Dylan: A Man Called Alias

No popular entertainer has been more closely scrutinized than Bob Dylan. His garbage has been emptied, his lyrics computer-scanned, his daily wherabouts logged with an obsessive thoroughness worthy of J. Edgar Hoover's G-men. And still he is a mystery. Above all performers, Dylan showed his generation how to seize the licence they unanimously demanded: the right to express themselves. Before him, Elvis loosened the restrictions of class and race; then the Beatles and the Stones subverted the outmoded codes of domestic and public behaviour. But Dylan did more: his use of language liberated lyricists, moving them beyond Tin Pan Alley's teenagers-in-love themes, and his attitudes shaped the development of other performers who would themselves influence millions. It is usually said that Dylan has constantly re-invented himself. Only in such a way can his extraordinary changes of direction - such as the espousal of electric rock in 1965-66, the dive into Nashville balladry in 1969, the conversion to born-again Christianity in 1979 - be explained. So extreme, so demanding of both himself and his audience were these shifts that it seemed they could only be the produce of a kind of perverse cunning. However, according to him, his evolution has been natural, consistent, a series of logical responses to both inner growth and outside pressures. His story is now told within that frame of reference, establishing a more accurate interpretation of the relationship between Dylan's life and his art.