Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard were still wrapping up a two-day gig in Memphis last night as Shelby County hunkered down under a tornado warning.
Dylan’s Monday performance of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” proved somewhat prophetic a day later just as he was launching into “High Water.”
Severe weather was about the last thing on the minds of the Tuesday night crowd, which enjoyed the show from the safely of their seats inside The Orpheum Theatre.
Haggard and the Strangers opened the show with several crowd-pleasers, songs with themes of hard drinking and table-top dancers. After having previously dedicated a song to “all the drunks” in the audience, Haggard introduced “Okie From Muskogee” apologetically, calling it his “anti-drug song.” He also changed a line from “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good” from “I wish coke was still cola and a joint was a bad place to be” to “…a good place to be.”
The audience rose to its feet for Dylan’s set, which was entirely different from Monday night except for the two encore songs: “Like A Rolling Stone” and “All Along The Watchtower.”
Dylan is a songwriting legend who has turned destroying his own songs into a new art form. In concert, Dylan will often limit his vocal range to two or three notes, chop up the lyrical tempo and stretch out his ballads until they are barely recognizable even by the most die-hard fan. But though his voice was a bit more gravelly than usual, Dylan was in rare form on Tuesday, performing classics such as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” with more gusto than he has in several years.
As expected, both performers made a special effort to signal their opposition to the current White House. Haggard’s biggest cheer from the audinece came after he spoke a line about not worrying about “what Bush thinks.”
For his part, Dylan chimed in with a sharp rendition of “Masters Of War,” a song written in opposition to defense industry executives:
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks…
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead
With songs such as these, Dylan is still acclaimed as the poet of peace. But one only wishes that Dylan could reserve as much energy for stalking and haunting the Masters of Jihad, who apparently fly under his radar.
The same goes for Haggard. The Commercial Appeal reports:
Haggard… is dismayed by what he sees as the betrayal of the American public and military by the Bush administration and by what he perceives as a pervasive jingoism that silences anyone — including artists like the Dixie Chicks and Linda Ronstadt — who speaks out against the party line.
And yet, obviously, none of these people have been silenced. A packed crowd in Memphis, both days, pays tribute to that fact. Instead, those being silenced are the ones speaking to this generation’s troubles. Theo van Gogh, Flemming Rose and Hao Wu immediately come to mind. These are the Bob Dylans of today.
MORE: Further Bob analysis is up at Fishkite. Meanwhile, Smart City Memphis posts the lyrics to… you guessed it… and the Pesky Fly crew is cheering Merle Haggard.
