Bob Dylan was Wrong / The Changing Stream

I was not really sure which headline to go with so I copped out. One has a sensationalistic thing going for it while the other puts you in a contemplative mood. Either way the ideas are the same and that is the thought here. You say potato?

I remember reading an interview with Bob Dylan where he said that if nobody wrote another song the world wouldn't suffer for it. I found a transcript here, you can read the whole thing, it's a good one. However, Bob was wrong. Sure, I understand where he's coming from and most days when I am sifting through the vast sands of the internet looking for music to feed me it feels like there are plenty of songs. That is a gross understatement, billions of plenty of songs. But that is not the point.

A favorite book of mine is about the craft of writing is The Modern Library Writer's Workshop. I have even highlighted it and one of the passages that I keep coming back to when I feel like anything I could say has been said is this.

"The truth of fiction is imaginative truth partly to remind us that authenticity is a changing stream, that every generation,and every group and individual within every generation, must rediscover it."

As someone who choses to create this brings me comfort. Authenticity is a changing stream, the way we as people interpret our world does evolve. Of course we don't need to reinvent everything all the time. Stravinsky's famous quote "Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." applies. We build on the foundation of those who came before.

I mentioned in my post about "Cameras in California" that all of my songs were love songs. They are, and love will always be love, but cameras will go away. Something will replace or leapfrog them. I can't imagine what that invention will be but it will happen and in time people won't talk about cameras or cell phones or laptops but they will love. The stream will change directions and they will create art that speaks in context of the world as it will be for them.

This all reminds me of the Buddhist concept of impermanence or the greek philosopher Heraclitus saying you can't step in the same river twice. The ideas all intertwine and mean something different to us when we meet them at different times on on our journey. Saying we don't need anymore songs is like saying we don't need anymore food. We have had enough. We should be full. But when our appetite returns we will be hungry and we can enjoy fresh grapes and aged wine. They each give us something the other can not.