Our Lord & Motherfuckers Bob Dylans Inequitable Distribution of Messianic Equations & Unequivocality

From Tempests Tin Angel (2012):

Well, he threw down his helmet and his cross-handled sword He renounced his faith, he denied his Lord

Rather rich this lyric, coming from Dylan, who in his post-evangelical Year of Our Lord 1985 espoused the Messianic complex. But leaving aside this Saxonesque intrusion into Dylans Black Jack Davey-esque Tin Angel, the song immediately following Early Roman Kings, which isnt about early Roman kings, the language here is part of Dylans current slightly ostentatiously religious Our Lord Messiah trip. There is the albums opening Duquesne Whistles must be the mother of Our Lord, then even more tellingly this:
Bob Dylan Strikes Back at Critics

Addresses plagiarism charges for the first time in new Rolling Stone interview
Comment 319 By Rolling Stone September 12, 2012 4:00 AM ET Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-strikes-backat-critics-20120912#ixzz26kjuocsV
I want to ask about the controversy over your quotations in your songs from the works of other writers, such as Japanese author Junichi Saga's Confessions of a Yakuza, and the Civil War poetry of Henry Timrod. In folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition, but some critics say that you didn't cite your sources clearly. What's your response to those kinds of charges? Oh, yeah, in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It's true for everybody, but me. There are different rules for me. And as far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who's been reading him lately? And who's pushed him to the forefront? Who's been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it's so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. It's an old thing it's part of the tradition. It goes way back. These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell. Seriously?

I'm working within my art form. It's that simple. I work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It's called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it.

Yup: Dylan expects the academic likes of SW to defend him from what SW implies are the something-or-others made by a more or less (but not more-orless) academic SW:
Discovering a few phrases lifted from Mark Twain and Jack London in a book so engaging, fluid, and generous as Chronicles would not have been sufficient grounds for daring to knock a national treasure.

So who is a motherfucker and who isnt? I is amother fucker, er, Rimbaud. Commentary about commentary. Knocking? The identity of the motherfuckers is less than crystal clear because of Mikal Gilmores poor choice of wording for his question; moreover he did not think the issue through properly. Rather, he should have asked a question such as whether Dylan feels he is being consistent in borrowing others phrases while having his Sony henchman take legal action against others for similar activities in relation to his own work. Should I now cites examples? But given Gilmore asked the question he did, it was a typically lazy and cowardly journalistic cop-out to frame the question in terms of some critics and charges. Gilmore needs to take a stance himself or shut up; and he should have given concrete examples of critics who made such charges so as to add flesh to his vague hypothetical theorizing. Otherwise, its just a silly game of Chinese whispers with everyone standing on their Londonian hind legs washing their hands of the plagiarism idiot wind they themselves are whipping up and fanning. In reality, the critics are largely the story-hungry mainstream media simply feeding off the largely information- and opinion-disseminating resident bloggers of Dylan news website Expecting Rain. But the line between discussing and revealing Dylans borrowings on the one hand becomes blurred with accusation or discussion of plagiarism on the other because of varying opinions on the matter plus the fact that the bloggers and commenters sometimes use terms such as plagiarism as convenient shorthand for the whole issue and sometimes interject such inflammatory terms into their own references to articles in the media which in fact havent always used those terms themselves. Therefore, the distinction between borrowing and plagiarism in the hoopla and in reference to it (from outside) is ill-defined. (I myself have used plagiarism in an article title but in a consciously ironic manner.) Witness this for example: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/188551/bob-dylan-is-not-plagiarizing-hesjust-way-better-read-than-you-are/ Screen Shot 2012-09-14 at 12.34.10 PM - Bob Dylan is not plagiarizing, he's just way better read than you are

By Alex Moore 3 days ago

Bob Dylan kicked up a minor controversy this week when he addressed the claims that hes plagiarized by weaving lines from various books into his lyrics. Now 71, Dylan has been a famous singer since he was about 20. Hes never held down a 9-5 job, which among other things has afforded him lots and lots of time. What hes done with this half-century of time, in addition to making a mountain of great music, is apparently read his ass off. Dylan has always been a prolific reader, singing about Rimbaud and T.S. Eliot on his earliest records when most kids his age were cramming for chemistry class. But the most recent claims of his line-lifting reveal an insanely obscure reading list: On the 2006 record Modern Times, Dylan was accused of borrowing from Henry Timrod, a 19th Century poet who died in 1867, according to BBC. The 2001 record Love and Theft includes a line that seems to be pulled from an obscure 1995 biography of a Japanese mobster, writes Reuters.

This is sloppy, inaccurate and vaguely inflammatory by default and typically so for ER's obsessive-compulsive residents. The bloggers use of the words accused and pulled are not at the Reuters and BBC press links provided; the BBC one in fact duplicates the Reuters. ER's sloppy and endlessly superfluous bloggers have a lot to answer for. Borrowing and accusation do not go together; but plagiarism is an inflammatory term yet often used by ER bloggers as shorthand for borrowing. So they only provide the press with the ball of thread to run with and get tangled up in. So who are the real motherfuckers? Poor paraphrasing fuels the shit storm, the idiot wind. Another related issue is the effectively intrinsically quasi-sensationalist nature of revealing (and revealing) Dylans borrowings on Internet blogs and Twitter in the form of a constant somewhat egomaniacal attention-seeking trickle which seeks to keep the issue, and the blogger, constantly in the spotlight. Rather, these findings should be published properly instead of leaked out like titillating drops of piss to and by Dylan obsessive-compulsives. As for Judas being the most hated in history, no chance. Hitler more like. Our Lord and motherfuckers? The sacred and the profane juxtaposed: an unprecedentedly odd Dylan formulation since 1979 at least. Richard Wurmbrand in Marx: Prophet of Darkness:
With every obscenity there is a sacred word, with every ugly gesture a heavenly expression, to defile and profane the holy. This is Satanic. To slay the innocent is a very common sin as well. To crucify Jesus, the Son of God, between two thieves in order to suggest guilt by association is Satanic.

No, Dylans pronouncement is not Satanic. But his juxtaposition has a psychological significance in terms of conflict within the (collective) human psyche. Compare Madonnas brazen Catholic fusion of the Virgin and the Whore.

Dylan: As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. Dylans construction here is theologically hard to equate with his 1985 Messianic complex but it is certainly grammatically equatable with a malapropism. And Dylans equating the plagiarism catcallers (whoever they are) with the same just one man Civil Rights and/or Folk Purist bully who called Dylan Judas! 47 years ago is little more logical than calling Jews of today Christ killers (or indeed all of them back then). Christ snubbers certainly, but not killers. This is on the level of pure logic, though. In any case, the Judas heckler seems to have been just one man; and he was clearly ironically playing on Dylans own accusatory mention of Judas in Masters of War and With God On Our Side. And Dylan should know that picking up the electric guitar is only, or little more than, metonymic or synecdochal for the Civil Rights concerns Dylan is supposed to have betrayed the folk purists over. As one of those hecklers seemed to call out: Why do you have to sing dumb songs? like Tell Me Momma and Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat. I like those songs but I play devils advocate. But getting back to Our Lord, Dylan is on some vaguely Catholic trip here; Our Lord is rather monkish-sounding and a far cry from the Messianic ball he was Spinning in 1985, his post-evangelical and most intensely Hasidic period. From Sir Walter Scotts The Fire-King courtesy of the muddiest superhighway in the universe by definition instantly public domain it would seem, where no attribution is needed.
He has thrown by his helmet and cross-handled sword, Renouncing his knighthood, denying his Lord; He has taen the green caftan, and turban put on, For the love of the maiden of fair Lebanon.

Good Infidels code in the lyrics fodder there. Does Dylan refer to Our Lord when he is chatting with his Hasidic pal Rabbi Manis Friedman? Not on your nelly. Dylan to Scott Cohen for Spin magazine in 1985 (as reported by Cohen but by definition without the all-significant vocal nuance to give the full context of where the pauses and emphases are):
What I learned in Bible school was just another side of an extension of the same thing I believed in all along, but just couldnt verbalize or articulate. Whether you want to believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah is irrelevant, but whether youre aware of the messianic complex, thats all thats important.

What's the messianic complex? All that exists is spirit, before, now and forever more. The messianic thing has to do with this world, the flesh world, and you got to pass through this to get to that. The messianic thing has to do with the world of mankind, like it is. This world is scheduled to go for 7,000 years. Six thousand years of this, where man has his way, and 1,000 years when God has His way. Just like a week. Six days work, one day rest. The last thousand years is called the Messianic Age. Messiah will rule. He is, was, and will be about God, doing God's business. Drought, famine, war, murder, theft, earthquake, and all other evil things will be no more. No more disease. That's all of this world. What's gonna happen is this: you know when things change, people usually know, like in a revolution, people know before it happens who's coming in and who's going out. All the Somozas and Batistas will be on their way out, grabbing their stuff and whatever, but you can forget about them. They won't be going anywhere. It's the people who live under tyranny and oppression, the plain, simple people, that count, like the multitude of sheep. They'll see that God is coming. Somebody representing Him will be on the scene.

Sometimes its hard to tell for Sutton Hoo is who where Messianic denial or equivocation is concerned. Then we got the Messianic haughty culture of a hoarse live In the Garden with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1986 and 87, whereby Dylan introduces his hero. From Dylans Modern Times (2006):
Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a 1,000 years of happiness

Why will the levee break? (Put on your camp clothes, atheistic totally assimilated A J Weberman). Because no more water but fire next time; the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Not this time, babe, no more of this. Fearful symmetry: the code in the lyrics. Suffer ye thus far with Michael Grays bluesy infatuation with the Authorized Version (which King James never really authorized). Luke 22:50-52 New International Version (NIV)
50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered, No more of this! And he touched the mans ear and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard,(A) and the elders, who had come for him, Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs?

Compare from BELIEF IN MOSHIACH POSSIBILITY OR CERTAINTY c) 1992 Wellsprings, an interview with Rabbi Manis Friedman by Susan Handelman:

FRIEDMAN: If people can point a finger to someone and say, "This is Moshiach," that simply shows how alive and vibrant their faith in Moshiach is. Whether this person is or is not Moshiach is irrelevant. HANDELMAN: Would you say that it is irrelevant even if, for example, we decide on the wrong person? New religions have been formed as a result of the belief that certain persons were the Moshiach, and Judaism suffered considerably when these other religions persecuted the Jews for refusing to accept these "Messiahs."

Messianic spin or curveball. From Blind Willie McTells Pious Mans Phylactery Blues:
But the correlation lies rolled up in the pious mans phylactery for whom the fragments were glued together with the balm of grace

Especially Rabbi Manis Friedmans.

They all received the Torah, they all heard G-d speak face to face, so they had certain qualities that are unique to Moshe, and because they were his generation they shared those qualities. In our generation, we all share a quality that resembles Moshiach. But there must also be a Moshiach. This idea that there is a Messianic era without Moshiach is like the 60's without Bob Dylan."

As I recall someone saying on rec.music.dylan in response to Dylans 1985 quasi-Hasidic Messianic formulation about Christs Messiahship: He is neither a theologian nor a systematic thinker. Someone (thinly) disguised as Robin Hood in February 1998:
Dylan was only on a mission of discovery, not fully committed to becoming observantly Jewish as far as I could see. He had many discussions over that year with Manis Friedman, the Lubavitcher "pop philosopher:". The other Lubavitcher rabbis, conscious of Dylan's fame were, in my opinion, trying to exploit the relationship with Dylan to further the cause of their Lubavitch messianism. I think that Bob sensed this and backed off of his "discovery" after a while.

Pauline Kirby-Moore writes in Post-Friedmanian Cut-and-Paste Metaphors: Image of Somebody in the Blues Poetry of Blind Willie McTell: . . . it is characteristic of Renaldo to use a traditional religious concept, that of the
messiah, without using religious terminology: Someone will take the ball from the hands that play the game of terror.

Grazing the mystery of the invisible Bob. Phylacteries (tefillin) and fringes.

From the Los Angeles Times 30 October 1983

That [born-again period] was all part of my experience. It had to happen. When I get involved in something, I get totally involved. I don't just play around on the fringes.

Jakob Dylan interview in Rolling Stone magazine 762 (June 12, 1997):
"Jake's family is a huge advantage to him," says T-Bone Burnett. "I'm not talking about the name. I'm talking about the people. They're all great kids. Sara is a beautiful woman, and Bob, well, no matter what anybody thinks or writes, he is a wonderful man." And, adds Jakob, a habitual seeker. When Bob Dylan, born Bob Zimmerman, temporarily turned his back on Judaism and declared himself a born-again Christian, there were interviews, concerts and albums (Slow Train Coming, Saved). "I went through different times," Jakob says of his spiritual upbringing. "During the conversion thing, I went where I was told. I was aware that it mattered to him. He's never done anything half-assed. If he does anything, he goes fully underwater." I've been Jewish for most of my life." In 2000 Jakob deflected Mick Brown with Im Jewish and thats whats there. http://www.jewishindependent.ca/archives/Dec07/archives07Dec07-05.html

Dec. 7, 2007
The musical chameleon returns

For the last 50 years, musician Bob Dylan has been shifting from one identity to another. EUGENE KAELLIS
As Dylan's career skyrocketed, he seemed to be trying on "different suits." The cover of one of his albums shows him in the guise of a Chassid. Dylan also dabbled in Christianity and in 1979 he became a born-again Christian, although more recently his Christianity seems to have abated and he has become more attached to the Judaism of his family. His son, Jesse Byron, was bar mitzvahed in Israel and Dylan has donated considerable sums of money to the Jewish state.

Dylan Revisited
Oct 5, 1997 8:00 PM EDT

But you're really here, in an oceanfront hotel in L.A., to talk about the record he's releasing this week, "Time Out of Mind," completed before his widely reported death scare last spring; it's got that album-of-the-year buzz publicists can help along some but not create. But there's stuff he's put off-limits-where he lives, his children-and stuff you just know not to ask. What did those black and white loafers set him back? Is he still in touch with his ex-wife? In fact, he seems near the edge of his comfort zone talking about why he's not talking about one of his most illegible back pages: that conservative, born-again-Christian phase that blindsided his liberal, secular fan

base some 15 years ago. "It's not tangible to me," he says. "I don't think I'm tangible to myself. I mean, I think one thing today and I think another thing tomorrow. I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. I don't know who I am most of the time. It doesn't even matter to me." This cracks him up. Then he says, "Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like 'Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain' or 'I Saw the Light'-that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs."

And Manis Friedman. Closing verse of Jokerman (1983) about a late Roman king:
Its a shadowy world, skies are slippery grey A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet Hell put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat Take the motherless children off the street And place them at the feet of a harlot Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants Oh, Jokerman, you dont show any response

Revelation 17:10-12 King James Version (KJV)

10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. 11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. 12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

Again from BELIEF IN MOSHIACH POSSIBILITY OR CERTAINTY:

FRIEDMAN: That's not faith at all. To say that there's a possibility - there are all sorts of possibilities. That's not "complete faith" - emunah shleimah. Emunah shleimah means you cannot conceive of a world today without Moshiach. Not that he could come, but that he must come . And Moshiach's coming is dependent on our doing God's will. We did his will; I did my best today; what else does He want?

Max Dimont in Jews,God and History:

Sholem Aleichem was both an artist and an entertainer, the Jewish Mark Twain, who, because he loved the Jews, was allowed to spoof them, the ghetto, and their rituals. He held before them a comic image of the Chosen People and made them laugh at themselves. In one sentence spoken by his favourite character, Tevye, the dairyman, Sholem Aleichem summed up the plight of the Jew in the Pale. I was, with Gods help, born poor, says Tevye. Sholem Aleichem wrote about the helpless masses and defended the sanctity of the insulted and injured. With Tevye, the

Jewish people could agree on the plight of being a Jew in the Pale, If He wants it that way, thats the way it ought to beand yet, what would have been wrong to have it different? But even as they laughed, the Jewish people paused and reflected.

As did Jewish Dylan scholar Larry Yudelson of the Tangled Up in Jews website in material that has not been updated since the mid Nineties:
A prince today: Ok, so here the Jewish interpretation breaks down and one concedes that Dylan has been reading too much from the Book of Revelation.

From Tempests penultimate song, the title track about the Titanic:
He read the Book of Revelation, and he filled his cup with tears

Compare: Brother rose up against brother. Luke 21:9-11 King James Version (KJV)
9 But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. 10 Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: 11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

The fearful (slightly asymmetrical and wonky) symmetry of biblical and not-sobiblical salvation history in the latter work of Bob Dylan. Balls in Rabbi Friedmans Temple court . . . No more of this, Manis. You and Bob were made of dreams -- born in time. St Leo the Great wrote:
The divine nature and the nature of a servant were to be united in one person so that the Creator of time might be born in time.

The namby-pamby childishness of the Incarnation, whereby Dylan-Christ came down to earth to be human just like me, later left the Michael Gray of the second edition of Song & Dance Man reeling with this feeling over Born in Time as nursery-rhyme scholar for [some of] most of the Nineties in volume III. Back to Sunday school for Michael for remedial tuition. 2012 Paul Kirkman, Messianic Dylanologist.