Not long ago, after the announcement of Bob Dylan’s 2016 award of the Nobel Prize in literature, I posted this performance of his “My back Pages”. Really, the lyrics are most apt as a lesson for the young who have ventured into a love affair with socialism and race-based neo-Marxism. Many don’t have a kind word for the USA. Dylan presents for them a cautionary warning in the lyrics of the song. Applied to today’s circumstances, the message would be to think again before you protest the flag, tear down statues, shout to defund the police, and march for socialism.
“My Back Pages”, first recorded in 1964 when he was 23, expressed Dylan’s disillusionment with the 60’s youth movement. One pundit wrote, “Dylan began to be disillusioned with the idealistic narrowness that surrounded him.”
Dylan’s disenchantment is encapsulated in the song’s refrain: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.” When we’re young, everything seems so crystal clear before we get a chance to be softened by experience. Thus, we claim a wisdom of the old without having gotten there, only later to discover our profound errors.
Read the lyrics. Choice lines are found throughout, such as the following stanza sung by Eric Clapton,
“A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke their word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.”
“Self-ordained professor’s tongue” could apply to many of the denizens of our faculty lounges. “Equality”, Dylan seems to imply, is a very loose word. In today’s politico-jargon, it’s been recast as “equity”, or equality of result. Is the pursuit of “equity” even wise? How much devastation will its pursuit leave in its wake? The young didn’t consider the possible unintended effects of a blind focus on “equality” back then, and the young certainly aren’t having any second thoughts today.
There’s much in the song’s words for adult reflection. There’s much in the words for our rambunctious social justice warriors to bear in mind.
The lyrics are below. Please read the lyrics and then play the video below.
My Back Pages (Bob Dylan)
Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I, proud ‘neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, “rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now
Girls’ faces formed the forward path from phony jealousy
To memorizing politics of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists, unthought of, though somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now
RogerG