Song #71: Bob Dylan feat. Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison - "My Back Pages"

Song #71: Bob Dylan feat. Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison - "My Back Pages" (1964)

Another Side of Bob Dylan

"But I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."

One of my many strange appreciations in life is public access television. I love it for its simplicity, its intimacy, and the entire do-it-yourself quality it embodies. Unfortunately, having DirecTV, a satellite cable provider, I am deprived of public access and there are only two places I know I can get it - my grandparents' house, where she just has regular cable with several stations devoted to local town programming, and the Chicago Wolves games when my dad is lucky enough to score skybox seats. That's right, during a hockey game, if I have skybox or upper-deck seats, you'll find me in the little room, drinking Pepsi, watching public access television on the small little television in the upperhand corner of the room.

 

I bring this up because the last time I was at a Chicago Wolves game in the skybox seats was in 2012, where I sat inside the skybox most of the game watching the random public access television. One program showed an obese man in a red hoodie and an Atari shirt sitting in a folding chair talking about technology and the uses of a personal computer under the name "The Technology Coach." Another was the TV network for Triton College, a local community college not far from the Allstate Arena in Chicago, where the Chicago Wolves play. Then I finally stumbled upon a weird channel that was showing a concert in progress. While the bottom righthand corner showed a VH1 logo and proclaimed "LIVE," I knew this concert had to be several years old. Sure enough, it was a thirty year anniversary concert for Bob Dylan, a musician I never listened to.

"What the hell?," I said, leaving it on while the Wolves played their second period of hockey against a team I never heard of and the score at whatever the hell it was at. I listened for about five minutes before watching Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison - all legendary musicians - perform one of Dylan's many loved songs, "My Back Pages." From the first verse by Dylan, I was in love. I couldn't believe how immersed I was in this song. The song's content was a mystery to me then, and even a bit now, as the audio wasn't the greatest on the television and the singer's voices are already pretty unique and different just to make it harder to hear. Not to mention, the audience would applaud each time a singer began singing and wouldn't quit till about a third of the way through the song.

From what I can gather, the song is about recalling that period in life when you thought you knew it all, were intellectual, and were just an all-around intelligent soul. Then you grew up, and as you looked back, you realized you weren't that intelligent, which is where the key line "but I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now" comes in. The line is about recognizing how much edgier and smarter you thought you sounded back then, probably getting lost in your ideas and weren't sure of yourself. Now, take a look at yourself, and see that you're a different person, younger in spirit and wiser in the experience department.

I have a feeling I'm in the first part of that, which is why I find deep resonation in "My Back Pages." This is also the first and only song on "The One-Hundred Songs of Steve Pulaski" that chooses a live, altered version of a song over the original. The original song that only featured Dylan is fine, but when the song is balanced out with numerous other musicians, it makes the entire idea of the song blossom to a greater degree, I feel.

Give "My Back Pages" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_gDnTVWivI