Bruce Springsteen was not in Jersey’s bones before the Lenape. That’s stupid and disrespectful. Springsteen captures Jersey in the post-war era. It’s a Jersey that is already fading, which is what he has been documenting from the beginning, first in Jersey, then in Youngstown, and then everywhere else. Don’t talk about Springsteen if you don’t feel his howling enter right into your very being. He’s not evoking the spirits of the Lenape. What the fuck?
You wake up in the night with a fear so real.
You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come.
As for the rest, I’ve come to the conclusion that Bob Dylan is one of two artists in the world who I won’t critique. The other is Bob Marley. You shouldn’t critique prophets. Sure, some songs and albums are good, some bad, and there is nothing wrong with expressing your aesthetic preferences. But it’s a bad idea to try to talk about the meaning of Bob Dylan or Bob Marley. They’re both too big for that. Their talent places them above any peers who might be able to credibly question their choices. You might as well nitpick Jeremiah and Amos. Would you care what a contemporary theater critic thought about Shakespeare’s production of Hamlet? I feel the same way about Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks.
I don’t feel like Bob Dylan has been lying to me, or that his whole personality is some unrooted construction. If it seems that way, it is because his work is so transcendent and universal that it cannot be understood by reference to the particulars of his upbringing or even his life experiences. Do we ask if Homer believed in the Gods, was raised by a single mother, an alcoholic father, or went to the finest finishing schools? No, we do not. Because his work is too complete to be explained away. You can talk about what Homer means to you, but you can’t climb to the point where you have standing to question his choices.
If you try, you’ll just come off sounding small and petty.
