There has been a ton of excellent music in this period (along with a few misses), evoking scenes like a bar-room brawl at a border-town dive, a washed-up singer in a smoky lounge, and the scenes of violence in Bob Dylan latter-day music videos.I think the ethos of this period is best summed up in the 2001 song "Summer Days".

Except in these latter-day songs, [Bob] Dylan is a grizzled old prophet who's already been to hell and back.

[Bob Dylan] is a preacher but also a sinner; a poet but also a pitchman; authentic all-American but also invented persona.

More of the symbols are stock (does [Bob] Dylan really have hogs lying out in the mud somewhere? I doubt it), but that's the point.

What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving creatures is just relax and allow.

There has been a ton of excellent music in this period (along with a few misses), evoking scenes like a bar-room brawl at a border-town dive, a washed-up singer in a smoky lounge, and the scenes of violence in Bob Dylan latter-day music videos.I think the ethos of this period is best summed up in the 2001 song "Summer Days".

In honor of his new Nobel, this hard-core Dylanophile wants to share with you a song or two from each of his many incarnations. Because you deserve to know.