Feuding

I feel a special kind of pain when two people whom I admire greatly are locked in a feud.  That is the situation with two monumentally significant songwriters and performers, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. 

Some may argue that the feud is Mitchell’s problem, given that she has criticized Dylan more than Dylan has replied in kind.  That doesn’t mean that her criticism should be dismissed as petty jealousy, although some Dylan fans make that claim.  

In many ways it’s odd that there exists friction between Mitchell and Dylan.  There are significant similarities between the two artists.  Mitchell was born in the small town of Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, and moved to Saskatoon, Alberta, when she was nine.  Bobby Zimmerman (later Bob Dylan) grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota, a similarly small town.  Both of them, then, were from their nation’s heartland.

Mitchell and Dylan also began as folksingers and folksong writers.  Beyond that, Mitchell and Dylan knew one another, Dylan having invited Mitchell to join his traveling group of artists on the Rolling Thunder Review in 1975.      

I am comfortable stating that both artists are geniuses, but very different geniuses.  Mitchell has accused Dylan of being a “plagiarist,” which has to be the worst thing anyone can say about an artist.  The criticism reveals as much about Mitchell as it does Dylan.  Throughout his career, Dylan has borrowed freely and unapologetically from numerous sources.  Those who like to analyze Dylan’s lyrics have a field day tracing his lyrics back to sacred scriptures, poetry of all ages, and contemporary culture.  Does that make Dylan a plagiarist or a creative sponge? 

No one could accuse Joni Mitchell of plagiarism.  Her lyrics are unlike any other songwriter’s, rising out of no one’s life experiences but her own.  

Mitchell has also said that Dylan’s voice is fake.  If his lyrics borrow too much from other sources, his voice, she contends, is an imitation of Woody Guthrie.  Of course, it’s well known that Dylan, especially the early Dylan, owed a great deal to Guthrie.  In contrast, I’ve never heard anyone say, after listening to any of Mitchell’s records, “Who is that singer?”  Her voice is hers alone.     

A third difference is in the type of poetry each writes.  Dylan is a master at putting lines together in such a way that I frequently respond with “Isn’t that clever.  I’d have never put those words and phrases together.”  I don’t know anyone who finds as many words to rhyme in a song as Dylan.  I have sometimes pictured Dylan with his guitar in one hand and a dictionary in the other.  Yet, somehow, Dylan’s unexpected rhymes create distinctive images as well as moods.

My sense of Mitchell’s poetry is that hers isn’t clever at all.  Her poetry comes from a painful place, perhaps more from her heart than her brain.  When I listen to her, I most frequently respond with “Oh, that one hurt” accompanied by a lump in my throat.  “It’s life’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know life at all.”  Oh, yes, you do, Joni.  You know a lot about life.

I can without reservation say the same thing about Dylan.  “Oh, the times, they are a’changin.”  Indeed the times did change, and you did a lot to make that happen.  More than any singer, Dylan has  over the years changed my view of life, helping me know the difference between the true and the false, failure and success, dignity and prejudice. 

What I am trying to say is that I am indebted to both Dylan and Mitchell.  Together, they have  changed the world, and the world is better for their being so different. 

The feud is over, Joni and Bob.  You have both won.