Hipster-bashing is not a new sport...
122. Bob Dylan "Ballad Of A Thin Man"
When Bob Dylan is parodied, he's usually portrayed as an adenoidal and lugubriously grumpy enigma. This song from Highway 61 Revisited could be the template for those spoofs since it's Dylan at his most gloriously grouchy, and he had plenty to be grouchy about. After he became bored with the folkies regimentation and dogmatism, he got an electric guitar and a band and started playing a whole new mutant form of rock and roll, causing an angry almost violent reaction from his former fans in the 'folk' community, never mind that he had played rock and roll before he'd ever heard of Woody Guthrie and that the rock and roll they loathed was actually the organic descendant of the country and blues forms they revered, but purists have never been known for thinking clearly.
So Bob was extremely wary of being anyone's hip talisman or flag-carrier and a lot of that is in this song. Mr. Jones, the protagonist, walks into a bohemian party and is baffled and the listener is invited to snicker along. Over dirgelike piano and organ in an a voice that's all bile and cynicism Dylan describes a scene that gets progressively weirder until, as writer Greil Marcus puts it "by now whoever is listening is beginning to recognize his or her own dim shape in the song. Whoever is listening is beginning to flinch." This brilliant reversal lets Dylan burn down the whole silly hipster shooting match and speak only for himself. This still stands as one of the great harangues in musical history.
When Bob Dylan is parodied, he's usually portrayed as an adenoidal and lugubriously grumpy enigma. This song from Highway 61 Revisited could be the template for those spoofs since it's Dylan at his most gloriously grouchy, and he had plenty to be grouchy about. After he became bored with the folkies regimentation and dogmatism, he got an electric guitar and a band and started playing a whole new mutant form of rock and roll, causing an angry almost violent reaction from his former fans in the 'folk' community, never mind that he had played rock and roll before he'd ever heard of Woody Guthrie and that the rock and roll they loathed was actually the organic descendant of the country and blues forms they revered, but purists have never been known for thinking clearly.
So Bob was extremely wary of being anyone's hip talisman or flag-carrier and a lot of that is in this song. Mr. Jones, the protagonist, walks into a bohemian party and is baffled and the listener is invited to snicker along. Over dirgelike piano and organ in an a voice that's all bile and cynicism Dylan describes a scene that gets progressively weirder until, as writer Greil Marcus puts it "by now whoever is listening is beginning to recognize his or her own dim shape in the song. Whoever is listening is beginning to flinch." This brilliant reversal lets Dylan burn down the whole silly hipster shooting match and speak only for himself. This still stands as one of the great harangues in musical history.
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