Saturday, June 03, 2006

Bob Dylan and the Dead Sea Scrolls

"You gotta heed the Teacher of Righteousness
If you want to know the Way
The Wicked Priest's a spouter of lies
You can't belie-ee-eeve him when he prays"

Could be a John Wesley Harding , Slow Train Coming or Infidels outtake, but in fact has been cobbled together by me: the phrases in bold are from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Chronicles Vol. 1, and elsewhere, he has made it clear that he doesn't (as most of his commentators imply) sit down with his reference books around him and laboriously construct his songs like a crossword. Instead, he simply inhales a wide range of cultural sources and leaves them to emerge from his unconscious. But for all four of the key elements of the Scrolls texts to reflect so closely his concerns is evidence enough for me that he has at some point come across them.

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