Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Jeffrey Edward Green, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss his new book, Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God. They chat about how Green sees Dylan as a modern-day prophet, but a prophet of diremption rather than a prophet of salvation. They also discuss how Dylan has made novel contributions to the meaning of self-reliance, the quest for rapprochement between the religious and non-religious, and the problem of how ordinary people might operate in a fallen political world.
Creators & Guests
Host
Tim Benson
Ill Literacy, the newest podcast from The Heartland Institute, is helmed by Tim Benson, Senior Policy Analyst for Heartland’s Government Relations team. Benson brings on authors of new book releases on topics including politics, culture, and history on the Ill Literacy podcast. Every episode offers listeners the author’s unique analysis of their own book release. Discussions often shift into debate between authors and Benson when ideological differences arise, creating unique commentary that can’t be found anywhere else.
What is Ill Literacy: Books with Benson?
The Heartland Institute's podcast discussing notable new works with their authors. Hosted by Tim Benson.
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Illiteracy Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Benson, a senior policy analyst at the Hartman Institute, a national free market think tank. I believe this is episode 172 of the podcast. Maybe 171, maybe 173. Anyway, around there somewhere in the 1 seventies.
Tim Benson:So, we've been around for a bit, but if you're just tuning in for the first time, basically, what we do here in the podcast is I invite an author on to discuss a book of theirs that's been newly published or recently published on someone or some idea, some event, something, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera that, we think you guys would like to hear a conversation about. And then hopefully at the end of the podcast, you go ahead and, give the book a purchase and give it a read. So if you like this podcast, please consider giving Illiteracy a 5 star review at Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to the show and also by sharing with your friends because that's the best way to support programming like this. And my guest today is doctor Jeffrey Edward Green, and doctor Green is professor of political science and director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania. He's the author of The Eyes of the People, Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship, The Shadow of Unfairness, A Plebeian Theory of Liberal Democracy, and he is also the co editor of The Changing Terrain of Religious Freedom.
Tim Benson:And he is here today to discuss his latest book, Bob Dylan, Prophet Without God, which was published back in August by Oxford University Press. So, doctor Green, thanks so so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Thanks, Tim.
Tim Benson:Oh, no problem. Yeah. I mean, I guess just starting off, I mean, you obviously gotta be, I assume you'd have to be a Dylan guy to write, you know, a whole, you know, 350 page book on on Dylan. So, yeah. You know?
Tim Benson:So what got you into Dylan? How'd you get into Dylan, and how much of a bob head, actually are you?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, I guess I'm guilty as charged. Since being, exposed to Dylan around the age of 16, I've been fascinated by him and listening to him ever since. I'm 50 years old now. And, there've been some ebbs and flows, but mostly just, great deal of appreciation for the man.
Tim Benson:So how did you what was your entree into into Dylan? Where did you, how did you get started on the in your journey through the canon?
Jeffrey Edward Green:I got the Biograph, CD box set around 1990, which, for listeners who don't know, was a kind of, I guess, greatest hits like album with some unreleased bootlegs as well. And so it was, a 3 disc set, a lot of songs, a lot of different moments of Dylan's career. Many, if not most of them, were well beyond me well beyond my ability really to appreciate them. But there were some that stuck with me, and I built out from there. And, as time goes by, feels as if I'm gradually, understanding more, not less, appreciating certain songs more deeply.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And, some things, dissipate with age, but perhaps appreciation of music is not one of them.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Do you have a favorite era or album? You know, what's your there's you know, Bob contains multitudes. So, there's lots of different periods in Dylan's, career recording career.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, part of what makes him so special is his long, period on the public stage that he's been around for 60 plus years, that he's given us so many different looks. That's part of what's remarkable about him. So it's very hard for me to pick. I, like many, you know, was very struck early on by sixties Dylan and and the Going Electric Dylan and those 3, triumphant albums, bringing it all back home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. In my later years, I really became a huge fan of the gospel period, 3 so called Born Again Bob albums.
Tim Benson:Yeah.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Slow Train Coming, Saved, and, also, Shot of Love. The 21st century has been the hardest for me, to appreciate with the same, extreme, joy. But as time goes by, that's where I'm getting more and more interest. And the Modern Love album, I find Fantastic Tempest, Mhmm. But it's a very different voice and, perhaps very different mentality.
Jeffrey Edward Green:So I don't have a specific era that I favor, but but, like so many, you know, the the sixties is so special. But, also, I should add, the seventies albums, desire, the blood on the tracks, and I'm a huge fan of, infidels, the first album after the gospel period. And right now, if you're if you wanna know what I'm listening to all the time in the Dylan department, it would be the springtime in New York, a bootleg album from unreleased tracks around the time of infidels in 83. And, that's been my my November, early December, go to for Dylan.
Tim Benson:There you go. Yeah. I mean, for the record, I guess I'll state my my journey too. So I'm a tad bit younger than you. Pretty sure the first Dylan album I ever had was probably the the first greatest hits record.
Tim Benson:But then when I was a freshman in high school, it's, like, 1997, 98, my friend's brother, basically drove us to school every day, and he was a senior cross player, kind of a big stoner. He had, like, this, like, 4 album rotation in his car for, like, the entire year, which was, The Doors' first album, Fashion Nugget by Cake, that White Town album, you know, the I can never be your woman. Remember that song? And then the 4th album was Desire. And, so that was my and I had known heard Hurricane before in, obviously, in Dazed and Confused and that famous scene where McConaughey comes walking into the pool hall looking cool as shit.
Tim Benson:And, so I'd heard that and gotten into Desire. And then, from there, I had a job in a, a record store in high school and, you know, just went back and, you know, again, this that sixties triumvirate of the electric albums that you mentioned, Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61, bringing it all back home. And, yeah. And from there, it kinda took off. And, you know, I saw Dylan, I think maybe my freshman year, my sophomore year of high school, saw him live with the Brian Setzer Orchestra opening.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So that was my pathway. And then, of course, you know, blood on the tracks, you know, that was, like, my go to, you know, after, you know, getting my heart broken my junior year of high school. So that was on the regular rotation and, you know, just from there. And I remember when I got to college, I think, like, the first, like, contemporary album, I think, because Time Out of Mine had already come out, I think, by the time I was in high school.
Tim Benson:And then so the first contemporary album I could have bought was Love and Theft, and, like, I had a plan. You know, when I was in college, like, you know, I'm gonna wake up in the morning, go down, and and get love and theft from the local from the, you know, CD store on campus. And that morning turned out to be 911. So, you know, that delayed my purchase for a few days. Anyways but, yeah.
Tim Benson:So I've been a he's a sort of a big Bob fan ever since, high school. I've seen him in concert now numerous times. Pretty much dig the whole, the whole oeuvre, if you will. I know as big as a fan I I think the, like, the the gospel period, I think it's interesting. I don't listen to it as much as the others, although the the concerts from that period are fantastic.
Tim Benson:They did the, one of the bootleg series a few years ago, maybe, like, 4 or 5 years ago was on the gospel period and had a bunch of Dylan's shows from that period, and they're really, really fantastic. But, yeah, the 21st century stuff, I mean, I really like Love and Theft and, like you said, Tempest, Modern Love, pretty good. Not really sure still what to make of the, the standards albums, which was, was it triumvirate or whatever the 3 CD? The new one was pretty good. I forget the name of it, the one with Murder Most Val and Key West and all that stuff.
Tim Benson:But, anyway, so Yeah. So I sort of, obviously, when there's any sort of new Dylan book on the that, you know, comes across the transom. I'm always, you know, I'm always interested in reading it. So I was really interested in reading your book, and it's a really, really fascinating fascinating book, and it's, you know, unlike any, other book on on Bob that I've ever read. So, so I guess getting into the book, you know, the sort of entry question everybody gets, you know, what, you know, what made you wanna write this book?
Tim Benson:What was, you know, what was the genesis of the of the whole project?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, I suppose I've had this lifelong fascination with Dylan, and the book among other things is my effort to, make sense of that fascination, to try to conceptualize it, and do so by putting Dylan in context with the tradition that I'm most familiar with, from a scholarly perspective, the tradition of Western political thought. And, the overarching idea of the book is that Dylan is a prophetic figure, but not just any prophetic figure, very special, unusual, almost unprecedented kind of prophetic figure. And I try to flesh that idea out in numerous gestures, and each one of those leads me to put Dylan in conversation with people that I was already familiar with, who Dylan is both like and unlike, Emerson and Thoreau, a certain 20th, 21st century philosophers of the post secular, political realists like Thucydides or Machiavelli, and I could talk more about that. But, I was interested in Dylan, first of all, academically as a prophetic figure in the 19 sixties, where I thought he was doing something very unusual. He was affiliated with the civil rights movement, and then he withdrew from the movement, publicly saying, I'm not gonna do this anymore, and sang songs about that withdrawal, made statements about that withdrawal.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And I'm not familiar with very many people who do this, who are seen as a leading figure in a social justice movement, and then publicly say they're not gonna be part of the movement any longer, not because they don't agree with the movement, but because they just can't be bothered. They can't sacrifice the time and energy to be a dependable agent for that movement. So I, from an early age, was fascinated by that and then began to write about that, putting Dylan in conversation with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, the only other people I'm aware of who do something roughly similar. But then the project morphed beyond the sixties episode, and I realized that Dylan had other prophetic moments besides the unusual one I just described. He's not just any type of evangelical Christian in the late seventies early eighties, but a very special one who's unusually good at speaking to militant atheists.
Jeffrey Edward Green:That's, second of 3 main parts of the book. And then the final part is that he's a prophet of pessimism and is more pessimistic than ordinary prophetic figures are. So I had the germ in a way from that sixties, Dylan withdrawing from the civil rights movement, but I broadened out the scope to to have it be a meditation on Dylan as a prophetic figure more generally. And I I did so in awareness that I was pushing back against the grain of Dylan's scholarship, and against many of Dylan's own comments, all of which caution against treating him in prophetic terms. The usual, message is Dylan's not a prophet.
Jeffrey Edward Green:He's a musician. He's not a prophet. He's a poet. He's not a prophet. He's an entertainer or a businessman.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And I get what those criticisms are trying to say, but I still think quite seriously that it it is correct to see Dylan as playing a prophetic role in our culture, but it matters what kind of prophetic role. And my book was trying to answer that question.
Tim Benson:Yeah. I have to admit, when I came into reading the book, I was probably more on the skeptical side of, you know, whether he's a prophet. I mean, you know, if you're I'm sort of late Gen x, early millennial. I don't know. I'm in sort of that, like, buffer area, when I was born.
Tim Benson:So, you know, we're we got the sort of the full brunt of all, like, that boomer exuberance for the sixties and their youth culture and, you know, just, you know, rock and roll as being something more than just music, but having some sort of, societal import and, you know, and all that sort of self congratulatory stuff that, like, the boomers, do. And I never really thought of, you know, Dylan was just because we didn't experience Dylan, you know, in the early 19 sixties when he was, you know, making his bones as a protest singer. We didn't experience the, you know, the turn away from that. We didn't experience, all that stuff. I mean, he was just I mean, there was a reason he was Bob Dylan because, you know, the guy wrote a ton of excellent songs, and he's obviously a sort of unparalleled songwriter, at least in, you know, the the rock era of popular music.
Tim Benson:But the whole idea of, like, you know, like a musician being a savior or a prophet or something like that just seemed just kinda silly. You know, especially I don't know. Maybe it's, you know, the the one guy of sort of my generation like that growing up that was sort of presumed to be the same sort of thing or like a spokesman for the generation or something like that. You know, was, you know, Kurt Cobain, and he ended up, you know, sticking a shotgun, you know, under his chin. And so we didn't really take that as seriously, maybe.
Tim Benson:But, I I do think there's something to it, the the the idea of Dylan as prophet or that, you know, I was initially skeptical. But I guess maybe I'm rambling a little bit. So I guess just sort of define for us what what is a prophet, why do you consider Dylan 1, and, you know, why why do we listen to prophets?
Jeffrey Edward Green:I think at the most basic level, what makes someone a prophetic figure would be 2 qualities. 1, that other people, right or wrong, think that the person is special and has something to say. And, they're gonna listen to this person first and foremost for who he or she is. Not because they've gone to school, not because they've gotten an accreditation, not because they're an expert, not because they've inherited some role, but just there's something about this person that makes you heed them. You might think that they have this aura, or that they're a genius, or that they have this natural leadership quality.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Whatever it is, when you are drawn to someone in this charismatic way, that is one of the 2, I think, defining features of being a prophet. And the other is that this person that you're attending to is speaking about profound matters. They're not just, you know, in the entertainment world, you know, just just, speaking about whatever there. And as I mentioned in the book, typically speaking about 1 or all or 2 of these 3 profound values that have inspired the prophetic tradition, adherence to God, social justice, and matters of individual freedom, your responsibility to yourself as a free being. And so I think when you start to listen to someone and think they have the answers or something very important to say about those values and you trust them, believe them, you have some faith in them, then you have a prophetic relationship.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And it really that means it's not totally up to the prophetic figure to decide whether he or she is a prophetic figure. If people are following you as if you're a prophet in some ways, you automatically therefore are.
Tim Benson:So, like, Brian in the life of Brian, you know, the Monty Python movie. So Brian is actually a prophet then because people follow him and believe he is 1.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Yeah. And to the extent that they were yes. Yes. And it raises the question of whether there even is such a thing as a false prophet. Someone is manipulating you and trying to just extract money from you.
Jeffrey Edward Green:I mean, maybe you could say that as a false prophet. But but it is a sociological relation above all, not an objective quality. And it was interesting to me learning that a lot of the, prophetic figures from the Hebrew Bible, often taken to be the paradigm case of prophecy, were themselves reluctant prophets. Moses or Gideon or Jonah or Jeremiah were not welcoming their prophetic role. And so to some degree, and I don't mean to say Dylan is precisely like them.
Jeffrey Edward Green:It's not my point at all. But but Dylan's gesture that he typically, but not always performs of saying I'm not a prophet, in some ways is the is the signature of a prophetic person who has a following.
Tim Benson:Right. Okay. So what separates Dylan from his, you know, these sort of these other rock musicians who, you know, might have some sort of prophetic element to their, to their act or to the person that you know, someone like, Springsteen, say, or or, I don't know, Bono or somebody like that.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Right. I mean, there are other prophetic figures in our culture. Our culture actually has many of them. What makes Dylan distinct, I believe, is the depth and breadth of the prophetic, like, following the number of people who who treat him as having a kind of wisdom to impart. On the formalistic level, he, his his lyrics are so Bible laden that that invites the prophetic label to some degree as do other formalistic aspects of his, lyrics there.
Jeffrey Edward Green:His use of the imperative mood, for example, his use of language that seems quasi archaic that could come from another more distant time. A lot of Dylan's words sound like they could be from 100 of years ago even though they're not. But most of all, Tim, what separates Dylan, and this is the whole point of the book, is that Dylan substantively is different. That the other, musicians when they are prophetic like either don't spell out messages about freedom or God or social justice, or if they do spell it out, they're more what we're used to. And what we're used to is either the very good news that you get all those three values together, freedom, justice, adherence to God.
Jeffrey Edward Green:You could see that maybe in Bob Marley. You could see that in non musical prophetic figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Or there's another tradition that will tell you which of those three values to pick at the expense of the other 2. But Dylan, my overall argument is, speaks to these three values that have informed the prophetic tradition, freedom, adherence to God, social justice, but is at his most distinct in testify to the collision between these values. That, first of all, he doesn't give you a final answer.
Jeffrey Edward Green:He's moving and migrating from different values over different parts of his career. But beyond that migration and movement, he is very often testifying to the kind of tragic circumstance that these prophetic values don't all coalesce and are in conflict with each other. And there are some implications from these conflicts, but I take that to be a prophetic gesture that I'm actually unaware with other I'm unaware of other people doing. So I think substantively, he's most distinct from Springsteen and other other prophetic figures you were maybe, alluding to.
Tim Benson:Gotcha. Alright. So I guess let's move on to the the first part of the book a little bit, and this this sort of struggle or the the conflict between individual freedom or individualism on on one side and, a commitment to justice or social justice or whatever on the other. And, basically, you read about Dylan suggests that there's a there's a strategic choice between commitments to one or the other or between the 2 of them. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, I think to appreciate what makes Dylan so special, we just have to remind ourselves how affiliated he was with the civil rights movement, that he performed at the March on Washington in, late summer 63. Earlier in the summer, he performed at a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi honoring Medgar Evers a month after Evers' assassination. Also in 63, he'd become a hero of the left when he walked off the Ed Sullivan show, which would have been his first national TV performance when the network executives asked him not to perform his song, talking John Birch Paranoid Blues. And as you know, he wrote dozens of songs railing against racism, poverty, and militarism. And at the age of 22, he was given the 1963 Tom Paine award from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee for his civil rights work.
Jeffrey Edward Green:So he had a lot of, credibility and influence within the civil rights movement, but then starting at, in a way, his, reception for his award in December 63, where he went on a drunken, perhaps, rant and insulted people in the audience, the the the civil libertarians who were working to protect, people being persecuted by McCarthyism and and and were working for civil rights, accused him of being old and bald, and likened himself to Lee Harvey Oswald, who had just shot Kennedy the month before. Starting then, as far as I know, there's been a consistent provocation of of the left, a consistent refusal to identify himself easily within it. He started using the phrase in that rant from late 63 that I wanna get younger. It's taken me a while to get younger. All you libertarians are old, and I wanna get young.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And that motif becomes at the center of what I take to be his most important style of political valedictory, my back pages from 64. So, you mentioned the the baby boomer generation and Dylan, being seen by some as the voice of that generation, and he's not wanting to be seen as the voice of that generation. And in a way, I think both sides of the debate have a point that Dylan is telling us in 64 and afterwards, I'm not your guy. I feel that there's a conflict between my individual freedom and my commitment to social justice. I don't want to engage regularly with civil rights because it's boring, as he suggested in his song, Maggie Maggie's Farm.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Or because yep, please.
Tim Benson:It's an it I mean, it's basically an artistic cul de sac. I mean, once you make that decision that, you know, I'm gonna be a protest singer, I mean, that's I mean, the reason I mean, I guess there's a reason we, you know, still talk about Dylan and that we don't, you know, still talk about Phil Oakes or or or even, you know, Joan Baez or somebody like that to, you know, to that degree. You know? I mean, the it's sort of an artistic straight jacket. You know, just committing yourself in your art, and your song craft to, you know, quote unquote the movement.
Tim Benson:And, I mean, I could completely understand his desire to you know, whatever his politics may be, his desire to move away from, you know, just sort of hemming himself into that lane, as as an artist.
Jeffrey Edward Green:It's true. And I think that that makes a lot of sense that Dylan, wanted to go in other artistic directions and did musically in the mid sixties. His withdraw from civil rights was coincident with going electric and singing less folk like songs. But I think what's interesting about his meditation on his withdrawal from civil rights is that he doesn't he's confident in doing it, but he's not saying he's fully justified in doing it. He seems to recognize that there's a moral cost.
Jeffrey Edward Green:To say that you're not gonna be doing civil rights because it's boring or because it because it's conforming, doesn't mean that those are not usually moral justifications. They may be understandable to us, but they don't have a lot of moral force. And I was struck by what he said in a 1965 interview with Playboy Magazine, that the political work he's not doing, quote, definitely has to be done. And he's acknowledging in that interview that, quote, people are starving, and that lots of people are in bad trouble. And so that, I think, is what makes it fascinating, that he's not simply saying, you're burdening me, civil rights movement, and I need to liberate myself, and I'm fully justified in doing so.
Jeffrey Edward Green:He seems to be saying instead, I feel the legitimate call of social justice, which I've been doing for some time, but I feel this other call of of being a self reliant free being, and I'm gonna go in that direction now. But I recognize in going in that direction, I'm turning my back on worthy just causes. And so, it's very I think so many of us going back to the the the baby boomer generation, they might have seen themselves as fully on the side of civil rights. But maybe in retrospect, what Dylan is publicly claiming, a lot of us did and do. Very few of us do all we can do to to execute our own sense of what justice requires.
Jeffrey Edward Green:But what makes Dylan different is that he's acknowledging it. Very few people come out and say, you know what? I'm not performing fully in light of my own moral conscience. And so I think that he's such an unusual prophetic figure in this period because he's a prophetic figure saying, I'm not fully good. Usually, we expect the prophetic figure to be morally exemplary.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And Dylan, I think, is playing a different type of prophetic leadership role precisely by not doing that and saying, hey, let's be honest. Not all of us, but many of us are not fully committed to these causes. We prefer our own comfort and freedom, and there may be something to that individuality that our comfort and freedom enables. But it also has a moral cost too. And so it's a more puzzling, ambiguous circumstance and one we would normally expect to be articulated from a prophetic figure.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Alright. So you you brought up, Emerson and Theroux before. So I just wanna ask you, you know, what does Dylan really inherit from those 2? You know, what are what are the common commonalities, they share between their, you know, resistance to full time political activism?
Tim Benson:And how does Dylan's idea or his form of self reliance lack, in your terms, Emerson and Thoreau's, the sort of self satisfaction that they have?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Yes. This this, continues on the point of Dylan being a prophetic figure who is interesting for not being fully good and is provocatively testified to the collision between freedom and justice. Emerson and Thoreau are in the book because they're the only other people I'm aware of in history of political thought who acknowledge that they themselves are not doing all they could do to execute their own moral conscience. In the 19th century, they were both involved with antislavery among other causes, and both fully believed that antislavery was was a completely just cause. But they both acknowledged in private or more in public statements as well that they could be doing more, and that they they were choosing their own focus on their own intellectual life, their own creative life at the expense of, being a more dependable, more consistent social justice agent.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And so Dylan is very similar to them. However, he's different too. And as you, suggested, they are, more justifying their withdrawal from from active political life. They do three things that Dylan doesn't do. 1st, they say that there's this providentialism, that god will take care of it at the end of the day anyway.
Jeffrey Edward Green:So if they don't consistently fight against slavery, it will still work out in the end. 2, they have this idea that if they didn't fully commit the evils, then they're not complicit with the evils going on. But that this idea of non complicity that comes from not being directly responsible for for the evils that are going on. And 3rd, they have this idea that they could not be effective as political agents if their heart wasn't in it. If they were doing it out of just a kind of abstract moral obligation and not because they were truly inspired, it wouldn't they wouldn't be able to meaningfully act in the name of fighting, injustice.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And Dylan doesn't allow himself any of those self congratulatory, self satisfied logics. When he withdraws and discusses his withdrawal, he doesn't claim to be exonerating himself in the way that Emerson and Thoreau do, and so I find that interesting. Again, it goes back to my underlying point with sixties Dylan that he's a prophetic figure who wants to not just sing about justice and freedom, but about the conflict between them. And he's not really telling you or I or or Joan Baez or whomever in the sixties which way to go, whether you should go be a civil rights activist or whether you should pursue your own individual freedom away from, the demands of social justice. But he is suggesting that for some people, it is a genuine choice and you can't have it all.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And those people for whom it is a choice, I think we could call bourgeois. People who whose notion of individuality requires some comfort and and excess of time that they at some point turn away from what their own conscience requires. And and it's very familiar. I think so many people live like this in a in a prosperous, culture. But very few people call our attention to it and and ask us, I think, to to to locate ourselves with regard to this issue.
Tim Benson:Do you think resistance to this, you know, full time sort of activism? Do you think it deserves, a justification? Do, you know, are people who withdraw or don't dedicate themselves fully to causes that, you know, moral or political causes that they are sympathetic toward? Are they, complicit, in any way with injustice or whatever?
Jeffrey Edward Green:I think, Tim, it's gotten more likely that they are. We live in an unprecedented moment that I guess was happening also for Dylan. This modern moment when unlike before, you can know about distant suffering in real time. You can do something about distant suffering in real time. Give to Oxfam, give to UNICEF, pick your pick your, entity.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And more so than in the past, it's credible that that we are the causes of distant suffering, given the globalized interconnected world we live in. So, you know, and that might be another difference between Emerson and Thoreau in the 1800 and Dylan in the late 20th century. That there was a limit to what Emerson and Thoreau felt they could even hope to address. They couldn't find out in real time about a terrible humanitarian crisis on the other side of the world. And even if they wanted to do something about it, how could they?
Jeffrey Edward Green:But those situations have changed for us today, and so we are the recipients of unprecedented messages for help, messages to to to alleviate suffering. What to do about those messages is a big ethical question. And and your question is, can we in fact justifiably turn our back on some of those calls for suffering? Can we draw a limit and assert it not just confidently, but with some moral justification? And that's a big and important question.
Jeffrey Edward Green:I'm not sure about it. I think Dylan sings as someone who is not claiming to be justified when he turns his back, and yet is confident he is gonna turn his back. And I think that that's, an important and familiar perspective.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Jeffrey Edward Green:But I mean, what do you think?
Tim Benson:Well, I mean, I'm just, you know, I don't know. It's, no. I don't think so. Because, you know, there's, let me see it. But there's so much more to life than just being, not to be derogatory or anything, or a do gooder or a, or an activist of some kind.
Tim Benson:Or, you know, the the thing that makes missionaries special, I guess, is that they have a calling to be a missionary that, you know, most people don't. I mean, but I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with being a person who's like, look. I mean, I agree with, you know, whatever goal x or goal y or the alleviation of suffering or poverty or, you know, anything like that. And if someone says, look. I'll, you know, I'll do what I can.
Tim Benson:I'll, you know, I'll donate some time to a soup kitchen or, you know, donate money here and help out, in my community in some way, or I'll donate to, like you said, Oxfam or, you know, Doctors Without Borders or something like that. I'll be more than happy to do that. But I also have a life to leave life to live, and, you know, I I need nourishment from other sources. You know, I have a family to raise. You know, I have children to raise.
Tim Benson:You know, I have, you know, just other, you know, you know, I have impediments on my time, you know, from other sources, and I don't necessarily think it's it's unvirtuous, in any way to not be, you know, fully committed to, you know, or even say in Dylan's case in the 19 early 19 sixties, not being completely or or disengaging fully from the civil rights movement, you know, in air quotes there for everybody at home. I don't think that's some sort of, like, moral black mark against Dylan. I mean, I think, again, more to, like, the, you know, his sort of political realism.
Tim Benson:don't wanna sound fatalist, but I think he's kinda right that, you know, there's that best way to put this. Being part of a or the movement isn't really doing shit. You know, I mean, when we look at or just say, you know, we talk about Dylan's songs in these periods, blowing in the wind, times they are changing, hard rain, masters of war, all these things. Maybe they did have an impact on racism or race relations and civil rights and whatever. Maybe not.
Tim Benson:I mean, maybe all they did was just make a bunch of, you know, white liberals feel good about themselves. They're like, oh, this song is great, and I feel this way too. And look at me. I'm out there helping, you know, the Negro, or, you know, something like that. And, I mean I mean, what was it's hard to gauge the, you know, Dylan's impact.
Tim Benson:You can to to say that, you know, blowing in the wind led to this, which, you know, led to the civil rights act, which, you know, or whatever. Now I sort of lost my thought. But but, do you see the point I'm I'm sort of trying to make?
Jeffrey Edward Green:I feel like there's many ways to interpret the predicament of someone withdrawing from active civil rights work. And one way to think about it would be to say maybe he wasn't that effective or as effective as we think he is in that work, and so the withdrawal is less costly than it seems. Mhmm. You may be right about that. I I do try though to interpret Dylan, in this part of my book in a way that that keeps alive the the plausibility of us living in a very uncomfortable situation where we're surrounded by all these horrible emergencies, kids dying every day, and us with the ability to do something about it.
Jeffrey Edward Green:So not just the civil rights movement, but this broader circumstance of moral or or or humanitarian emergency in our teched up world where ordinary prosperous people could do something about it. And so we have to face this like never before, this question between self and other. And there are lots of ways of reconciling it and and making sense of how to to harmonize these two concerns, carrying it in the right way to the right amount for others, and carrying also in the right way to the right amount for yourself. But it is possible that there's a chaos here. And that given the depth of the emergencies around us, it's always gonna be a bit uncomfortable when you don't do more.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And I think Dylan at least speaks to that possibility, and and sings about it, and and attends to it. And I think going back to your earlier question about what makes him special, I mean, show me another rock and roller from the sixties who's taking us down this path, and having us think about, this ethical, challenge that that we face. Whether he's really right about it, whether my interpretation about him is the only one, it's in a way secondary. He he's bringing us to to this potent, topic that that is relevant not just in the sixties, but in our own time. And I think that this is to the credibility of of his of his voice, of of what he brings.
Jeffrey Edward Green:It's this type of moral seriousness, in addition to many other qualities along the way.
Tim Benson:No. I mean, there's certainly something I mean, there I mean, you can clearly see the reason why he was held in such high regard by people in the movement, people on the left in the early sixties. I mean, his songs are, you know, genuinely, you know, without peer. I mean, like, the first time I heard the lonesome death of, you know, Hetty Carroll, that song totally knocked me on my ass. You know, that was I mean, I still have a hard time, listening to it.
Tim Benson:But there's just something I don't know. I guess the point of so as a, you know, small c conservative by bent, I don't know. There's something about, like, movement politics or movement in or any sort of political advocacy in general that just just doesn't that's never just appealed to me in any way. You know, like, the Tea Party never appealed to me or anything like that. But, like, I just don't see I mean, to be totally committed so, you know, like I said, what can, you know, people do?
Tim Benson:I mean, obviously, you can go ahead and, like I said, give money to something or, you know, give time. But say, like, hypothetically, you know, like, the Chinese treatment of, you know, Uighur Muslims, in Western China, like, you know, like, what what can I really do about that? I mean, I guess I can go down to the Chinese consulate down here in Florida and, like, pick it or something like that, and it might make me feel better, might make me feel virtuous, but is it having any sort of, you know, impact? I mean, I could, you know, go light myself on fire in front of it like that, that air force kid did a few months ago about the whole Gaza thing, but did that really change anything? I mean, you know, no.
Tim Benson:Most likely. You know? But, you know, almost guaranteedly not. So, I mean, I just I don't have a problem with people just saying, like, look. I'm doing the best I can.
Tim Benson:You know? I mean, I guess that's my my general you know, like, I or just someone who's like, look. I, you know, volunteer at my church. You know, we do, Habitat for Humanity or, do a soup kitchen or a food drive or clothing drive or something like that. And to problems that are more, you know, that aren't as local.
Tim Benson:If there's something like, you know, relief for hurricane Helene or something in North Carolina, you know, we can send money to the Red Cross or something like that. But beyond that, you know, there's really not much more I feel I can do, and I feel like I'm doing enough. And, you know, I don't then I don't feel like I have to justify not doing more than I do. You know, and I'm sure there's lots of people that don't do shit and, you know, don't give any time or anything to, you know, volunteer work or what have you. And I think then, yes, there is, you know, you know, maybe something where you could point to.
Tim Benson:But just in general, I don't in in regards to Dylan and his turning away from it, like, I completely understand the reasons why he did it. You know, I don't really think I don't really think he owed, you know, the civil rights movement anything beyond what he'd already given them, which was I mean, they basically got, you know, Dylan's tremendous gift sort of, you know, predominantly in their service for at least a year and a half, you know, maybe a little longer. And look what he did in that time period, and they should just sort of be thankful. I mean, you know, like, the whole reaction to, you know, Dylan going electric and, you know, like Pete See or, you know, that apocryphal story may be true, maybe not about, you know, trying to, you know, cut the microphone cord at Newport and, which totally makes sense with an old commie like Pete Seeger, you know, and the whole Judas thing and, all that stuff. It's I did like some I'm rambling.
Tim Benson:You're really talking 45 minutes. No. It's just, obviously, in I mean, I think everybody now at you know, can look back at that and be like, oh my god. What a silly reaction to, you know, this man just wanting to, you know, do the kind of write the kind of songs he wants without, you know, anyone telling him that, like, you have to do this. And, you know, I mean, that's kind of the whole point of being a rock musician in the first place is when someone says, oh, you gotta do this is basically to go, you know, fuck yourself.
Tim Benson:I'm doing what I wanna do. We're probably gonna have to slap the explicit label on this one. But, you know, so I don't know. I'm just saying that I, I don't feel as if that Dylan's turning away from it is quite the moral quandary that, you know, maybe you see it or or certainly as, you know, Pete Seeger and John Byatt and all those people saw it, you know.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, one way to think about it is, you know, where is the the prophetic edge coming in this period? What is the target of these types of reflections? I don't think he, is speaking out against authentically committed moral leaders who are giving all they have to fight against injustice, someone like, Martin Luther King. And I don't think he's speaking out against people who are saying, look, I'm not doing everything, but I'm doing the best I can, you know, and and I'm not asking for any, credit. I think that that maybe the the target of of a Dylan type production for the sixties are people who are a little too triumphant, a little too complacent, a little too much feeling their virtue in the movement, but are actually not doing so much.
Jeffrey Edward Green:You know? So I think that's one way to see the the the payoff if you will. Yeah. Feel in self consciousness of not doing as much, you know. That that, as I as I've said a few times, so many of us live this way, but we don't acknowledge it.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, some of the people who live this way are in the movement. And they're they're feeling a little too good about themselves. They're
Tim Benson:a little too
Jeffrey Edward Green:comfortable as part of what, for right or wrong, bothered him about these, older, people at the, award dinner in 60 63 when he got the Tom Pate award. That he's, like, you guys are having a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant, congratulating yourselves for how much social justice you're doing. And that that's not something he felt comfortable with. And and and maybe, you can recognize that too, that that, we do live in in a world of moral emergency, and very few of us are making it a a singular priority. And maybe you're right, that that's fully understandable.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Maybe it's it's more of a puzzle, as I'm suggesting. But either way, there can be a broader agreement that that some people are are feeling a little too good about themselves.
Tim Benson:Oh, I think that's true of any sort of political movement that has some sort of, like, moral cause behind it. I mean, we're just, you know, and that there's just always, you know, like, how many kids in the sixties, you know, got involved with these movements because, you know, they're really truly committed to them or how many of them actually did it just to, you know, like, look cool. You know? Or, or in the case of, like, the Vietnam war protests, the anti war movement. I mean, a lot of that is sort of self serving, you know, because those are the people that were, you know, of the age that had to fight it.
Tim Benson:I mean, it's more justifiable, I guess, maybe or maybe not. But, but that was only a certain segment of the popular I've actually read somewhere that, like, the last, like, age group to turn against the, you know, the Vietnam War, you know, in public polling during this period, you know, the late sixties, early seventies, the last age group to you know, where a majority of that age group were against continuing the war in Vietnam, were people like 8 between 18 30 or or 18 25 or something like that. I can't remember specifically. But, you know, that's but we have, like, this image of the sixties that, like, you know, the youth movement was out in the streets, you know, fighting the you know, burning the draft cards and, you know, fighting against Jim Crow and all this stuff. And, I mean, that's not true.
Tim Benson:I mean, like, there was a certain amount of people that were doing that, but, you know, but most most youth in the sixties was not, you know, you know, out in the streets, you know, up against the wall, motherfucker, that sort of thing. So but, yes, it it but it, I I don't think that's something that's but the the self satisfaction, of people involved in these movements, I don't think that's something that's, unique to the left or unique to the right in any sort of way. I think that's just sort of the, you know, any sort of moral, any movement in in support of some cause they think is moral is, you know, apt to to become, or to start out as self congratulatory, I think.
Jeffrey Edward Green:That reminds me of one of Dylan's early songs with God on our side, which Mhmm.
Tim Benson:You
Jeffrey Edward Green:know, in base against this tendency to think that you're in your actions, morally right when maybe it's much more unclear or ambiguous. And, look, Dylan's a kind of bridge in our culture. People from all sides of the political spectrum cannot just appreciate his music, but actually find some of their views mirrored back to them. And Dylan could be seen as being for, but then in some ways not supportive of the civil rights movement. By the late sixties, he came out with a country album and wouldn't say that he was against the war in Vietnam.
Jeffrey Edward Green:I think he was, but he wouldn't. He frustrated interviewers' attempts to get him to come out against the war. And he said, being for or against the war in the abstract is meaningless, sort of consistent with what you were getting at, I think. Mhmm. And then later, you know, he he he's a icon of self reliant skeptical individuality, pushing back on organized religion and all other inherited sources of value, but then he becomes an evangelical Christian.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Yeah. He's a bridge between, you know, skepticism and and theism. And, you know, he's he has, a lot of pessimism and despondence in his music, but there's often, also an emotion and sentiment of hope. So, I guess a lot of great artists will, not will defy any easy categorization and political label. But even more than that, I think Dylan can speak to some of the divides or bridge some of the divides in American culture or broader, contemporary culture.
Tim Benson:Yeah. And I think your point that, you know, as you said, him not, you know, sort of going out of his way to not endorse the anti war movement or, even saying he was, you know, against the war, which he probably was, and I'm almost assuredly was. I mean, it's just that seems to be something, that's just in his character that he doesn't want to be or that he doesn't want people to put labels on him or something like like, I was wondering when I was reading the book, I was wondering if you were gonna get to it, and, it turns out you didn't in the third part, because I was thinking about that that interview we did with, I think it was Michael Gilmore for Rolling Stone, after Obama got elected and or reelected maybe. I can't remember when the interview was. And, like, I I remember reading it at the time, and it was just like Michael Gilmore being like, alright.
Tim Benson:Can you tell us how much you love Barack Obama? And, like, say something nice about Barack Obama. And Dylan just, like, keeps, like, you know, just sort of not ducking it, but, but he just doesn't wanna give the guy what he wants. And, you know, and and Gilmore is just like, you you know, can you say something nice about Obama? And, like, Dylan, at one point, is just like, what the fuck do you want me to say?
Tim Benson:Right? Like, and there's just something in and I don't know. Something about Dylan, there's something very opaque about him as just like a person. Like, when it comes to, like, other, like, musicians, you know, like, I feel like I get Springsteen, you know, who Springsteen is or, you know, Prince or, like, Bowie or, like, I I fundamentally understand, like, who, you know, they are. But, like, with Dylan, like, I still feel like I you know, no freaking clue as to, like, what, you know, like, what this guy or or who he is as a person.
Tim Benson:I mean, he's just very I think he's done a much better job of, like, handling mystique in a way than, you know, anybody else of of that, you know, that entire, like, rock or, you know, the, sense that that the the concept of rock artist, whoever. You know, I think he's handled that better than or, the mystique thing, much more, well, I don't know. It's I don't know if it's purposeful. I mean, it probably is purposeful, but he's just, he's hard to nail down. You know?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Hard to nail down, opaque like you say, surprising Yeah. With with mentalities, ideas, opinions that that you didn't expect from him, maybe you hadn't considered at all. And, that's part of, what makes him special, the the the sense of mystery surrounding him. And I both wanna be appreciative of that in my account, but also push back against this I'm not there philosophy of Dylan. I'm thinking now of that song of his I'm not there, which becomes the title of the wonderful film by Todd Haynes, that is about Dylan with various different actors playing Dylan.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And and many commentators would say this is their overall theory, that he's just a a person committed to endless self invention, That there is no particular, genuine, Dylan to be understood. That he's always, a man in motion, and making use of his freedom to try new ideas and new personas out. And there's so much that's true about that, but I feel as if it's too extreme to suggest that our appreciation of Dylan is just an appreciation of endless reinvention. I think there are some recurring patterns of of ideas, commitments, and we spoke about one of them. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind, and I don't think anyone else is, that Dylan was a part of the civil rights movement and then Mhmm.
Jeffrey Edward Green:There's no doubt that he wasn't an evangelical Christian and then became one. And and so there are some genuine, rich, biographical features of his life that he also sings about that that lends some, air to to who he is, and it's not just I'm there. At the same time, in interpreting Dylan the way I do is saying he's endlessly wrestling with these three foundations, freedom, justice, and adherence to god, I tried to respect the fact that there's no easy label. There's no single or final answer that he's giving, that there is indeed a lot of motion. But I think it's motion that's structured around some enduring, concerns.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And to go back to your initial question about, you know, what makes Dylan different, in addition to his being so profound and talking about, weighty issues, it's that mobility, or opacity in your terms that that I think is also special. I mean, we have, you know, Cat Stevens who becomes Yousef Islam and go through a conversion around the same time as Dylan and becomes up until recently, you know, a a focused singer of an Islamic message. But Dylan has his gospel period, and then the fervor of that period dissipates, and he returns to secular topics and sings about more so than Cat Stevens' Reese of Islam, sings about doubt. Wonders if, you know, at some in some moments, whether what he's just been through is illusory. So that's just one example, of Dylan experiencing, with great depth and passion, various mentalities, and I think in a genuine and earnest way, but not staying not staying put like you expect more familiar people to, even more familiar artists.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Bob Marley never stopped being a Rastafarian, So compare him to Bob.
Tim Benson:Oh, I actually I actually read that he converted to Ethiopian Christianity around the time of his death. So, I mean I mean, but, like, his entire yeah. Right. But I got I get what you're saying. But I was so shocked by that too.
Tim Benson:I always thought he, you know, died of Rasta. But, anyway, sorry for cutting you off. I know we've already gone, like, an hour. Do you have time to go a little bit longer? Because I just wanted to ask you a little bit about the the gospel period
Jeffrey Edward Green:Sure.
Tim Benson:Just because you said it was your I guess you said it was your favorite period of Dylan or or One
Jeffrey Edward Green:of them. One of them. Yeah. One of them. Yeah.
Tim Benson:And it's it's the longest section of the book too, and, I thought the most interesting as well. Yeah. So I just wanna watch, so you write or, you know, you propose that the, the secular audience is the core audience of Dylan's gospel period or more precisely the constituency in relation to which his message finds its characteristic novelty and edge. The fact that Dylan's audience has always been not at all specifically Christian makes his Christian conversion and gospel period significant, not for bringing listeners to Christ, but for exemplifying for secular and especially secularist audience, how religious faith is possible, how it can respect and reflect intellectual integrity, and thus how the non religious themselves possess the potential to pursue religiosity at any time. So I wonder if you could just, you know, expand on that and talk about that a little bit.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Yeah. I think it's that last concept you mentioned that that religion and non religion ought to be seen as plausible alternatives that any of us at any time can inhabit. I take that to be, what makes Dylan's evangelical period special. There's lots of other people who have converted to Christianity, preaching Christianity, and it's still largely Christian culture. But Dylan, on the one hand, has always had, as you just read, a relationship to a non Christian audience that was often shocked by his, conversion, at least at first.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And so they were listening to it, and they were coming at it not as, future believers. Some people were converted as a result of Dylan, but but most were not. But I I tried to show that a sizable number of those who were not, nonetheless, could learn from Dylan about this issue of the plausibility of their being religious, that we shouldn't just see ourselves as inherently religious or non religious. And we shouldn't see questions of religion as being only about matters of truth. What it genuinely exists or doesn't exist, that it's more a question of existential stances, and that Dylan has operated in multiple of these skeptical approaches towards organized religion in his early life, fervent evangelical Christianity in the gospel period.
Jeffrey Edward Green:And then as I understand it, 40 years into this post conversion period of less fervent religious faith, more doubt, more hesitancy, but never renouncing it. And Dylan in himself in himself models alternate approaches towards religion and non religion. But and this is, I guess, the real point. I tried to show that in his music and statements, he, demonstrates the plausibility of religiosity to a non religious person. And so who is the polemical target of this period?
Jeffrey Edward Green:We said maybe the plemical target of the sixties was the complacent, triumphalist, virtue signaling member of a movement who wasn't honest about their own lack of full commitment. I think the the plemical target of Dylan in the gospel period is the militant atheist, not atheism as such, but those who think that atheism is superior to theism, those who think that atheism is more natural, more rational, more harmony with history.
Tim Benson:The Dawkins, Kitchens, Gilmore kind of people. Yeah.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Absolutely. And, and I try to talk about 3 or 4 ways that Dylan, performs his religiosity in a way that ought to be instructive to militant atheists. I I could explain that a bit more if you wanted, but
Tim Benson:Sorry. My mic was muted. I didn't realize that. No. We've already gone along.
Tim Benson:So I won't have you do that. But, do you wanna talk to you just real quick before we go, though? The I was kind of amused by this when I was reading about it because I didn't know about it. So, Joel Seldon has actually been on this podcast, like, 3 times, maybe 4 at this point. So he's a friend of the show.
Tim Benson:So when he popped up in here, like, I am, you know, that, like, his reaction to, you know, seeing Dylan in concert in 79 or 80, you know, after his conversion, the fact that it so pissed off Dylan that, like, Dylan actually called him at home to to yell at him about it. I had you know, like I said, I've had him on the show a few times, and I've I've never heard that story. So next time I talk to him, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to ask him about it. I'm just, pretty good one.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Yeah. I mean oh, sorry.
Tim Benson:Go ahead. No. Go ahead.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Just I love that episode of Dylan's life that he cared so much about a negative 1980 review about his gospel show that he called, Sullivan's house, ended up speaking with Sullivan's wife, and told Sullivan's wife to tell her husband, you know, your husband's lost his license to review. And that that, you know, plays to another dimension of Dylan, that he's he's humorous. He's he's he's, willing to engage, in in surprising ways. There's tapes you can listen to on YouTube with him having phone conversations with AJ Webbermann, kind of crank type figure from the late sixties who was really upset that Dylan left the civil rights movement and wanted
Tim Benson:Webbermann was the guy that used to, like, go through his trash. Right?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Yeah. And, actually, Dylan beat him up. But but there's these tapes of of him talking on the phone with with Webbermann. Webbermann's saying he's a sellout, and Dylan's, like, arguing with him. So you see, you know, just a candid Dylan caring about what he's doing enough to to to deal with these critics.
Jeffrey Edward Green:But but Sullivan's also important because I fast forward to 2,008 when Sullivan's being interviewed retrospectively about Dylan's gospel period. And he says, upon reflection, I would have a lot more respect now for what Dylan did, see it as having more integrity. And to me, this is what Dylan's gospel period in a nutshell is about if we wanna talk about what's distinct about it. Educating, disciplining people like Selvin not to become religious, but to have more respect for those who are religious.
Tim Benson:Right. Yeah. No. And to your point about Dylan being funny, I mean, people sort of, I think, don't realize how funny of a cat he actually is. I mean, especially he's like a songwriter.
Tim Benson:Like, the songs like, let me like like Bob Dylan's a 115th dream, you know, that kind of stuff. Those, I always thought those songs would make, would have made really great videos, you know, if they would have them at the time. Just, you know, Dylan getting involved in all this, like, crazy ass, you know, things, just walking around being Dylan. But, anyway, yeah, like I said, we kept you long. I wish we had more time to talk about the, the gospel stuff and, the third part of the book.
Tim Benson:But, I just, I guess I'll just ask you, like, one question on that, and then I promise I'll let you go or or 2 more questions, but but this one, specifically on that third section. Why is there a democratic interest in taking, profits or or people like Dylan seriously?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Right. That's a good question. I think that being a prophet is not exactly a democratic relation because you just listen to the prophetic figure. You don't elect them. You you heed them.
Jeffrey Edward Green:Nonetheless, there is a popular element to prophetic movements. They they have their force precisely because they inspire a mass of people to be part of it and and and to to create a following. And so I think insofar as we care about the people, insofar as we care about, large numbers of people for being large numbers, we should be interested in those figures who have inspired the people, who have made them take heed, especially when the figures who do that have so much literary, poetic, prophetic heft to go along with it. And I think Dylan, among the other things that makes him so unusual, is that he combines being a pop cultural icon with with mass appeal, on the one hand, with, great critical acclaim as a literary figure on the other. And there's certainly lots of other pop cultural figures.
Jeffrey Edward Green:There's dozens, not too many, but dozens of others who have sold more records than he has. And there are, you know, modern poets and other literary figures we would, you know, just be be as impressed by. But very few people bring these two things together, bring together a mass appeal and such a profound literary poetic, I would say, prophetic quality. And so any I think anyone should be interested in those who combine those two things. But but insofar as we care about the people and not just in the typical ways, you know, what what what policies they want, what parties they're gonna vote for, you know, we could say, what does it say about us in our moment that this man has been so fascinating to us?
Jeffrey Edward Green:That's another way to ask him the question of my book. What does he reflect back to us, in being someone who has drawn maybe people like you, people like me, and so many others in.
Tim Benson:Alright. Cool. Alright. So the final question, normal exit question everybody gets, and you might have touched on it there a little bit in your last answer, but, I'll go ahead and ask it just in case there's anything you wanna add. But, you know, what would you like the audience to get out of this book?
Tim Benson:Or, you know, what's the one thing you'd want a reader to take away from it having read it?
Jeffrey Edward Green:Well, I suppose simply a deeper appreciation for for Dylan's music, and to and to to see more maybe what they already have been drawn to in in slightly clearer terms, to or or at least an apparatus that lets them say more clearly to themselves what they find, fascinating about Dylan. And if they've never listened to Dylan, maybe it's it's some slight, encouragement to to be more fascinated.
Tim Benson:Alright. And if you were going to, have a recommendation for an entryway into Dylan for people who've never listened to him before, what would you what would you suggest they do? Or where should they start?
Jeffrey Edward Green:I think, I'll go with where I'm right at right now. The the springtime in New York album. It's fantastic.
Tim Benson:Alright. Great. Okay. Again, the name of the book is Bob Dylan, Prophet Without God. Fantastic, fascinating, extremely original, extremely creative, reading of Dylan's life and his work, that and uniquely so of all the books I've ever read about Dylan, and I've got a whole shelf of them somewhere.
Tim Benson:I've read quite a bit of them. Really, really fascinating. It took me it actually took me quite a bit to normally, you know, I read these books really quickly when I do them for the podcast, or I have to because I, you know, try to do, like, a book a week, so it's a lot of turnaround time. But I had some vacation time, with the holiday, you know, Thanksgiving holiday coming in. And, so, took it with me on vacation and had, you know, a little bit more time to digest it than, than I normally do, like the books that I I read on here.
Tim Benson:That's one of the things that sucks about doing, like, a book a week. You don't really have time to marinate with the book a little bit before you have to go on to the next book and, you know, sort of set your mind to it. So I had a lot of time to, you know, really digest it, and I've been, you know, thinking about it practically every day since I started reading it. So it's really, really, just fascinatingly good, look at, you know, this idea of Dylan as a prophet. And I know we didn't get to talk much about the gospel period or or, you know, the the third section of the book, which deals with, you know, political realism and Dylan's pessimism and, you know, his linkage to the political realist and, you know, the paradox of political moral action, disharmony of means and ends, and all that sort of stuff.
Tim Benson:But it's so it's just, so I'm bummed we didn't get a chance to talk about that stuff. But, really, really, really interesting. Highly, highly recommended out there for anybody who's interested in in Dylan or in, moral philosophy or political philosophy, anything, it's a fantastic, fantastic work. And, again, once again, highly, highly recommend it to everybody out there. So the name of the book again, Bob Dylan, prophet without God, the author, doctor Jeffrey Edward Green.
Tim Benson:So, doctor Green, thank you so so much for coming on the podcast to talk about the book with me. Thanks for staying a little late. I appreciate it. And, you know, thank you for taking the time out of your life to actually, you know, write the sucker so that we could all enjoy the, the fruits of your labor.
Jeffrey Edward Green:So I appreciate it. That's very kind. Happy to be here. Thank you.
Tim Benson:Alright. Thanks a lot. And again, if you like this podcast, please consider leaving us a 5 star review and sharing with your friends. And if you have any, questions or comments, or if you have any suggestions for books you'd like to see, discussed on this podcast, you can always reach out to me at, tbenson@heartland.org. That's t b e n s o n at heartland.org.
Tim Benson:And for more information about the Heartland Institute, you can just go to heartland.org and, what else? Oh, yeah. We have our, Twitter, x account. For the podcast, you can follow us there too at what is it? At illbooks@illbooks.
Tim Benson:So make sure you check that out and, you know, give us a follow, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. That's pretty much it. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you guys next time.
Tim Benson:Take care. Love you, Robbie. Love you, mom. Bye bye.