So I started a blog.

My Back Pages - Bob Dylan

Crimson flames tied through my ears

Rollin' high and mighty traps

Pounced with fire on flaming roads

Using ideas as my maps

"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I

Proud 'neath heated brow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth

"Rip down all hate," I screamed

Lies that life is black and white

Spoke from my skull. I dreamed

Romantic facts of musketeers

Foundationed deep, somehow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path

From phony jealousy

To memorizing politics

Of ancient history

Flung down by corpse evangelists

Unthought of, though, somehow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue

Too serious to fool

Spouted out that liberty

Is just equality in school

"Equality," I spoke the word

As if a wedding vow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand

At the mongrel dogs who teach

Fearing not that I'd become my enemy

In the instant that I preach

My pathway led by confusion boats

Mutiny from stern to bow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats

Too noble to neglect

Deceived me into thinking

I had something to protect

Good and bad, I define these terms

Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

Bob Dylan came out with this song in 1964 on Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is widely thought that the song represents a recantation of the explicitly political messages that made up so much of his earlier work. I don't pretend to be an expert on music or Bob Dylan, I am certainly not, but I hear something else in My Back Pages. I hear an acknowledgement of the complexities of human relationships and the inherently short shelf-life of idealism. I could be wrong though.

Much like My Back Pages, I am not sure what this "blog experiment" is supposed to represent either. But I'd willing to venture that it will end up having something to do with the byzantine nature of social relationships and my own struggles with idealism.

Either that or I'll just post a bunch of funny youtube videos for a couple weeks then forget about it. I guess we'll have to wait and see.