El Gran Viaje Americano de Bob Dylan

Estuvo en Chile quien ha sido catalogado por la Revista Time como uno de los 100 personajes más importantes del siglo XX, junto con Einstein, Gandhi, King, Churchill, Picasso, Juan Pablo II. Quien reclama algo de hipérbole en lo anterior sencillamente no sabe. O puede que caiga en el error de reducir a Bob Dylan a cualquiera de los deprimentes clichés que le suelen colgar. “La Voz de los ’60.” “El Gran Poeta del Rock.” O el patético “Leyenda Viviente.”

Como uno de los fieles seguidores del “gran viaje americano de Bob Dylan”, sé que Dylan es más, más que el querubín de 19 años que compuso el sublime “Blowing in the Wind”. Más que el hombre que, a 25 años, se aburrió con la etiqueta de mesiás que le había colgado, optando por sepultarlo todo con el magistral “Like a Rolling Stone,” descrito por la revista del mismo nombre como “la canción de rock más perfecta de todos los tiempos.”

Dylan es y siempre ha sido el heredero natural de aquella América intuida por Allan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, y Walt Whitman: la vida como arte; el camino como metáfora, y la divinidad del “working man”, luchando por el amor en un mundo que tambalea entre lo profano y lo absurdo. Es el héroe norteamericano interpretando en vida su particular versión “far west” del Quijote. Tales héroes nos recuerdan que cada uno puede—y debe--tocar las puertas del cielo mientras aun se encuentra en carne y hueso. LA VIDA DE DYLAN, más que las canciones de Dylan, nos ha enseñado que es posible ser un hombre mítico sin caer en la trampa de creerse el mito.

Ni Cervantes, ni Shakespeare, ni Twain, ni Whitman vivieron en los tiempos de internet. No leyeron sus propias biografías “no autorizadas”. No conocieron programas de farándula. No competieron con “noticieros” que hablaban de Britney Spears.

Son los “Modern Times” de los que canta Bob Dylan, un campo minado que a todos nos ha tocado vivir, y que él ha navegado durante una carrera de más de 40 años, con más de 400 canciones, soslayando cada trampa con humor y aplomo.

Y de repente, allí estaba el Hombre, parado frente a mí y a nueve mil otros en el Arena Santiago.

Sobre el escenario Dylan es taciturno. Cuesta que levante la cabeza para decir “hola” o “buenas noches.” Ya no le interesa ser ni gurú ni profeta. Durante años parecía que le incomodaba que el público gozara demasiado. Mientras más gritaban, él más se iba para adentro. Ahora, parece que está en paz. Cuando siente el público entrando en trance, emite una sonrisa y hasta baila un poco.

Tocó varios clásicos. Pero los tocó diferente. “Blowing in the Wind” sonó como un lento funk blues. Dulce. Delicioso. “Masters of War” tomó un aire de reggae y grunge. “Just Like a Woman” fue larga, tiernísima y juguetona. “Like a Rolling Stone” sonaba medio Nueva Orleans, eléctrica y extática.

Pero mi momento favorito, lejos, fue la hermosa “Workingman’s Blues #2”, balada del disco nuevo que suena a clásico instantáneo. He visto a Dylan tocar siete veces. Pero esta vez, yo entraba en un estado dulce y profundo. Se me ocurrió, “Estoy mirando a alguien que en 100 años, en 500 años, podría tener la misma relevancia que hoy día tiene Twain o Whitman”. Dylan, por supuesto, no se cree el cuento. Tenía una sonrisa de oreja a oreja. A lo mejor el también lo sabe. Un poco.

Bob Dylan's American Journey (English Version)

A guy just paid a visit whose name happens to be on the Time magazine list of the 100 most influential figures of the 20th century. There it is—alongside Einstein, Ghandi, King, Churchill, Picasso, and John Paul II. Anyone out there currently raising their eyebrows I beg you, read no further.

Then again, I can’t say I blame you. It is not easy to see beyond such pathetic clichés as “Voice of a Generation,” “Rock Poet,” or “Living legend. But Bob Dylan is more than these things just as he is more than the nineteen year-old ragamuffin who scribbled early versions of Blowing in the Wind on a coffee house napkin.

Dylan is and always has been the heir to an American tradition represented by the likes Allan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman. Principle one: Life is art and the road is its metaphor. Principle two: the working man is a religious symbol representing our struggle for love in a world both absurd and insane. Dylan is our generation’s incarnation of the great North American saga. Quixote meets the far west. The moral? It is not only possible to “Knock on Heaven’s Door;” it is our obligation.

DYLAN’S LIFE, even more than his marvelous songs, reminds us we, too, can live a mythic life. But he has also gone the extra mile: demonstrating that we need to avoid the trap of believing our myth is the other person’s savior.

Neither Shakespeare, nor Cervantes, nor Twain, nor Whitman lived in the schadenfreude age. They had no internet bloggers to deal with, no unauthorized biographies, no celebrity journalism, and no 24/7 news coverage feeding them steady doses of Brittany Spears slash Paris Hilton slash O.J. Simpson.

If these are the Modern Times we live in, then Dylan’s music is the immunization.

And suddenly there He was, standing before me and nine thousand others in the Santiago Arena.

Dylan is a taciturn presence on stage. He rarely looks ahead. In two hours he may not say as much as hello or goodnight. He is simply no longer interested in being anybody’s guru.

Not so many years ago, Dylan seemed viscerally uncomfortable with the idea that his songs “meant something to people.” When his audience would slip into a trance, he would retreat inside of himself, becoming more distant and elusive. At 66, he seems increasingly at peace with his place in the universe. When the audience gets that blissful look on their face, he lets out a devilish smile and dances a two-step.

He played various classics Tuesday night, but, true to form, each had been completely rewritten. Blowing in the Wind was now a funk blues ballad, sweet and delicious. Masters of War took on an air of reggae and grunge. Just Like a Woman was long, tender, and playful. Like A Rolling Stone bounced with the ecstatic electricity of a New Orleans style rag.

But my favorite moment, by far, was the striking interpretation of Workingman’s Blues #2, a ballad off the new album universally acclaimed as an instant classic.

I have seen Dylan seven times. But this was one of those rare moments when I was completely in the present, sucking in the master craftsman “at work” before my eyes. I was pinching myself. I thought: “In hundreds of years people will talk about this man in the same light as Twain or Whitman. And I, little Todd Temkin, am watching him work.”

Dylan, of course, would have nothing of it. He rolled off the last lyrics of the song,

Now I'm down on my luck and I'm black and blue Gonna give you another chance I'm all alone and I'm expecting you To lead me off into a cheerful dance I got a brand new suit and a brand new wife I can live on rice and beans Some people never worked a day in their life Don't know what work even means

The hall was as still as 9,000 can be. This wasn’t another pathetic old rock star mindlessly belting off a song he had sung a zillion times. It was a real artist, at the height of his powers. We were in awe of what was playing out before us. Then, grinning from ear to ear, he raised his head from the keyboard and winked. Maybe he does know how great he is, after all? Maybe he doesn’t care? Maybe.