Powers of Expression... Thoughts so Sublime

It has been a busy couple of weeks. My last posts were just lists and so I have been looking forward to actually writing again. Work really gets in the way of the fun stuff!


I have been listening a lot to Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong for the last little while... amongst a variety of other albums (I am still addicted to Modern Times... Can't see me letting that one drop any time soon)!


As an aside, I read a review of a Dylan concert from 1984 when he toured the UK with Carlos Santana. It was the height of Thatcherism and there was plenty of disaffection and urban poverty (being a teenager in the UK in the 1980's I could write a book about that alone!). Apparently, Dylan played a storming version of Maggie's Farm that almost brought the house down. That must have been a sweet moment to see! My husband saw Dylan and Santana play on that same tour - in Vancouver, Canada. I am pretty envious... I mean, Dylan and Santana!

There was also a website I hit when surfing randomly, and it reproduced a couple of letters Bob Dylan wrote in the 60's (they are on the Book of Bob website - here is the link: www.slopbucket.com/bob/tbob/index.html).

My mind is linear. My senses feel constrained. When I express myself, it is through convention and tight language with all its complex spelling, grammatical rules and regulations. A limited freedom within the box. I carefully choose the right words. My emotions have names and adjectives as befits them. When I write poetry I try to think more openly. I 'bend the broken rules' to suit the moment... I make forays, dig tunnels, peek at the world over the edge of the barbed wire, but I never quite make it over those walls.

I was trained to think that way. I quite like it. All those rules and regulations. There is a satisfaction in precision. It's ordered, logical... safe.

But read Dylan's thoughts and the way he expresses himself. The spelling. The punctuation. The phrasing. The language. The images. It is exciting and different. It is a taste of freedom.

Maybe that is why I like Dylan's music, even when he is covering ancient ballads or 20th century blues - he gives us that glimpse of a new way of looking at the world. It is all relevant because it is all about human experience. Different people, different lives, different emotions, different eyes.

That is what all great artists should be able to do - painters, musicians, writers and poets. They show us the world in a new light. Even if sometimes they illuminate things we don't particularly want to see...