"The slow one now will later be fast, as the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin', and the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin'"
The Times They Are A-Changin'

"These lines are usually read as Biblical references, as in the
meek will inherit the Earth.  But that hasn't happened, has it?
No, because that was never the plan.  That isn't what these
lyrics mean.  No one ever gave a damn about the meek."
Miles Mathis

Behind The Freedom Curtain was an EP of some (or all) of my "political" songs that was only available on CD at Brave New Books in Austin, Texas.  The cover art, a collage depicting a monstrous hand rising over the Statue of Liberty, and a severed head trapped in a jar of perfume who requires police assistance in order to vote, has aged horrifically.  If I had known how realistic such a depiction of the future was going to be, I wouldn't have made it.

Even if the Statue of Liberty is a Luciferian marine spirit, or whatever it is.  I don't remember.  I don't care.  I mean, I do.  But also I don't.

Even if it's bad, it still makes me sad.

It should be noted that I am not a Dylan fan, and believe him to be a manufactured one-man boy band.  This article by Miles Mathis ruined Dylan for me, and I was surprisingly relieved to see him go.  While I've come back to some of his timeless songs in recent years, "Shelter From The Storm," "Tangled Up In Blue," and the like, for the most part, I can't stand him.  I even saw him twice in the 90s, at a classical movie palace from the golden age of silent film, and was irrepressibly impressed by the performance.  We even followed his tour bus at 100 miles an hour, down the highway after the show.  The driver knew we were following him, and ran us out of gas.  He had a longer range than we did, and burned through a hundred miles like it was nothing.  We made it as far as we could, but eventually, we had to stop.  We tried.  It was fun to think of pulling up to his tour bus, in Peoria or Springfield, or New Orleans, wherever he was going, having just seen him up in Rockford.  "Hey Bob Dylan," we would say, "great show last night.  We are young, and therefore still immune to the detrimental effects of alcohol and amphetamines, and have nothing else to do.  Will you sign my haircut, or my face?"  And he would say no, and we would have been tackled by a retired football team and thought it was cool.  Apparently, it's some kind of story, anyway.  But THIS ARTICLE is essential reading for anyone who believes Dylan is legit.  Even if you don't buy it, bask in the glow of the glorious doubts it casts in your mind.  Personally, it ruined him for me.  And to my surprise,

I was glad to see him go.

Usta love that song.  Still do, I spoze.  Dylan does have a massive array of brilliant classics, drowning in a sea of inexplicably-mediocre, uninspired sonic filler.  Miles Mathis hypothesizes that Dylan didn't even write his good songs, a radical theory that, actually, rings ever so slightly, actually true.

Even though this is a great song, I think it has aged terribly, in terms of its message and meaning.  Clearly, a culture of arrogant, ignorant children educating their parents about how to do things doesn't work.  We've reached the end game of this obsolete delusion, and clearly, a culture that kicks its traditions and elders to the curb to make way for impetuous stupidity isn't pretty.

For this reason, I have refrained from posting my version of "The Times They Are A-Changin' Their Nasty Socks" for years.  The "times," frankly, can kiss my ass.  But for archival purposes, I'm posting it now.  "The Times They Are Ill-iterate" also happens to be a great busking song, and provided a significant percentage of our survival revenue when my 2nd wife and I lived in our car with our cats in San Francisco in 2008.  Because your audience in the subway changes every 90 seconds, you can play the song on a loop until you get tired.  "The Times Have Chosen Death" was a highlight of my repertoire.  In spite of the abhorrent, obsolete message in some of the verses (though admittedly, not all), it is a great song, musically speaking, and a lot of fun to sing.

I took all surviving copies of Behind The Freedom Curtain off the consignment shelf of Brave New Books when I left Austin in 2011.  To my unequivocal disappointment, all of them had survived.  I didn't sell a single copy, it amuses me (now) to report.

At least we made it behind the curtain alive.

Thanks for listening.