Why Bob Dylan’s prophecies continue to fascinate people

Few figures have shocked American culture more literally and figuratively. bob dylan I have it. He released his first album in 1962, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, and still performs about 100 concerts a year at age 83. His life is chronicled in a new film. completely unknownstarring Timothee Chalamet.

However, he sang at Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington and became a born-again Christian in the 1970s. Philosophy of contemporary songs?

reasonNick Gillespie speaks jeffrey edward greena political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a new book Bob Dylan: Godless Prophet. Green argues that Dylan’s work embodies the uniquely American tension between an individual’s commitment to self-expression, his pursuit of political and social justice, and his righteousness with his version of God. . In this he resembles Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other men who refused to completely subordinate their lives to any particular purpose. Dylan’s willingness to openly combat these conflicting demands, and his continued interest in adapting musical forms from the past, reflects where we have been as a country and where we are going. It helps explain why he remains so important in understanding what happens. I’m on my way.