Blowin’ in the Idiot Wind

[groovedaddy]

Bob Dylan may have done the impossible: broken creative new ground in selling out.

The idea that the raspy troubadour of ’60s freedom anthems would go to a dictatorship and not sing those anthems is a whole new kind of sellout — even worse than Beyoncé, Mariah and Usher collecting millions to croon to Qaddafi’s family, or Elton John raking in a fortune to serenade gay-bashers at Rush Limbaugh’s fourth wedding.

Before Dylan was allowed to have his first concert in China on Wednesday at the Worker’s Gymnasium in Beijing, he ignored his own warning in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” — “Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose” — and let the government pre-approve his set.

Iconic songs of revolution like “The Times They Are a-Changin,’ ” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” wouldn’t have been an appropriate soundtrack for the 2,000 Chinese apparatchiks in the audience taking a relaxing break from repression.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10dowd.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

1. if there's a chance his music can get through to even a few of the common people,

it is worth it.

they can't really put a filter on Dylan.
any of his songs could subvert their population.

[JuniperLea]

2. That's how I see it too...

What's the use in preaching to the choir?

I wonder what Joan Baez would do if asked to perform for that sort of thing.