You'll find God in the church of your choice

My mom once told me that she would rather listen to a Bob Dylan album by herself than go see him in concert. At the time I was kind of shocked that she wouldn't want to see him perform in person, but she explained that there was a big difference for her in the way she was able to enjoy the music in these two settings.

When you are listening to music by yourself, you can make the music having a personal meaning to you. You can take the song and construe it in any way you like. It is up to the listener to connect with the music in a deeper sense without having any outside influence, pressure or assumptions.

At a concert, you are presented with a concrete version of the music and what it was originally meant to be. The presence of hundreds or thousands of other people listening to the same song, in the same venue, watching the same artist, there can be no distinct or personal interpretation. Each individual is force fed a publicly agreed upon version of the music.

I saw Dylan live less than two years ago, and it pains me to say it, but it was a let down. In the twilight of his career, no longer playing the guitar, and practically speaking the words instead of singing, the version of Bob Dylan that I was presented with was not in line with the way I saw him and his music in my mind.

I guess I still prefer to envision him as he was in the early 1960's, a renegade from Minnesota who moved to NYC and was able to channel the work and spirit of those folk musicians before him and produce a sound all his own. And I feel that if I want to, I should be able to conjure up any vision of him/his music I desire.

The way that I interpret and feel from listening to "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" isn't dependent on what a critic or some dude standing next to me at a concert or even Bob Dylan himself feels about the song. My relationship with the music needs to be untainted by outside speculation or influence.

So, what I have come to is the idea that the music is mine. I can enjoy, say, John Wesley Harding regardless of "how well it was received" or what some irrelevant critic said about it. All that matters is how I come to terms with what I hear and what it ends up meaning to me.