Dylan's take on Obama left blowin' in the wind
The hero of 1960s counterculture appears to have changed his tune on the recently elected US president, writes Patrick Foster
Iconic musician Bob Dylan has dismissed politics as "entertainment and a sport" ahead of the release of his new album
UP until now it had been a mutual love affair. As the campaign for the American presidency hotted up last June, Bob Dylan lent his support to Barack Obama, saying that his candidacy was "redefining the nature of politics".
In return, Mr Obama described the singer as an icon, and boasted of having "probably 30 Dylan songs on my iPod", including "the entire 'Blood on the Tracks' album".
But in an interview to be published on Dylan's website today, the hero of 1960s counterculture seems to have cooled on the prospects of the recently elected American leader.
Asked if he thought that Mr Obama would make a good president, the singer said that he had no idea.
He added: "Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men.
"Johnson would be a good example of that ... Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it's like they all fly too close to the Sun and get burnt."
In a question-and-answer session with the music journalist Bill Flanagan to promote his new album 'Together Through Life', Dylan dismisses politics as "entertainment ... a sport. It's for the well-groomed and well-heeled. The impeccably dressed. Party animals. Politicians are interchangeable. Politics creates more problems than it solves. It can be counter-productive. The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles."
Pioneer
The singer's comments seem to be a far cry from those he made in an interview with 'The Times' last June, when he talked of his hope that Mr Obama could pioneer change in America.
"Right now America is in a state of upheaval," he said. "Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor.
"But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up: Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out.
"Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to."
Dylan, whose new album is out on April 27 on Columbia Records, said that his interest in Mr Obama began when he read his 1995 autobiographical work 'Dreams From My Father'.
"It intrigued me," he said. "His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. He says profoundly outrageous things."
Asked if he had read anything in Mr Obama's book that suggested that he would be a good politician, Dylan replied: "Well, nothing really. In some sense you would think being in the business of politics would be the last thing that this man would want to do.
"But he probably could've done anything. If you read his book, you'll know that the political world came to him. It was there to be had."
The singer said that Mr Obama's heritage -- his father was a black Kenyan economist and his mother was a white American -- appealed to him.
"He's got an interesting background," Dylan said. "He's like a fictional character, but he's real.
"First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage -- cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it's just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you're into his story.
"His mom married some other guy named Lolo and then took Barack to Indonesia to live. Barack went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school.
"His mom used to get up at four in the morning and teach him book lessons three hours before he even went to school. And then she would go to work. That tells you the type of woman she was. That's just in the beginning of the story." (© The Times, London)
- Patrick Foster
