Re: What Is ...?--(mostly playful) musings

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Robert Cohen wrote:

> Since I too find this exchange often provocative and often somewhat funny, I
> guess I'm pleased at having unexpectedly prompted it (that is, w/ Bob's
> initial prompting).  A few not very vital thoughts:  Bob's "Does it have
> Jewish significance?" (as opposed to "Is it Jewish music?") question is a
> very useful distinction--I'll have to keep that in mind (pedagogically and
> otherwise).  In re same:  I think the way in which Gershwin, as a very
> self-conscious outsider (and wannabe not), appropriated American/Black
> musical idioms into his work is very much of Jewish significance, whatever
> we make of (i.e., in this, Jewish, context) the music itself.  I don't know
> if we can say the same of Dylan, though, _musically,_ in an outsider sense,
> but maybe; I don't, FWIW, see Carole King (nee Klein, BTW) or Burt Bacharach
> at all; and I don't even (thankfully?, he says philistinely) _know_ the
> music of most of the others!  Dylan surely does have Jewish "stuff" going on
> in some amount of his work, though, and I'd, at least, find it interesting
> if people wanted, when they have a chance (i.e., when it would be fun and
> there's something more important and less enjoyable that they _should_ be
> doing--see Robert Benchley's priceless essay on this), to share their
> thoughts on this. (Stephen [sp?] Pickering wrote a book on it.)

Bob Dylan:  The Jewish Poet in Search of G-d

> _I,_ FWIW
> (no doubt little), have my personal nominee for the most Jewish line he ever
> wrote--a free brownie or cupcake for whoever can identify it!

"And like Goliath they'll be conquered"
                      (When the Ship Comes In)

"They murdered six million; in ovens they fried
The Germans now too have G-d on their side"
                          (With G-d On Their Side)

"G-d said to Abraham: "Kill me a son"
Abe said: "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
                                     (Highway 61 Revisited)

With a time-rusted compass lamp
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side-saddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden
                                  (Gates of Eden)

Wolf




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