I was raised a nice Jewish boy in a Conservative household. Went to Camp Ramah. It's funny actually. I think I enacted my queerness there unconsciously. I was kind of one of the weirdos. I was on staff and definitely interested in alternatives to what that social structure was supposed to be.

"Masters of War" [of Bob Dylan] wasn't peacenik, anti-war stuff. With its minor key and uncompromising final lines ("And I hope that you die/And your death'll come soon/ I will follow your casket/ In the pale afternoon...") this was a previously unknown hybrid of caustic political commentary and punk rock, which itself wouldn't be invented for another decade or so.

I was raised a nice Jewish boy in a Conservative household. Went to Camp Ramah. It's funny actually. I think I enacted my queerness there unconsciously. I was kind of one of the weirdos. I was on staff and definitely interested in alternatives to what that social structure was supposed to be.

[Bob] Dylan's many quotations from classic American roots music (that song is from an album aptly titled Love and Theft) join the aging poet to a tradition that preceded him and hopefully will outlive him as well.

I suspect many readers might associate [Bob Dylan] with one of the shortest phases of his career, the time from 1963 to '65 when he wrote his most famous "protest songs," like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin.'"

Weirdly, by the way,[Bob] Dylan also managed to write several beautiful love songs, like "To Make You Feel My Love" (covered by Adele, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, and who knows who else) and "Most of the Time." Go figure.

Religion is commodified; the educational system is a sham; and yet,[Bob] Dylan wonders, everyone has to stand naked sometime.