I have to agree with you, Donal. Intellectually Dylan probably has it all over Leonard Cohen. Actually, I love some of Dylan's psychedelic (for lack of a better word) stuff. In the right mood, he's sublime. But not as good as Patti Page, come on admit it. Andy ________________________________ From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:05 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: [lit-ideas] Re: [lit-ideas] Re: [lit-ideas] Culture Desk: Leonard Cohen’s “Going Home” : The New Yorker ________________________________ From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx> >Liking music is like being in love. The heart has reasons that reason cannot >know. > This may be true or express something that has some truth in it - but, whatever degree of truth, it shouldn't necessarily be taken as a showing what is going on artistically cannot be evaluated in any kind of rational terms. A case in point: >One of the things I never liked about Dylan is that he exploits religious >imagery and people love it, maybe for the illusion of profundity it >gives. Imagine if he wrote "And Zeus said you'd better run". Not quite the >same ring, even if the same idea. > 'Exploits' is a tendentious term - 'uses' might be better (should we say Dylan also 'exploits' toilet paper?). But the example does not support Andy's argument. It is only "religious imagery" in a very loose sense [as opposed to the specific kinds of religious imagery and allusion in lines like "If I die on top of the hill" or "She...took my crown of thorns" "...they gambled for my clothes"] - the sense in which anything relating to, or using, the term 'God' might be classed as "religious imagery". In the example, it is clear enough why 'Zeus' would not work where 'God' is used - because Zeus did not tell Abraham to "kill me a son", and so the effect of using 'Zeus' would be to introduce an unnecessary mixing of characters and stories. It's more than it lacking the same ring - it is not "the same idea":- for Abraham has no reason to obey the dictates of Zeus as Zeus is not Abe's 'God' - and it is the blithe lack of reason behind Abe's obedience of his 'God', except only the "reason" that 'God' is a threat if not obeyed, that is being satirised here. It is not an attack on religion so much as on a certain 'God-fearing' attitude that some take as 'religious' and which, Dylan implies, has nothing to do with religion in the sense of a God who is merciful and just but everything to do with a humankind that is fearful and superstitious - for the 'God' here is a 'God-of-human-foibles' [like Zeus and the Greek Gods] with his vanity, temper and unreasoning demands, and his grandiosity is undercut by Dylan casting the exchanges in demotic hipster slang. It is not the "illusion of profundity" that makes this a great lyric, for Dylan is striving for no such "illusion" here, but Dylan's ability to so wittily and concisely express a certain critical POV within the apparent formula of a blues 'story-in-song'. Donal Ldn