Bob Dylan to rock Vietnam in special concert.
The iconic American folk singer and songwriter was set to play a special concert in the former Saigon on Sunday evening, where he’s expected to belt out some of his classic anti-war tunes, nearly 36 years after the Vietnam War ended.
Dylan’s music during that tumultuous era helped define a generation, touching thousands of young people who took to the streets demanding that Washington stop the war in Vietnam.
Maybe he’ll have Jane Fonda as a go-go dancer too?
Added: Rather than attempt to reply in the comments, I choose to amplify here.
Whatever Dylan’s personal beliefs might have been a fact is that some of his music became anti-war anthems. However, much a like a gun and it’s wielder, there can be a disconnect of note. He DID have the option of standing up and decrying their use had he chose to do so.
Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.
Pretty ironic considering the majority of Vietnamese who would be attending that concert were born long after the war ended.
Maybe they can get the Dead Kennedys to open up for them and play “Holiday in Cambodia” while they’re at it.
My favorite thing about Bob Dylan is that he now shills for Cadillac and Pepsi. There’s your “voice of a generation” you fucking hippies!
I’m hoping he takes a tour of a Nike sweatshop in the workers’ paradise.
Maybe I am too young to understand what the hippys liked about him, I can’t understand a friggen word he sings….maybe it’s I don’t get stoned?
Living in past glory, totally irrelevant to today.
Maybe someone can lose his passport while he’s over there.
why isn’t there a mandatory retirement age for pop culture icons?
Maybe Bob can take a boat ride on his way home, like a lot of South Vietnamese had to do, to get out alive? Seems fitting that the douChe who enabled the smelly hippies should have to leave that way.
It’s funny because he wasn’t part of the anti-war movement in the first place, nor was he a hippie…
maybe he can play some of his great songs about vietnam like…well, there’s…oh how about…no,that’s not it. well let’s just look at some of his song titles from 68-69…
“Nashville Skyline Rag”
“To Be Alone with You”
“I Threw It All Away”
“Peggy Day”
“Lay Lady Lay”
“One More Night”
“Tell Me That It Isn’t True”
“Country Pie”
“Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You”
seems like a lot of country music. simply anyone who thinks bob is a protest singer simply hasn’t paid attention to any album of his after 1964. or as he told a sing out! interviewer in 66 “Anyway, how do you know that I’m not, as you say, for the war?”
I’m all for him going to Saigon, as long as he doesn’t take a side trip to Hanoi and sit in the same seat Jane Fonda did.
Dylan was *not* an anti-war activist, none of his songs were about Vietnam, and he didn’t like being called a flok singer.
The AP article is a foul insult to a fine songwriter and pretty good guy, implying that he was one of subhuman antiwar vermin.
Here’s your pretty good guy. He lets the Chinese government choose his song list. Anything for a buck.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10dowd.html?hp
Who is this guy? Vietnam never happened… it was all a lie.
Blue Cyclone #12: That article is pretty close to my perceptions of Dylan over the years. Thanks.
the set list was strangely very typical setlist for the last couple of years. really the most shocking thing is that in taipei “sugar baby” was in the fourth slot.
bob simply is not who you or mo dowd think he is.
example: i shall be free no.10 (1964)
Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba
who’s bob making fun of there? hint:it’s not barry goldwater
why no “times”? dunno, but he hasn’t played it since aug.09.
Actually it’s pretty much the height of ignorance to mention bob and jane fonda as some kind of fellow travellers. Seriously, modo is your authority?
oh noes- he didnt sing Hurricane! which he hasn’t sang since jan.76. what the fuck really made you think he was going to drag it out now?
Rather surprised at the surprise. Scratch the surface of any artist and you find money.
Anon #15: Perhaps Dylan only cravenly allowed his music to be highjacked by hippies and/or anti-war types? He certainly didn’t stand up and demand that they didn’t!
Connecting his music to Jane Fonda doesn’t really require any complicated math…
Dylan was more of a libertarian than a anti war hippy. He came out of the Jack Kerouc beat generation rather than the Morrison electric kool aid group. I would also like to give a shout out to Joan Baez who was extremely anti war, but after all was done realized that the left was wrong and denounced the slaughtering of millions of innocent Vietnamese.
Actually…Baez, can’t stand her politics, love her music, tried desparately to get Jane Fonda and others to help her when Pol Pot was murdering millions of Cambodians. She actually went there to help rescue people. Fonda and the rest of the anti-war movement refused basically stating that we are out of Vietnam….so tough beans. This I really liked about Baez. She was also Dylan’s main squeeze for quite sometime. When they split she wrote Diamonds and Rust about her relationship with Dylan.
I think Dylan is pegged with a lot more anti-Vietnam stuff than he was really involved in. I think most of his songs of a political nature are more about the problems of the world and society then they are about Vietnam.
Honor and Courage
if bob’s some leftwing hippie freak why did he shut down jimmy carter for using the times as a campaign song? bob has no control over the hippies. what music was hijacked by the hippies? bob never marched against the war, and he made fun of joan baez and her tax protest.
if you think that is somehow the same as posing for pictures with NVA AA guns yer seriously deranged.
you simply have no idea what yer talking about. yer ignorant. you should have kept yer idiot mouth shut about things you dont know anything about. in that respect you have alot in common with the hippies.
is this really the kind of song a leftwing antiwar hippy would write?
Neighborhood Bully
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully
He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully
Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully
Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully
What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully
from Infidels (1983)
“‘Masters of War’… is supposed to be a pacifistic song against war. It’s not an anti-war song. It’s speaking against what Eisenhower was calling a military-industrial complex as he was making his exit from the presidency. That spirit was in the air, and I picked it up.” – 2001
also as bob says, there was an audience for that type of song and somebody was going to write that song and get paid for it, so it might as well be him. he used the hippies.
are you for war profiteers? because that’s what yer defending.
next we’ll take a look at one of his “protest” songs…
Here’s one of the “leftwing hippie trash” tunes
Only A Pawn In Their Game – 1963
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game
you got some problem with this too i expect?
okay, here’s another “antiwar” tune
John Brown – 1963
John Brown went off to war to fight on a foreign shore
His mama sure was proud of him!
He stood straight and tall in his uniform and all
His mama’s face broke out all in a grin
“Oh son, you look so fine, I’m glad you’re a son of mine
You make me proud to know you hold a gun
Do what the captain says, lots of medals you will get
And we’ll put them on the wall when you come home”
As that old train pulled out, John’s ma began to shout
Tellin’ ev’ryone in the neighborhood:
“That’s my son that’s about to go, he’s a soldier now, you know”
She made well sure her neighbors understood
She got a letter once in a while and her face broke into a smile
As she showed them to the people from next door
And she bragged about her son with his uniform and gun
And these things you called a good old-fashioned war
Oh! Good old-fashioned war!
Then the letters ceased to come, for a long time they did not come
They ceased to come for about ten months or more
Then a letter finally came saying, “Go down and meet the train
Your son’s a-coming home from the war”
She smiled and went right down, she looked everywhere around
But she could not see her soldier son in sight
But as all the people passed, she saw her son at last
When she did she could hardly believe her eyes
Oh his face was all shot up and his hand was all blown off
And he wore a metal brace around his waist
He whispered kind of slow, in a voice she did not know
While she couldn’t even recognize his face!
Oh! Lord! Not even recognize his face
“Oh tell me, my darling son, pray tell me what they done
How is it you come to be this way?”
He tried his best to talk but his mouth could hardly move
And the mother had to turn her face away
“Don’t you remember, Ma, when I went off to war
You thought it was the best thing I could do?
I was on the battleground, you were home . . . acting proud
You wasn’t there standing in my shoes”
“Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here?
I’m a-tryin’ to kill somebody or die tryin’
But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine”
Oh! Lord! Just like mine!
“And I couldn’t help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink
That I was just a puppet in a play
And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke
And a cannonball blew my eyes away”
As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock
At seein’ the metal brace that helped him stand
But as he turned to go, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand
waitasec…the masters of war aren’t even the villains of this piece, instead it’s john brown’s own mother.
so to run some numbers – out of 35 studio albums(not counting
live albums or studio outtakes or greatest hits packages) there are mebbe 3 made up of “protest music” so less than 10%. out of those albums there are 10 tracks(out of 34) that could be considered “protest” or ‘message” songs.
so it’s only haters and stupid hippies that have an unrealistic vision in their minds of who bob is.
Anon: I have tried to make clear that Dylan could have divorced himself from those perceptions, but didn’t!
If I have failed to make that clear thus far, then I will quit trying.
At some point personal responsibility come into play.
what do you want him to do? come over to your house? hold your hand as he takes you thru his records one by one?
he’s responsible for the opinions of the ignorant and oppurtunistic?
he’s done the only thing he needs to do and that’s to continue to publish and perform the finest american music available. you wish to confine him in a box from nigh 50 yrs ago. a box that he split from and rebuked in 1964!
My Back Pages
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
He has make rebukes and decried wrongheaded use of his music, but since you yerself didn’t witness it, that doesn’t mean you can pretend it never happened.
As a matter of fact, you should be able to throw up accounts of all sorts of war protestors using his music, right?
or are you relying on some unknown ap reporter who in all likelihood wasn’t born until the 80’s?
you still have not attempted to reconcile Masters Of War with Neighborhood Bully. because that is a strong defense of israel, which everyone knows is the defining feature of leftwing hippy freaks.
When You Gonna Wake Up?
God don’t make no promises that He don’t keep
You got some big dreams, baby, but in order to dream you gotta still be asleep
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
Counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts
Karl Marx has got ya by the throat, Henry Kissinger’s got you tied up in knots
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
You got innocent men in jail, your insane asylums are filled
You got unrighteous doctors dealing drugs that’ll never cure your ills
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
You got men who can’t hold their peace and women who can’t control their tongues
The rich seduce the poor and the old are seduced by the young
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools
You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
Spiritual advisors and gurus to guide your every move
Instant inner peace and every step you take has got to be approved
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
Do you ever wonder just what God requires?
You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
You can’t take it with you and you know that it’s too worthless to be sold
They tell you, “Time is money,” as if your life was worth its weight in gold
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
There’s a Man up on a cross and He’s been crucified
Do you have any idea why or for who He died?
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
he’s talkin to you “zero”
while yer at it “zero”, i’m sure yer lookin fer the rebuke from this long haired piece of shit, who proudly and publicly took an antiwar stance.
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.
And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen’ that we all were on their side.
so let’s be clear. bob supports the war = bad, jc protests the war = good.
are you sure yer not one of those hippy pieces of shit? because you possess the cognitive dissonance of the typical lib moron.
Thanks Anon: You’ve responded to every rebuttal with…something.
Unless yer actually Bob Dylan yer assumptions are wonderful, but growing boring. “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.”
Oh yeah… If you ain’t Bob, Fuck you! Dylan had choices. I spent 2 years listening to himself. Even coming via Hanoi Hannah.
End message, and effort.