Dowd, Dylan, and China

This morning, Maureen Dowd expresses her disappointment that prior to his performances in China, Dylan allowed the government censors to approve his set list. This meant, according to Dowd, no protest songs from the Voice of Her Generation against the oppressive Chinese government. Too bad Dowd does not know Dylan. If she were even remotely conversant with his body of work, she would have seen that the set lists he chose to play in his first several Chinese shows did indeed include “protest songs.” But they weren’t the sort that Dowd had in mind. They weren’t her cup of tea, so to speak. For Dowd’s “generation,” “protest” is about tea rooms and not tea parties. Thus, Dowd does not understand the nature of the freedom longed for by the Chinese people.  I suspect that Bob Dylan does understand. This is why you find these lyrics in the song with which he opened up his show on April 6 in Beijing, “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking”:

Change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
I’m gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my best foot forward
Stop bein’ influenced by fools….

Jesus is coming
He’s coming back to gather His jewels
Jesus is coming
He’s coming back to gather His jewels
Well, we live by the Golden Rule
Whoever got the gold, rules…

There are storms on the ocean
Storms out on the mountain too
Storms on the ocean
Storms out on the mountain too
Oh Lord
You know I have no friend without you

And on April 3 in Taiwan, he opened up with these lyrics from “Gotta Serve Somebody”:

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

Given China’s abysmal human rights record on religious liberty, these lyrics are so downright subversive that they would even unflatten Joan Baez’s voice.  But Dowd can’t see it,

Others have offered observations similar to mine. You can find them here, here, and here.