political landscape, our history, and our future is so fascinating to me.  (in fact, npr recently reported on a study on the bob dylan references that appear in judicial decisions...)

song topics are like an historical record of events, feelings of a society as a whole, and moments in time.  yet, music is still so intimate and personal at the same time.  a single song will take thousands of people to thousands of different places in their minds.  a song will bring up private moments in individual's lives:  where they were when they heard that song, who they were with, what they were doing, how they felt at that time in their life.  and those recollections will change with time even tho the song will not. 

yet, music's alternate consequence is that it records the emotions of the masses.  it carries the individual, but only as part of a greater whole.  i believe politicians should be doing the same.

so in honor of the times, i gave a few of my pennies to a going-out-of-business record store.  in exchange, i received bob dylan as he existed in the 1960s.  he makes me feel sad for the past and hopeful for the future.

Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along.
Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn,
It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born.

Comments

[Carl]

Odd you mention music and where it takes me as an individual. Living in good old Glen Burnie, MD another newlywed couple lived below us, Lacy and Ebon and they always played Dylan. I miss that, I miss them even though I didn’t know them all that well, and oddly I miss that apartment even if it was a hellhole.