Here's Why I'm Telling Young Musicians to See the Dylan Biopic
And an update on transformative songs around the world
I keep telling young musicians to see the new Bob Dylan biopic. But this has nothing to do with nostalgia.
And it’s not for the songs either (which are great). Or for the acting (which is fine). And not even for the filmmaking (which is solid).
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I tell them to see the movie as a powerful reminder that songs are change agents in human life. Music is transformative. It shakes people up.
And people want to be shaken. The audience is hungry for this catalytic force—and the Dylan movie shows that repeatedly.
Dylan is like an Old Testament prophet in this film. Much like he was in real life.
Can’t you just imagine Moses staring down Pharaoh—then picking up his guitar and singing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Seven plagues are a-comin’, and there’ll be song for each.
Some people called it protest music, back in the 1960s. Or political music. Even the words rock and roll are appropriate—because that’s what he did to everyone around him.
Now here’s the best part of the story: This disruptive life-changing music is still getting played today.
And it’s still feared by the system.
But you won’t read about this in Rolling Stone (although you should). And you certainly won’t hear about it on TikTok or Spotify. But if you pay attention to real songs in the real world, you can see that they still shake up entire nations.
That’s why I share periodic updates on political and protest music. (You can find previous accounts here and here and here).
So check below for all the unruly music news ignored by the music media.
Chechnya bans all music deemed too fast or too slow.
Minister of Culture Musa Dadayev announced the decision to limit all musical, vocal and choreographic compositions to a tempo ranging from 80 to 116 beats per minute (BPM) at a meeting Friday….The ban will mean that many songs in musical styles such as pop and techno will be banned.
Mexico’s President goes to war against songs about drug lords.
According to the Associated Press:
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday she has a plan to reduce the popularity of “narco corridos,” a musical genre often linked to drug cartel violence.
Sheinbaum vowed to launch a campaign to promote other, less violent musical styles that aren’t as linked to drug traffickers in an effort to stop glorifying them.
The campaign includes “a competition among corrido bands that have some other kind of lyrics, that glorify other behaviors, other cultural visions.”
Former desert rock songwriter takes new job as al Qaeda warlord—banning music and punishing musicians.
My favorite desert blues band of the 21st century is Tinariwen, from Mali. But that ensemble (like many others in Mali) has suffered from unrest in the region.
But the latest blow was unexpected. Iyad ag Ghali, who wrote lyrics for the band, now has a new job—as al Qaeda warlord in West Africa.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
Ag Ghali went on to become the leader of one of the most dangerous al Qaeda franchises in the world, banning music in a swath of West Africa the size of Montana and commanding an army of extremists responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Ag Ghali’s gunmen even ambushed Tinariwen band members and abducted the guitar player.
I’ve met other musicians who underwent unusual career changes. I even did it myself. But nothing like this.
Labor union changes its demands because of the band Pearl Jam.
A rail workers’ union in Australia planned to go on strike—but delayed its move because it feared upsetting grunge rock fans.
Sydney trains will run on Thursday….Early on Wednesday morning Transport for NSW said it had agreed with the union to run services on Thursday, a relief for Pearl Jam concertgoers who would have had to find alternative transport.
This may be the first time that Pearl Jam stopped an actual (traffic) jam.
A political battle rages over the “Nutcracker Suite” in Lithuania.
Is it okay to enjoy sugar plum fairies and an anthropomorphic nutcracker? Well, that depends on government policy
According to the New York Times:
Lithuania, an unwavering supporter of Ukraine in the war waged by Russia, set aside Tchaikovsky and the holiday favorite two years ago after declaring a “mental quarantine” from Russian culture…
Theatergoers complained—and politicians listened. When a new culture minister took over, he told the press that he liked listening to Tchaikovsky.
A Buddhist monk who relies on pop music stirs up controversy and backlash.
Youn Sung-ho—who performs under the name NewJeansNim—performs Buddhist chants set to modern dance grooves. The audience loves it, but he has stirred up controversy in Malaysia, Singapore, and elsewhere.
In Singapore, the Singapore Buddhist Federation (SBF) called for a ban on his performances, stating that Youn is “not a monk”. While NewJeansNim performed in Malaysia on 3 May 2024, his remaining performance a day before Vesak Day was cancelled by a nightclub in Kuala Lumpur, citing concerns about “social harmony”….
Singaporean authorities subsequently issued an advisory that his performances must not include any religious elements and references. Singapore’s Minister of Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam spoke out about the event, calling it “offensive to [the local] Buddhist community.”
Here’s a video, so you can judge for yourself:
Police try to arrest the roving opera fan of Minnesota.
According to Bring Me the News:
St. Paul residents in the Midway neighborhood have been offering assurances to one another that they did, in fact, also hear the music. An eerie mystery has unfolded in the overnight hours Tuesday into Wednesday and again Wednesday into Thursday, with a recording of “Flower Duet” from the tragic opera Lakmé and other famous classical tunes blasting from...somewhere.
Students expelled from school for performing a Native American dance.
Three teenage girls wanted to perform a traditional Apache dance. It didn’t go well.
“Their Arizona school expelled two of them, and let the third off with a warning,” according to The Guardian, “citing their attendance as a violation of school policy and grounds for expulsion.”
The authorities claimed that the dance represented a “satanic ritual.”
Iran sentences rapper to death because of his protest lyrics and his support of anti-hijab protests.
Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court... sentenced Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth," the singer's lawyer Amir Raisian said, quoted by the reformist Shargh newspaper….
Another singer, Mehdi Yarrahi, who supported the protest movement and criticized the mandatory dress rules for women was sentenced to a total of two years and eight months in prison.
Putin uses Shostakovich for propaganda purposes.
During his lifetime, Shostakovich was often caught up in political crossfire. And it’s still happening today.
Vladimir Putin is now using the composer’s music for propaganda purposes. In a March 25 meeting with the Council for Culture and the Arts, Putin declared that music, movies, and books are allies of his regime—much like “the Army” and “the Navy.”
It's enough to watch films about the war, and it will be obvious that this is the case. And many other types of art. Isn't there music? It is enough to recall Shostakovich and his symphony in besieged Leningrad.
This is not the first time Putin has praised Shostakovich as symbol of Russian unity, and probably won’t be the last.
Taliban bans the sound of women’s voices singing .
Afghanistan’s leaders are worried about women singing in public.
A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public….
“This Islamic law will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice,” said ministry spokesman Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq on Thursday, of the new laws.
Apple and Spotify take down Hong Kong protest song—and not just in Hong Kong.
The protest anthem "Glory to Hong Kong" is prohibited in Hong Kong. But Apple and Spotify have removed it from their platforms in other countries.
The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its "separatist" intent….
A survey of Spotify and Apple Music in Taiwan, the U.K. and Canada yielded no results for the original version of the song…..
The song's disappearance comes after YouTube blocked access to dozens of videos containing the song to viewers in the city in May, following a court injunction that said it could be used as a "weapon" to bring down the government.
There’s now a Reddit where people share playlists of songs to accompany a total collapse in society.
It currently has 3,500 participants. You can dig the sweet tunes here.
That’s all for now. I plan to share more surveys of this sort in the future.
Interesting to see the through-line of religion in most of these stories. Religion is fascism by other means.
What the Dylan movie got right was capturing that once-in-a-lifetime feeling that is so rarely experienced: Live music that you've never heard before that moves you.
The actors sang and played their own instruments live. What a concept!
Kingston, ON, a town near where I live, has banned live music on patios. In fact, they did this a couple of years ago because of concerns about noise bylaws.
Mind you, this is the same town that declared it wanted to be Music Canada two years ago.
This year, I approached several venues, specifically an Italian restaurant, Olivea’s, to see if they'd be interested in celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month with live jazz music.
The musicians would be paid by a fund called the Musicians' Performance Trust Fund, which is linked to the musicians’ union, the American Federation of Musicians. So, totally free to the venue.
The manager told me they would love to, but the insurance costs for live music had risen so high that they couldn't have live music anymore.
I asked him if there were that many fights between the 60- and 70-year-olds eating Italian food, and he said no, not really.