Hippies vs. Punks: Bob Dylan at Budokan

The period, 1975 to 1979, we've been looking at every Friday night is a shocking one for the Hippies. Utopia did not result from any of their efforts. Nixon was dethroned and the Vietnam War ended but the "Establishment" rolled on. Bombs continued to drop. Rats continued to race. By the end of the 1970s the jig was up. It was time for the Hippies to slink back to "The Man." For some that was a bridge too far. I saw it up close and personal with my parents. My mother was the fortunate one. She was able to maintain herself professionally as an astrologer for the rest of her working life because she lived in a New Age enclave, Ashland, Oregon. My father didn't fare as well. After my parents separated in the first half of 1977, he lived as a bachelor for several tumultuous and downward-spiraling years; and by the early 1980s he had moved back in with his parents where he would remain, burying both of them.

I had three senior years at the university -- 1985-1986; 1986-1987; 1987-1988 -- during which time I drank a lot of beer and listened in a devotional manner to Bob Dylan and the Minutemen. I owned and could name in sequence every Bob Dylan album from Bob Dylan (1962) through Desire (1976). But around Street Legal (1978) things would start to get confusing. Street Legal, Shot of Love (1981), Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980), Bob Dylan at Budokan (1979) -- they were all a jumble to me. I knew they were recorded, approximately, in the period when Dylan becomes a Born Again Christian. I would listen regularly to Slow Train and the Gospel stuff on Biograph (1985) and I liked it all, but my excessive Dylan devotion ended with Desire and the concert album Hard Rain (1976).

Like my parents, Bob Dylan's marriage collapsed in 1977. He and Sarah parted ways and then engaged in a custody battle for their children. The two albums that come out of this period and directly precede Dylan's being Born Again are Street Legal and Bob Dylan at Budokan.

While today I enjoy Street Legal and think it an excellent album, I couldn't stomach it when I was a young man; half-digested and bland was how it sounded to me. But Street Legal was heaven compared to Bob Dylan at Budokan. As a Dylan devotee I tried and tried to understand what he was up to with that double live album. But no matter how many times I listened it always sounded the same to me -- hard plastic stadium seating disposable late-70s fast-food Styrofoam insulation.

Imagine the shock of the Hippies when they listened to Budokan. Bob Dylan was the Hippie who was always one step beyond the Hippies. Do the 1960s even happen without Bob Dylan? The standard genealogy of '60s psychedelia is The Beatles interpreting The Byrds who were interpreting Dylan. Remember Woodstock, the defining event for the Hippies, took place because that is where Bob Dylan and The Band were living. Budokan, released the same year as Gang of Four's Entertainment! (just to provide you with a vertiginous contrast), must have so confused and unnerved the Hippies that it immediately became impossible for them to deny that their day was done. Take note in particular of this reggae-inspired butchering of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right":

(In this week's Hippies vs. Punks post I had intended to deal exclusively with Dylan's "Gospel" period -- Slow Train Coming, Saved, Shot of Love -- as indisputable proof of the Hippies' demise, but then I remembered the remarkable Budokan. Next Friday, we'll mine Dylan's evangelizing.)