Happy Birthday Bob Dylan: Time Out of Klein

Last week's Time magazine had a nice column by Joe Klein about birthday boy Bob Dylan. (You can read it here.)

Klein is one of the best political writers out there, but is knowledgable about American music as well. In addition to penning the "anonymous" Bill Clinton expose Primary Colors, Klein also wrote the celebrated biography Woody Guthrie: A Life.

In his column, Klein calls Dylan "the great American artist of the past 50 years, I believe." With the possible exception of Rip Taylor, he's dead on.

Reading such high praise in Time magazine was most unusual, as they have kept their Dylan coverage to a minimum over the years. Unlike Molly Ringwald for example, Dylan has never had a cover story in Time. Newsweek, on the other hand, has had Bob on the cover regularly over the years and has always treated him as a serious artist.

My guess is that Time has never forgiven Dylan for his brutally accurate deconstruction of the magazine in this famous scene with a clueless, pretentious, British-toothed Time journalist from the 1965 documentary Dont Look Back.

When asked "Do you care about what you write?" His Bobness responds, "How can I answer that question when you have the nerve to ask me?":


In his film I'm Not There, Todd Haynes took real quotes from the Time interview and other famous Dylan-press confrontations and brilliantly spun them into this kaleidoscopic scene, with the journalist as "Ballad of a Thin Man"'s Mr. Jones, who knows something's happening but doesn't know what it is.



Perhaps Time has finally let go of their Dylan grudge because Dylan, in the September of his years (he's 68 today), has grown more wistful. As Klein notes, "There is no mistaking that the essential landscape of the old master's life has changed. Police officers, who used to be the objects of rage and ridicule, are now necessary public servants: 'Mr. Policeman, can you help me find my gal?/ Last time I saw her was at the Magnolia Hotel.' Which raises the question: Did she wander off in an Alzheimic haze, or did Bob?"

Happy Birthday, Bob! Hope you keep doing what you're doing for another 68 years.

Let's wrap things up with Bob sticking it to the man in song form. As this amazing clip of "Ballad of a Thin Man" will attest, Cate Blanchett really had her '66 tour Dylan down.