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“It Ain’t Me, Babe”– Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
(Words/music: Bob Dylan, available on The Bootleg Series, Volume 6: Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall, Columbia Records 2004)
I don’t know as much about Bob Dylan as I should, and while I could beat myself up about this gap in my knowledge of music, I look at it as a gradual discovery of these songs. As I go deeper into Dylan’s catalog, I see all of the different aspects of his personality. Maybe because I started exploring his songs in my early twenties, I’ve always found the young, slightly angry Dylan the most compelling. Maybe it was borne out of understanding all of the absurd “new Dylan” talk that gets tossed around, but I find Dylan’s more pointed songs the most interesting. These songs, like “Positively 4ht Street” or “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” find Dylan somewhat resentful of the spotlight. After a series of brilliant songs full of youthful optimism, Dylan became a “reluctant spokesperson” for his generation. Later on, we turned this Dylan into an archetype for any young, disaffected artist that reacts to a spotlight like a deer staring into headlights. Whenever we do this and evoke Dylan’s name with someone like Conor Oberst or Elliott Smith, we usually cut to something like “Blowin’ in the Wind” rather than “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” Sure, “new Dylan” is shorthand for a singer who is young, socially conscious, at least moderately literate, and has folk leanings, but it usually draws comparisons to the wrong Dylan. Many of the songs on Bright Eyes’ Fever and Mirrors or Lifted… albums have more in common with the resentment in the post-electric era rather than the rallying cries in Dylan’s Greenwich Village days.
I’m writing about Bob Dylan tonight because it’s the closest I’m coming to a Fathers’ Day post. My dad never really played a lot of music around the house but a couple times referred to a time where he skipped swimming practice in high school to go see Bob Dylan perform with some friends. I’ve selected the version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” from a 1964 bootleg because I’d like to think that would be what he saw that night he skipped out on practice (minus Joan Baez, I’d imagine). Even if my dad didn’t pass down records from his youth the way others might (and if I ever have children, the way I probably will innately), he’s always been incredibly supportive of my various musical endeavors. I remember he bought me my first drum set and drove nearly forty minutes away to go buy it. He always read my music articles and listened to my radio show (when the internet stream was available) even if he rarely knew (or liked, I imagined) and of the bands. Most importantly, my dad taught me the merits of perseverance. He would sing the praises of hard work and consistency when he needed to, but he taught these lessons every day by example. He’s a living, breathing example of someone who aims to be better every day and approaches it in small, manageable doses. He’s given my brothers and me encouragement to follow our passions, the resources to be successful, and the space to fail. From a young age, my parents both taught me to follow the path I wanted to follow, and there’s no way I could spend (at this point) nearly six months of my life trying to learn a little more about music and a lot more about being a better writer without either of them. So I’m sharing a Bob Dylan post today in part because of my dad’s story, but in part because the way that many idolize Dylan is the way that I idolize my father. Just as there will never be a “new Dylan,” I don’t want to be a clone of my dad. Instead, my pursuit to be a damn good version of myself is a tribute to the way that he (and my mom) raised me.
More on Bob Dylan: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
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