Always Close to the "Creative Being."

What is it with my on-going Dylan obsession? I blame Paul Williams. His writing about Dylan is so eye-opening, inspiring, makes me see old albums with new eyes, opens my ears to records I sort of took for granted or overlooked the first time around. This morning I have "Planet Waves," "Street Legal," and "Infidels" on random play. Fabulous songs, great lyrics, superb bands, Dylan in fine voice, pretty much in his post-young-wunderkind-prime. I agree with Joan Baez, not everyone falls for Dylan, but if you do fall, you fall hard, really, really hard, and no other artist, no other body of work has the same bite, kick or resonance.

Williams sort of positions Dylan as an archetype, not just a man, a performer extraordinaire, and everything in his life is open to his creative self. Everything in his life is material, mulch, the fertile, luminous ground for poetry, imagery of heart, beauty, bitterness, sadness, fire, alchemy.

Dylan becomes the Magician, the Artist, the Poet, the Lover, the Evangelist, the Prophet, the Seer, the Fool, the Emperor, the Juggler, the Joker, the Alchemist, the Wicked Messenger, the Prodigal Son. Dylan is everything. A man, a twisted, flawed, brilliant, crusty, a curmudgeon of a human being. I sink into his work, into his vast catalog of songs and always emerge inspired, fired up.

I feel like Dylan helps me get in touch with my own "creative being." And really, that is the most important thing for me. To always be close to that creative spirit, to carry it with me through every day. Dylan's music is a doorway, a portal. Always open and ready to let me in.