"Don't criticize what you can't understand"

Unjustified critique of an American Master

Bob Dylan premiering new album, "Rough and Rowdy Ways "

Today's paper carried a review of the new Bob Dylan album, his 39^th studio effort, entitled “Rough and Rowdy Ways.” It is, overall,  a  positive review, but the reviewer makes a statement toward the end which almost made me spit coffee all over the counter. Here’s the quote:

“He has long been regarded as a master of verse. Unlike ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and any number of rhyme-less classic works in the Dylan canon ….(praising the album’s rhyme schemes).”

Like a Rolling Stone “Rhyme-less?” Has this guy ever really listened?

"Once upon a time you dressed so fine

  threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't    you?

People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'

You thought they were all kidding you

You used to laugh about

Everybody that was hanging out

Now you don't talk so loud

Now you don't seem so proud

About having to be scrounging your next meal

How does it feel, how does it feel?

To be without a home

Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.

Ahh you've gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely

But you know you only used to get juiced in it

Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street

And now you're gonna have to get used to it

You say you never compromise

With the mystery tramp, but now you realize

He's not selling any alibis

As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes…”

        No, it isn’t “Eeny meeny miney moe…. It’s far better than that. Yes, the rhyme scheme varies from verse to verse but is there throughout. It varies from stanza to stanza, so what? There is poetry and rhyme in the meter as well as in the words. Citing this song in any other sense than acknowledging its anthem status is borderline blasphemy

        One of Dylan’s singular qualities in the era of the 2 minute, 30 second am radio “air play” recording was to produce songs which compelled the listener, regardless of length, to pay attention. No, it wasn’t Paul Simon’s tidy and engaging lyrics. Dylan’s work has always been grittier. Simon is an acknowledged tune-

smith and composer, one of a handful of masters who also made popular music mean more than “June, Moon, Croon.” 

       Dylan also repeatedly jabbed the social conscience and core memories of several generations. “The Times they are a Changing,” released in 1964 seems (sadly) even more relevant today. At a time when his contemporaries were timing their songs for air play, Dylan gave us songs like “Tangled Up In Blue,” seven verses,  running 4 ½ minutes. 

       Covered by hundreds of artists from Duke Ellington to Trisha Yearwood to Adele, Jimi Hendrix and Pearl Jam, Dylan is, and always has been, one of the great poets ever to write popular music.

       If a reviewer can’t appreciate sophisticated rhyme schemes, they should limit themselves to prose.