First and foremost, I love Bob Dylan. I have seen him in concert so many times that I have lost count. What's interesting about this excerpt in The Portable Sixties Reader is that I actually heard Dylan play "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" when I saw him at the University of Pittsburgh a few years back. I remebered listening to that song a lot on his "The times they are a changin'" album but I never realized what it meant. I had no idea that the song was about an actual historical event. I can just hear him speak the words like a poem......
I also want to point out how wonderful a writer Dylan is. He writes descriptively, personally and in a matter-of-fact tone. It seems appropriate that he didn't wrap himself up in writing about current events because I do not think that he would have taken so seriously. His words are powerful and carry a lot of meaning, but they aren't forceful like CSNY's lyrics are. I think that Dylan is definitely one of the forerunners of socially consciouos lyrics of the sixties and seventies and maybe even still today.
Now that the song carries new meaning for me, I will have to listen to it in a new light.
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