How Bob Dylan Mocked the Press

this video is brought to you by curiosity stream by signing up to curiosity stream with the link in the description you'll also get access to nebula where you can watch on my original series led zeppelin's epics find out more after the video bob dylan had a complicated relationship with impress because i haven't heard you sing actually they've never heard me sing to say the least airplane ticket seriously if i want to find out anything I'm not gonna read Time magazine I'm not gonna read Newsweek I'm not gonna be any of these magazines I mean cuz they beasts has got too much to lose by printing the truth you know that in his early days Dylan used the media as a tool for self myth-making he would feed them lies in half-truths about his biography to create a very specific image a Woody Guthrie inspired traveling vagabond but the myth of Dylan grew from there and soon enough he became the icon for a growing counterculture in the United States by the middle of the 1960s Dylan had been dubbed the voice of his generation and that title brings with it a weight and responsibility often in the form of countless press tools so Dylan began to take an adversarial approach to the press this is perhaps most iconic Lee exemplified in this 1965 press conference in San Francisco those of us who are well over 30 labeled yourself and perhaps so tell us what your role is the entire conference is an hour of sarcastic retorts and non-answers by Bob Dylan it's become a key part of the iconography of Bob Dylan and halfway through one reporter asks still in one of the greatest lingering questions of his career mr. Jones I'm not gonna tell you this personally this is of course referring to the song Ballad of a thinman and there's a certain kind of irony to a reporter asking this question of Bob Dylan because Ballad of a thin man is itself a caustic shot at the press and the mainstream society they represent let's take a closer look before we go any deeper into this we need to get something out of the way we still don't know who mr. Jones is over the years Dylan has given many answers to the question of his character's identity though he said mr. Jones was someone who asked questions all the time he said he's a pin boy and a man in a truck stop he's even saying that mr. Jones is multiple people but of course it's been well established that Dylan's words are to be taken with several grains of salt so wears suspenders now this hasn't stopped people from speculating as to the true identity of mr. Jones over the years the most likely answers are probably a pair of music journalists max Jones wrote for Melody Maker magazine in the mid-60s and Dylan once asked after him at a press conference and then there's Geoffrey Jones who claimed throughout his life that he was the real mr. Jones even if it was a dubious title to lay claim to Jeffrey Jones was an intern for Time magazine in 1965 when Dylan infamously played his first electric set at the Newport Folk Festival he was tasked with interviewing Dylan and if his tale is to be believed the interview went poorly enough that Dylan wrote a song about him but I think the best answer as to who mr. Jones is comes from our unreliable Bob Dylan himself talking to his biographer Robert Sheldon Dylan once said I could tell you who mr. Jones is in my life but like everybody has got there mr. Jones this isn't to say that everybody has press in their life but it's more of a statement on what the press represented - Dylan - Dylan the press we're people out of touch with him and his movement people who pestered him for his beliefs without truly understanding where they came from the press were Outsiders trying to give the world a voyeuristic peek into the of his in-group and the press were all of old society trying to pass blanket moralistic judgments on his culture and lifestyle when penning his response to these people Dylan started from an interesting narrative choice writing in the second person Dylan makes his audience mr. Jones and sets himself up as the narrator walking mr. Jones through a dark confusing scene the music pairs well with this feeling Dylan bought a piano lick from the great Ray Charles [Music] behind al Cooper's organ sings in a haunting d'oeuvre [Music] the way Dylan plays the piano is plotting dark and heavy it feels like walking into a dimly lit room fitting given the opening lines of his song [Music] these lines lend credence to the theory that mr. Jones is a journalist he's pictured with a pencil in his hand the first two verses are similar they create an air of confusion in the second verse Dylan leans into this confusion in form not just function the very way he phrases the verse is surreal it seems to carry a kind of dreamlike logic to it with a series of questions each answered by further questions it's his and you say what's mine and somebody else it becomes clear that mr. Jones has stepped into a world he can't make sense of a world in which he's a stranger and of course that's the thrust of the refrain of wisdom mr. Jones is watching the people he considers to be freaks but the geek reaches out and hands him a bone it's still in pointing out that those on the fringes of society those that mr. Jones passes moral judgment on will still humanize mr. Jones as the beating heart of America's counterculture Dylan was often other de mainstream media he felt as though they were showing him off in some sort of freak show after another refrain we launched into the most vitriolic verse where Bob Dylan describes mr. Jones's life dripping with sarcasm he portrays mr. Jones as being celebrated in polite society professors respect him he has discussions with Boyd [Music] it's the step resume [Music] but there's a facade here Dillons name-dropping of f scott Fitzgerald is no accident Fitzgerald is a great author but he's one that's often named dropped and celebrated superficially in high society across his career he only wrote four full books so reading them all isn't that much of an impressive feat and perhaps most notable Fitzgerald is famous for writing The Great Gatsby a book centering around someone who fakes at being part of high society for Dylan mr. Jones is inauthentic on all levels he's faking his way through intellectual circles while fetishizing the counterculture Ballad of a thin man also has palpable homoerotic undertones from the very opening scene we get a man holding a pencil seeing another naked man then throughout the song we get various pieces of phallic imagery the theme plays out most clearly in the fifth verse when Bob Dylan describes the sword swallower wearing high heels the sword swallower kneels before mr. Joe [Music] I like to read this as Dylan empathizing with queer communities and how the press at the time vilified them Dylan aligns mr. Jones against these gay scenes peering at them judging them and being confused by them but in the end this is hypocritical as mr. Jones himself receives a pleasure from the sword swallower mr. Jones wants to point and laugh at the freaks but he himself is one of course this could be an elaborate metaphor for Dylan and his art to the press obviously had a fascination with his art but weren't willing to follow its message weren't willing to join in with the counterculture in the 6th verse we see how Dylan can use the press though as he tells mr. Jones you're a cow give me some milk or else we'll die - Dylan the press is necessary he can milk the press to spread his message further but he's tired of them seeing this relationship as anything other than that in the final verse we returned to the beginning mr. Jones walking into a room this time mr. Jones doesn't even try to observe who puts his eyes in his pocket [Music] and at the end dylan decides upon mr. Jones's centers we should be made somewhere like so much of the song it's a double meaning mr. Jones should be forced to listen closely to the music he writes about but he should also be isolated from society Ballad of a thin man is one of the heaviest darkest songs of Dylan's entire career it gives us a peek into his head into who he thinks are his enemies and how he thinks they see the world and the great irony of the piece is that in the end by calling out the press for asking too many questions Dylan just spawned a thousand more waiting to be answered you might not be able to find answers to Dylan's many questions but if you're looking for answers to questions like can a computer write a hit musical can we colonize Mars or why are we here you should look no further than curiosity stream if you watch this channel enough you probably already know the deal with curiosity stream their streaming service dedicated to documentary content and they've got thousands of documentaries on a wide variety of subjects and where curiosity stream is targeted at big-budget documentaries me and some other creators started nebula a place for smaller educational creators to try out their own ideas free from the constraints of YouTube a few months back I debuted an original series on nebula led zeppelin's epics and curiosity stream loves supporting independent creators like myself so they're now offering free access to nebula for anyone who signs up to a year of curiosity stream if you go to curiosity stream column slash Polyphonic you can get that deal now that means in addition to curiosity streams thousands of curated documentaries you'll be able to watch all my videos ad free and watch the nebula original series working titles where creators like myself Captain midnite and Patrick H Willems look at our favorite TV title sequences this is a really exciting deal and it's really cool to be working with a partner that's supporting our content like this so please just head on over to curiosity stream column slash Polyphonic and try it out you'll get great documentaries from curiosity stream and you'll get early access to my videos as well as access to more original content that's coming the pipeline thanks again for watching

Channel: Polyphonic

Views: 196,699

Rating: 4.9515262 out of 5

Keywords: polyphonic, music, video essay

Id: ljkfcgXxzX8

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/hankheen]

Great channel too. He makes some good quality videos.

[u/dylan_drea_]

This guy makes some great videos and the few times he's talked about dylan were great. But then again so is most of his stuff to me

[u/bier1234]

Nice video! Just watched it!

[u/Huplescat22]

The twit who's narrating this is Mr. Jones.