Jon Wiener: From The Nation Journal, that is Begin Making Sense. I’m Jon Wiener. Later within the present, we function some particular songs for the season: Bob Dylan’s Christmas album. “Bells are ringin’, youngsters singin’, all is merry and shiny” — later within the present. However first: Los Angeles versus Donald Trump: Invoice Gallegos has that story – in a minute.
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JW: One of the crucial necessary chapters within the historical past of 2025 is the story of how LA defeated Donald Trump. In June 2025, he despatched greater than 4,000 Nationwide Guard troops and 700 Marines to occupy the town and terrorize the immigrant inhabitants. However by the top of July, virtually all of the Guard and the Marines have been gone. For the story of how that occurred, and what we are able to be taught from it, we flip to Invoice Gallegos. He’s the previous Govt Director of Communities for a Higher Setting, CBE, the California environmental justice group. He’s additionally a longtime Chicano activist, and he’s a member of the editorial board of The Nation. Invoice Gallegos, welcome to this system.
Invoice Gallegos: Thanks, Jon. I’m so glad to be right here with you.
JW: You say Donald Trump hates LA. Why is that?
BG: Properly, he’s not precisely a tough individual to determine. He hates locations which might be strongly against him, and it is a tremendous blue metropolis and county. He doesn’t appear to love Black and Brown of us, and we’re a majority-minority metropolis and county. And he’s not a pal of unions. We’ve got a reasonably robust labor motion right here, and I need to simply give a shout out to our dearly departed Kent Wong from the UCLA Labor Middle. And we’re a metropolis with a big immigrant inhabitants. So this was a metropolis that made a whole lot of sense from the standpoint of actually unleashing his ICE brigades, his thugs, and sending within the troops. However it’s additionally proved to be a middle of outstanding resistance.
JW: Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass denounced Trump sending the Guard and the Marines to LA instantly. The state sued the president, gained a string of victories in federal courtroom. However it was the mobilization of hundreds of individuals in a fierce and efficient native opposition motion that additionally performed a decisive function in defeating Trump. And that’s our foremost focus right this moment, as a result of that’s what affords a lesson for communities throughout the nation. We’re talking in LA. ICE was raiding workplaces across the metropolis, to spherical up and detain folks whose crime was that they appeared Latino. They have been doing this on the Garment Middle downtown, at carwashes across the metropolis, and within the parking plenty of House Depot shops the place day laborers collect on the lookout for work. However we are able to pinpoint the day issues began to vary. You say it was June sixth. What was the spark that lit the flame?
BG: Once they assaulted Labor Chief David Huerta, the president of the California SEIU, the Service Staff Worldwide Union, that basically turned the tide.
JW: Simply to fill in what occurred right here: a whole lot of protesters had gathered downtown LA after ICE carried out raids at completely different locations within the metropolis. So there was this confrontation, and David Huerta, the president of SEIU California, was tased, pushed down by ICE brokers, hit his head on the bottom, then they charged him with felony conspiracy and jailed. That was the occasion that was the spark.
BG: For all of the weaknesses of our labor motion, it’s nonetheless our largest social motion, a big sector of individuals of coloration, of ladies, all of the sectors from social actions which might be so necessary to the resistance. So when labor got here out, that sends a message to the media. It sends a message to elected officers. It sends a message to of us who’re in unions — lecturers, janitors. My son works on the UPS warehouse, my different son is a tech for Southern California Gasoline Firm. They’re all union. In order that they have been affected: If they will do that to David, they will do that to anyone.
JW: And let’s simply say the SEIU is among the largest two or three unions in the entire state of California.
BG: That’s right. Not solely a big union, it’s very strong in politics.
JW: So the mobilization of the unions was a key second right here. However there have been different well-organized teams that had been engaged on immigrant rights for a very long time.
BG: Jon, one of many issues that makes me very proud about Los Angeles is we now have a deeply rooted employee middle motion. The Korean Immigrant Employees Alliance, Filipino Employees Middle, Black Employees Alliance, IDEPSCA, which organizes day laborers, the Garment Employees Middle. And the labor facilities in Los Angeles renewed Might Day, about 15 years in the past, they stated, “We’re going to exit for Might Day.” They usually anticipated just a few thousand folks, and so they bought about 15,000 folks out within the streets. And it simply energized, once more, the employees’ motion right here — as a result of it’s not only a union motion, it’s a employees’ motion.
JW: And there’s one different necessary component on this resistance motion, and that’s the religion neighborhood.
BG: That’s right. So Clergy and Laity United – CLUE — has been round for a very long time and achieved outstanding work bringing completely different sectors of the religion neighborhood collectively to help social justice, environmental justice, and employee justice, particularly. They usually have been instantly on the market, earlier than the cameras have been on, earlier than the microphones have been out. They’d been on the market opposing ICE. In fact, the AME Church in South Los Angeles has been a frontrunner in all of our political and social actions right here in Los Angeles, and so they performed a really, very huge function.
At a time when there’s been some pressure within the religion neighborhood due to Gaza, there was a whole lot of widespread floor right here–Jewish, Islam, all the completely different religion sectors have come collectively in a outstanding present of help. And at last, the Archbishop of Los Angeles spoke out and says, “That is improper, and you’ll’t do it.”
JW: And there are hundreds of thousands of Catholics in Los Angeles.
BG: Completely. The Catholic church is basically immigrant in California.
JW: All these organizations and teams labored collectively: they did thousand of Know Your Rights trainings, and distributed hundreds of thousands of Know Your Rights playing cards, they constructed Speedy Response Networks to observe and report on ICE actions. For individuals who have been detained, they supplied authorized support and legal professionals. They ran meals drives and arranged mutual support efforts for immigrant households; and public faculties and lecturers unions organized to guard college students from ICE.
You say in The Nation that the authorized battle was equally necessary. Governor Newsom sued the Trump administration in June 2025, instantly, over its deployment of the Nationwide Guard. A number of different organizations additionally went to courtroom. What have been the important thing teams that led within the authorized battle alongside the State Lawyer Common Rob Bonta?
BG: Properly, there’s the American Civil Liberties Union. Began organizing even earlier than the elections, in preparation, as a result of they knew Trump 1 was a vital battleground within the judicial space. So a whole lot of these organizations, the ACLU, the Mexican American Authorized Protection and Schooling Fund, the NAACP Authorized Protection and Schooling Fund, a whole lot of the authorized immigrant rights organizations, all got here collectively and so they have been prepared. So this was actually necessary, not solely in placing a cease to among the extra outrageous actions of the Trump administration, however it additionally offers us time and area for our organizing. So generally, even when it has to work its method via the courts, if there’s a short lived injunction that holds issues up, that’s very valuable time for us to arrange and attain folks.
JW: I might point out one different group, Public Counsel, the place Mark Rosenbaum argued in federal courtroom that ICE was detaining folks with out the required “cheap suspicion.” Primarily the argument was ICE was stopping folks due to their race, ethnicity, or language. In different phrases, ICE was detaining folks as a result of they appeared or sounded Latino.The district courtroom agreed with this, the Ninth Circuit agreed with this, and issued and supported a short lived restraining order. That was in impact till September when the Supreme Courtroom lifted that TRO with an emergency keep. That was not based mostly on the deserves of the case. They simply despatched it again to the district courtroom and now we’re kind of again in the beginning on that. However within the meantime, the argument that ICE is detaining folks as a result of they appear or sound Latino was the legislation in California all summer time lengthy.
BG: Mark Rosenbaum is a type of guys –we wish him to reside until he’s 200. He’s at all times on the market within the trenches with us.
JW: And one different group I believe we have to point out right here as an important component to this, stunning to a lot of our buddies: liberal and even the neoliberal Democrats.
BG: Jon, that’s a extremely necessary level, I believe. Los Angeles is an efficient instance of what resistance can appear to be and the way we construct a broad united entrance. We have to do this on a nationwide degree. And one of many points I do know that at all times comes up is “the Democrats are simply as dangerous” and so forth and so forth. And that’s, I believe, very defective pondering. We want a really, very broad united entrance. And meaning we’re going to be working with a whole lot of of us who we might have variations on plenty of even necessary points. However proper now, the hassle to impose a type of Christian nationalist apartheid state, that must be our guidepost for a way we come collectively.
On this effort to get the troops out of Los Angeles, our elected officers performed an necessary function. The governor, our two senators, our congressional delegation, all of the Democrats, not the Republicans, the three or 4 or 5 Republicans that we now have, our legislature, our college boards, our metropolis council, our board of supervisors, mayors, not simply Mayor Bass, however all of the mayors of the Southeast cities, all of them got here out and emphasised that not solely did we have to get the troops out, we would have liked to cease the raids.
And that’s a seamless ongoing battle. However it makes a distinction when all of these forces come collectively, the religion neighborhood, labor unions, employee facilities, the interior cities and the suburbs. It’s that each one of this got here collectively in a outstanding, I believe, show of unity. And Jon, we didn’t do what we regularly do; there was not the sniping and sectarianism that so typically hurts us: “That group has the improper political line.” We didn’t have that. And I believe that’s an indication of our rising political maturity and a recognition of what we’re up in opposition to proper now.
JW: Your cowl story for the January situation of the journal has key classes to remove from the LA resistance that might be utilized in different cities. And your primary, the actually necessary one is “construct in your organizing basis — the longstanding teams that know the way to do that.” You say “you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”
BG: That’s proper. So a whole lot of our unions, the Lodge and Restaurant employees, native 11, I imply, there’s some that stand out. The UCLA Labor Middle and the County Fed skilled 1,400 folks in nonviolent resistance in opposition to ICE. So these of us, they’ve been on the market for years doing this work, employee facilities, a whole lot of neighborhood organizations, Communities for a Higher Setting, I’m going to provide a shout out to my outdated group, SCOPE and Agenda, teams in South Los Angeles, Neighborhood Coalition, Interior Metropolis Battle. These teams have been doing it for a protracted, very long time, and so they’re rooted within the sectors the place we should be. The vast majority of this metropolis, working class folks of coloration, they’re rooted there. They’ve achieved political training for a very long time. They’ve skilled hundreds and hundreds of – we now have a cadre of organizers and that they stepped ahead first. After which the newer of us may are available and there was one thing there already. There was a longtime basis. I’ve to say, it was so inclusive. No person was turned away. You checked out me cross-eyed 20 years in the past — I don’t give a rattling. Come on in.
JW: I need to point out one group specifically. You talked about them briefly earlier, CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, longstanding immigrant rights group. Trump singled them out because the one LA group he stated he was concentrating on for what he stated was “funding terrorism.”
BG: Properly, I bought to say, initially, we now have to be able to defend CHIRLA. And I believe folks have stepped ahead, as a result of once they say they’re going to go after someone, we should always take them significantly. And what’s going to maintain them off is that if they know there’s going to be a battle and so they’re going to lose. However I believe it’s actually what we actually want, Jon, I want to see the County Federation of Labor, perhaps a bunch just like the Liberty Hill Basis, which has some assets, perhaps some teachers and folk from media convene a technique dialogue. We want a technique. Resistance is great. We’ve got simply wonderful ways at each degree. What we’d like now could be a technique. The place do we have to focus our efforts so we are able to construct our forces and weaken theirs very deliberately? And I believe the County Fed, I believe is able to do this. They’ve a whole lot of standing—perhaps with the UCLA Labor Middle and among the religion neighborhood to actually convene that type of a severe dialogue about the place do we have to focus strategically.
As a result of we don’t need to find yourself like Occupy and even the Black Lives Matter motion, which is now, it’s just a few native organizations. It was 20 to 25 million folks on the street. However in the event you don’t have that strategic focus and orientation, it could fizzle out.
JW: You conclude your cowl story for The Nation that there was an excellent success this summer time in getting the Nationwide Guard and the Marines out of LA, however the battle isn’t over.
BG: No, ICE has tried to, I believe has, doubled down truly of their thuggishness particularly. I imply, “we’re not going to be constrained by the Invoice of Rights, by the Structure, by the rule of legislation. We’re going to simply terrorize.” And the concept is to not simply terrorize immigrants, however the neighborhood during which they’re located. With these giant sectors of neighborhood, that are facilities of resistance. Which means particularly our Democratic Occasion allies can not run away from the query of immigration, the subject of immigration, like they did of their final election. They tried to cover, they tried to run and conceal, and it left the sector open to Trump and Vance and MAGA. So I believe we now have to be very assertive in advocating for a humane and inclusive immigration coverage proper now. All these issues are doable proper now. There are a whole lot of issues are being mentioned, and I believe some individuals are type of coming late to the belief that we face a fascist risk, however higher late than by no means.
And I nonetheless hear some of us saying, “We’ll get via this. It’ll be okay. We’ve gone via this earlier than.” No, we haven’t. I’ve been via Nixon and Reagan, as have you ever. That is qualitatively completely different.
JW: Invoice Gallegos–he wrote the quilt story for the January situation of The Nation journal. It’s titled “How LA defeated Donald Trump–and the way the remainder of the nation can too.” Thanks, Invoice.
BG: Thanks a lot, Jon.
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JW: That is our Christmas present, and now it’s time for our particular Christmas music function. Our visitor is Sean Wilentz. He’s the official historian on the official Bob Dylan web site. He additionally teaches American historical past at Princeton. He’s written many books, together with The Age of Reagan. It’s out now in paperback. We flip to him right this moment to assist us perceive what the heck is happening with the brand new Bob Dylan Christmas album. We reached him right this moment in Princeton. Sean, welcome again to this system.
Sean Wilentz: Nice to be again, Jon.
JW: I need to begin by listening to trace one, “Right here Comes Santa Claus.” It’s a Gene Autry track, which I’ve to say is among the most irritating vacation songs ever written—even earlier than Bob Dylan sang it.
MUSIC:
Right here comes Santa Claus, right here comes Santa Claus, proper down Santa Claus Lane
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer, pullin’ on the reins
Bells are ringin’, youngsters singin’, all is merry and shiny
Cling your stockings, say your prayers, ’trigger Santa Claus comes tonight.
JW: ‘Cling your stockings, say your prayers’—Sean, what is that this? Is that this a joke of some type?
SW: [Laughter] No, it’s not a joke in any respect. Though you might flip it into one by imagining that the one who’s actually singing it’s Vincent Worth. It offers a sure macabre side to the track. So you’ll be able to have a look at it that method. You’ll be able to have a look at a Bob Dylan track any method you need, however no, no, no. That is all very, very straight. That is Bob Dylan, in some ways, wanting again to his personal childhood. And he’s singing the songs that he heard as a child in Hibbing the place everyone listened to Christmas music, whether or not you have been Jewish or not. And he’s recalling these instances and people songs and that spirit.
JW: And I perceive that the album itself is a profit and that the royalties are all being donated to charity?
SW: In perpetuity, that’s proper. The royalties are going to Feed America in the US, and I believe that there’s a bunch within the UK and there’s one other group too, to feed the homeless. Principally, that is Bob Dylan in some methods being the character Fairly Boy Floyd from the outdated Woody Guthrie track. He’s offering Christmas dinner to the households on aid. It’s simply that he’s not sticking up a financial institution, he’s sticking up his personal followers.
JW: Let’s pay attention to a different one. “I’ll Be House for Christmas.” I’ve to say, when Bob Dylan sings “I’ll Be House for Christmas,” it’s important to marvel: is that this a promise? or is that this a risk?
MUSIC:
I’ll be house for Christmas, you’ll be able to plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will discover me the place the love mild gleams
I’ll be house for Christmas, if solely in my goals
JW: Bob Dylan, “I’ll Be House for Christmas.” It appears like a motive to bolt your doorways, Sean.
SW: [Laughter] Properly, it’s laborious to say what house is for Bob Dylan as a result of he’s on his bus a lot of the time. Being house for Christmas is an enormous deal for him as a result of he’s not on his bus.
However that is a part of what the album’s about. That’s a track that was initially recorded by Bing Crosby as have been, I believe 13 of the 15 songs on this album. It’s his tribute to Bing Crosby, amongst different issues. However in 1943, bear in mind Christmas songs throughout World Battle II had a complete completely different which means. It was very touching, truly, very shifting. It was the music truly that held folks collectively, questioning whether or not their boys, and in some instances, women, abroad, would ever come house alive, ever.
So, it is a very shifting track. It was shifting within the forties. After which after the conflict, Christmas music turned a method to assert, with some aggressiveness, to say a type of normality which lots of people in America hadn’t felt because the starting of the Despair again within the early thirties.
So he’s attempting to recapture that, partially. Recapture that temper, which is greater than Christmas. Greater than Christmas in America. It has to do with a particular time in a particular place. And it’s additionally, as I say, a tribute to Bing Crosby. He doesn’t have Bing Crosby’s voice, however he’s copying Bing Crosby’s phrasing. And I do know he admires Bing Crosby’s phrasing, in order that’s his probability to try this too.
JW: Let’s pay attention to a different one. Do you need to say something about this one, “Should Be Santa?” This one contains our personal David Hidalgo, the nice East LA musician who’s an enormous favourite of ours right here.
SW: Certainly, from Los Lobos. He’s the person. He’s perhaps one of the vital gifted musicians that Dylan’s ever labored with. “Should Be Santa” is my favourite track on the album. It’s a polka track. It’s mainly ripped off from the association of a Texas rock polka band. However it additionally recollects, once more, his Christmastime, as a result of it recollects the nice polka bands of the Midwest of the Nineteen Forties and Nineteen Fifties. Folks like Whoopee John Wilfahrt—his actual title. And Frankie Yankovic.
JW: Would you please spell the final title of Whoopee John Wilfahrt, please?
SW: W-I-L-F-A-H-R-T.
JW: Are you certain that this isn’t one among Bob Dylan’s many pseudonyms?
SW: [Laughter] Like “Roosevelt Gook”? No. I’ve {a photograph} of Whoopee John Wilfahrt on the Minneapolis airport, taken at about the identical time, about 1948, together with his band. And I occur to know quite a bit about Whoopee John. He was fairly a personality. When he died, it turned out he had left cash in many of the motels of the Midwest. Stashed away tons and plenty of cash, and mainly hiding it from the feds. And he lived fairly a wild life, as you may think, by a person named Whoopee John.
JW: Properly, let’s—
SW: Which I might by no means name you, Jon.
JW: Thanks. Thanks for that. Sean Wilentz, the official historian of the official bobdylan.com web site. From the Bob Dylan Christmas album – let’s take heed to “Should Be Santa,” that includes David Hidalgo of Los Lobos.
MUSIC:
Who’s bought a beard that’s lengthy and white?
Santa’s bought a beard that’s lengthy and white
Who comes round on a particular night time?
Santa comes round on a particular night time
Particular night time, beard that’s white
Have to be Santa, have to be Santa
Have to be Santa, Santa Claus
Who wears boots and a go well with of crimson?
Santa wears boots and a go well with of crimson.
Who wears a protracted cap on his head?
Santa wears a protracted cap on his head
Cap on head, go well with that’s crimson
Particular night time, beard that’s white
Have to be Santa, have to be Santa
Have to be Santa, Santa Claus
JW: They’re dancing within the corridors right here at KPFK. “Should Be Santa,” Bob Dylan with David Hidalgo from the Dylan—
SW: I’m dancing right here in Princeton. I’m having a good time.
JW: Let’s pay attention to a different one. Right here’s Bob Dylan’s “Winter Wonderland.”
MUSIC:
Wonderland, winter wonderland. Wonderland
Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’?
Within the lane, snow is glistenin’
A wonderful sight, we’re joyful tonight
Walkin’ in a winter wonderland
Gone away is the bluebird
In his place is a brand new hen
He sings a love track as we go alongside
Walkin’ in a winter wonderland
Within the meadow, we are able to construct a snowman
Then fake that he’s Parson Brown
He’ll say, “Are you married?”, we’ll say, “No, man
However you are able to do the job once you’re on the town”
Afterward, we’ll conspire, as we dream, by the hearth
To face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made
Walkin’ in a winter wonderland
JW: Bob Dylan. He appears like your grizzled outdated uncle who’s had a bit an excessive amount of of the spiked eggnog on the household gathering.
SW: [Laughter] I believe that’s the purpose truly, Jon. Truly, there’s the Surprise Bread Singers, the whitest of white bread singers I’ve ever heard there. However you additionally, pay attention carefully and also you hear Donnie Haran on the pedal metal.
I believe it’s the primary time that “Winter Wonderland” has been achieved, a minimum of in latest reminiscence, with a pedal metal guitar. Dylan provides at all times a contact. There are touches of the present Bob Dylan together with what Bob Dylan was listening to when he was seven years outdated.
JW: This entire undertaking made me consider Dylan’s radio program on the Sirius-XM satellite tv for pc radio the place we see what a connoisseur and scholar Bob Dylan is of those pre-rock, earlier twentieth century genres. In a method, that is a part of that undertaking.
SW: Very a lot so. This might be a present from that collection known as “Christmas.” However the distinction is that he sings all of the songs. He doesn’t simply introduce them.
However actually, one of many songs, “Should Be Santa,” truly did seem in – I overlook the title of the band, however anyway, on his Christmas present from Sirius XM. So sure, there’s a similarity. He is aware of quite a bit about it. That is an energetic archive. He’s an archivist amongst different issues, and this album is an instance of that.
JW: Let’s pay attention to a different one. In fact, he has to do “Oh, Little City of Bethlehem.”
MUSIC:
O, little city of Bethlehem
How nonetheless we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
But at the hours of darkness streets shine
An eternal mild
The hopes and fears of all of the years
Are met in thee tonight
JW: Bob Dylan’s “Little City of Bethlehem.” I can solely say, there have to be a way outta right here.
SW: [Laughter] This isn’t one among my favourite cuts on the album. There are others which might be higher. “O Little City of Bethlehem,” not his finest efficiency right here. A number of the songs—
JW: Properly, you already know, we—
SW: A number of the songs simply don’t – Christmas produced a whole lot of fascinating, great music, which is why so many individuals minimize Christmas albums. Everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ray Charles to Barbra Streisand. Even the Jews minimize Christmas albums, proper? Neil Diamond has a brand new one, even, the second. So there’s a songbook, an actual songbook. However among the songs are very troublesome. That is one among them, truly. And the Christmas track, the well-known Mel Torme track can be. You want an actual vary to sing these songs effectively. And I’m afraid that this doesn’t fairly do it. A minimum of not for me.
JW: We’re talking with Sean Wilentz. He’s the official historian on the official Bob Dylan web site, bobdylan.com.
One factor that strikes me about this music that’s so puzzling, so complicated, so troubling to the Bob Dylan’s fan base: Bob has at all times made a follow of pulling the rug out from beneath followers who thought that they had him pegged. He spent a whole lot of his profession refusing to satisfy his followers’ needs. And that is definitely a part of that.
SW: You possibly can see it that method. The opposite factor is it is a cowl album. These are all cowl songs. There’s not a single Bob Dylan track on right here that he wrote. At any time when Bob Dylan does a canopy album, it normally implies that there’s a change gonna come. He did “Self Portrait,” which bought roundly panned, particularly by, I don’t know if I can say this on the air, however you’ll bear in mind Greil Marcus’s well-known first line of his overview in Rolling Stone of that album, which is, “What is that this–clean”?
JW: “What is that this crap?” However not fairly “crap.”
SW: Not fairly that, yeah. After which he went on to do “Blood on the Tracks.” Then he did the quilt albums within the early 90s, the 2 people acoustic albums, “Good As I’ve Been to You” and “World Gone Mistaken.” After which subsequent factor, he comes out with is “Time Out of Thoughts,” which is a complete completely different factor. So, who is aware of what’s going to return? Right here’s one other cowl album.
So it’s Bob Dylan attempting to—and I truly imply this—it’s him plumbing his depths. He’s looking for one thing. He’s attempting to find one thing in his soul, in himself, in his music, and that is the way in which he does it, by singing different folks’s songs, singing a complete album of different folks’s songs. So, it’s fascinating for that. It’s important to be careful for that. The second factor is, that is the primary time he’s achieved a Christian album since “Shot of Love.” In different phrases, it is a non secular document. That is about his beliefs. He’s a Christian, of a really bizarre type. So it’s important to see it in that context too. There’s a whole lot of other ways during which Dylan is – and that additionally upset his followers, by the way in which, when he went gospel, folks thought, “What’s occurring?”
JW: ‘Upset’ is placing it mildly.
SW: Yeah, folks went nuts. Though I believe that on reflection, in the event you return and take heed to a few of these albums, not all of them, not “Saved”—however in the event you take heed to “Shot of Love” once more, you’ll be very shocked. There’s a whole lot of actually good music on there.
JW: Properly, “Gotta Serve Someone,” on reflection does have some strengths.
SW: “Gradual Prepare Coming,” completely. However return and take heed to “Shot of Love” someday. The track about Lenny Bruce, it’s him being semi-secular.
However anyway, my level is simply that Bob Dylan is doing a whole lot of various things on the similar time, and he’s doing a whole lot of various things on the similar time on this album. It simply sounds so schmaltzy and innocuous. However nothing with Bob Dylan, even at its most schmaltzy, is to be taken utterly at face worth.
JW: I believe we’ve bought time for yet one more. Let’s pay attention, from the Bob Dylan Christmas album, to “Have Your self a Merry Little Christmas.”
MUSIC:
Have your self a merry little Christmas, let your coronary heart be mild
Subsequent yr all our troubles will probably be out of sight
Have your self a merry little Christmas, make the yuletide homosexual
Subsequent yr all our troubles will probably be miles away
As soon as once more as in olden days, joyful golden days of yore
Trustworthy buddies who’re expensive to us will probably be close to to us as soon as extra
JW: “Trustworthy buddies who’re expensive to us.” Sean Wilentz, I don’t know, you’ll be able to say this isn’t singing, it’s croaking. However when Tom Waits croaks, lots of people assume it’s nice. Louis Armstrong sings this track, and he doesn’t have a fantastic voice both, within the basic sense.
SW: Completely. I don’t know what the complaining’s about. I actually don’t. It’s the identical voice that sang “Love and Theft.” I don’t fairly get it. I believe it has extra to try this you’re used to listening to these songs sung by Nat King Cole or Mel Torme, somebody with a really clean voice.
So Bob Dylan is definitely including a brand new dimension to Christmas, that we didn’t hear earlier than. However it’s a voice that’s immediately recognizable, a lot as, say, Louis Armstrong’s was. If you hear these voices, it takes you two nanoseconds, you already know who you’re listening to. And so instantly that conjures up a complete collection of associations. After which it’s not simply the voice, which at instances falters, it doesn’t hit the notes, on that observe specifically.
However once more, it’s concerning the phrasing. Take heed to how he’s parsing out his phrases. Take heed to how he’s doing that with the music. It’s truly a really rather more sophisticated document than folks would take into consideration, as a result of he’s taking all that significantly. Possibly extra significantly now than anybody else as a result of this track has been sung by 1,000,000 different folks.
Bob Dylan, when he sings “Summer time Days” or any of the songs that he’s achieved not too long ago, he’s the one one that does these. Possibly Sheryl Crow will do them too, however only a few anymore, proper? It’s not like Peter, Paul and Mary. It’s his track. Now, he has to go up in opposition to the complete galaxy of American singers going again to Eddie Cantor and earlier than. So he has so as to add one thing new to a practice, and that’s a part of what’s occurring right here too.
JW: Sean Wilentz is the official historian on the official Bob Dylan web site. He additionally teaches American historical past at Princeton. Sean, thanks—for serving to us perceive.
SW: [Laughter] Thanks, Jon. It’s at all times a pleasure.
JW: We spoke with Sean Wilentz about Bob Dylan’s Christmas album in December 2009.
