On the occasion of Dylan's latest attempt to call himself a relevant act, Canada's New National Paper calls his bluff.

	Tonight an authentic icon of contemporary culture takes the stage in Toronto. Fans whose boot heels cannot be a-wanderin' to Maple Leaf Gardens (or Ottawa's Corel Centre tomorrow) can console themselves with the newly released live album, Albert Hall. He's an undisputed great. Well, almost undisputed. If Bob Dylan can't be hailed as a creative artist of gigantic import, then who in the field of popular music can? Uncomfortable pause. Embarrassed shifting in the seat. Yes, I'll dare to say it. Perhaps nobody in the field of popular music ought to be proclaimed as a genius. Perhaps not even Dylan's touring co-attraction, the more conventionally literate Joni Mitchell. Perhaps (nervous clearing of the throat) we've been guilty of applying the wrong standards. Perhaps, in our post-'60s efforts to avoid snobbishness and elitism, we've been mining an awful lot of fool's gold from this particular seam. I'm not trying to denigrate pop music. Much, anyway. Socially, it is of enormous value. Its inbuilt ephemerality gives it the paradoxical power to impart a permanence to the passing moment. And, of course, it provides an excuse for people to embrace each other in the name of dancing and in the cause of mating. I like it, like it, yes I do -- but I know it's only rock 'n' roll. I'll vote with my clumsy feet and flailing limbs for Ike and Tina, but you won't catch me feting Lennon and McCartney as "the most important songwriters since Schubert" as one heavyweight music critic once put it. As far as I know, no one has made any such extravagant claims for Bob Dylan's abilities as a composer. His strumming and harmonica hooting is just a vehicle for the lyrics, that's what they say. And, they imply, what lyrics! You mean the recent stuff that no one buys? I thought not.
You won't catch me feting Lennon and McCartney as the most important songwriters since Schubert.	OK, then, the Sunday-school choruses from his Christian period? Surely not all that obscure imagery from the early '70s? Ah, say those in the know, he was forced to retreat into the language of ciphers because his early songs were so outspoken in their championship of political causes. After all, look what happened to Dr. King and the Kennedys (note for the under-thirties: historical figures, not a chart-topping combo). Pardon? "The times they are a-changin' "? You're claiming that as an incitement to civil unrest? But, says the Dylan fan, you can't deny the classic status of those songs. Blowin' in the Wind for example ... I grant you, it has some pretty lines: "How many seas must a white dove sail before she can sleep in the sand?" Sweet. But look at what follows it: "And how many times must the cannonballs fly, before they're forever banned?" Ignoring the risible notion of a ballistic census, bear in mind when this was written. US forces were laying jungles waste with napalm. Superpowers were threatening to atomize the Earth with nuclear weapons. And Bob Dylan was courageously lobbying for a ban on cannonballs. The more musically gifted practitioners of pop lavish even less care over their lyrics. Take Stevie Wonder -- a master of melody, rhythm and harmony. A duffer when it comes to words. Some of his lyrics appear to have been translated verbatim from an unidentified German source. How else do you explain the syntax of "Then my only worry was for Christmas what would be my toy"? More effort required, Mr Wonder. Some try too hard and get above themselves. Once upon a time the drummer of a '60s supergroup had a go at a solo album; it wasn't Ringo, but he'd better remain nameless. It included a heartfelt protest against the culling of seal pups. Happily seizing on what seemed an appropriate half-rhyme for both "slaughter" and "water", the would-be songsmith never stopped to consider that baby otters might not grow up to be adult seals.
Pop music is fine and dandy as long as you don't take it too seriously.	Was Paul McCartney merely pulling our legs with the infamous line "In this crazy world in which we live in..."? One has to be careful with such assumptions. A friend once played me the album I'm Your Man by the estimable Leonard Cohen. I thought it hilariously witty, both musically and lyrically, and roared with laughter. My friend not only disapproved of this reaction, he was visibly hurt by it. Cohen, in his opinion, is capable only of darkly exquisite suffering. That's what I'm saying. Pop music is fine and dandy as long as you don't take it too seriously. The trouble is, some people have fallen over themselves attempting to do just that. As the Beatles' albums increased in complexity, musicologists fell over themselves in their attempts to tap into youth culture. There were usually as wide of the mark as they were quick off it. Among other priceless gems of interpretation came the suggestion that Lennon's I Want You (She's So Heavy) was an expression of sexual frustration from the husband of a pregnant woman. Classical critics praised the moptops for their "pan-diatonic clusters", their Mahlerian cadences, their absorption of electronics and musique concree. Judging pop music by classical standards does pop no justice, I argue. The Beatles didn't invent any of these effects, they merely borrowed them to keep ahead of their own particular game. Pop starts with different aims from classical music and is uniquely able to achieve them. The treasurable thing about it is that it doesn't matter if it's any good, only that it works. If the song makes you want to phone her when it comes on the jukebox in the lonely bar, why waste time searching for pan-diatonic clusters? I think you know, my friend, where the answer is a-blowin'. Enjoy, Toronto.