Metaphysics of the Modern Pirate

I had been trying
to argue about
Bob Dylan and
his current state
of affairs,
and said he
made music
rather than songs
now.

There is,
in his case,
no real
distinction,
and let me
make this
perfectly clear:

Bob has always made music.

He made music
when he made songs
and music when
he made songs.
In his current phase,
as I discovered,
he became
Stevie Ray,
after the
other one
moved on,

but nothing
has really changed.
Bob is still Bob.

This is
the difference:

For most artists,
what you hear
are songs,
and on their
albums,
filler,
and as such,
the argument
about Internet
piracy
is probably
accurate
for modern music.

There is no
distinction
between
albums
and
tracks,
no new order,
just a
new order,
a personal radio player,
an iRadio,
if you wlll.

Bob, even when
he blew them away
in Newport,
strumming away electric,
was following his heart,
that's all he did,
followed the music,
followed the heart,
which knew best,
and not the people,
what the music wanted.

He started out in folk,
and made his way
to the blues.
He's the Blues Brother,
brother,
a friend to you and me,
but mostly
to music.
Those who don't dig it

can't hear.

But man,
you listen to
the music today,
and you hear
how bad it's
going to get,
that we're all
going to be
surfing the iRadio,
and you think,

well, that was
always
going to be
the future,
it's just
some idiots,
the wave
of the future,
the youth of America
and elsewhere,
channeling their powers
not for good,
but for their ease,
saying we don't have to pay it,

but not for
anything meaningful,
but for their own
selfish means,
for music,
for the tracks,
for the song,
for their own private radio,
the iRadio, the Ellah of culture.

They have
nothing better
to do? No
greater cause?
The Pirates of the Modern Age
steal music?

Tell me
another one.
Please, I need
a laugh, I know
how the culture
treats itself,
like an unworthy parent.

Bob, he does
what he does,
he makes music,
folk or blues
or whatever
you hear,
modern times,
right?
Maybe the album
becomes extinct,
maybe everyone
makes rainbows
and supports
themselves, make
their names,
by playing live,
by tapping back
into the reason
musc came about
in the first place,
and maybe someone
wants to remember
that performance,
the whole thing,
not just a song,
and so dives
into the Community Web
for that collection,
because there was
more than one song
worth keeping.

I don't know,
I'm a fossil,
a relic,
a luddite,
what have you,
I don't believe in
Ellah, I don't hear
the iRadio,
I'm not that selfish,
even though I'm
more isolated
than the culture
that is,
that does.
I never heard Bob
strike it in Newport,
but I think I understand
the man so many
consider our poet.

Yo ho ho, Mr. Tamberine,
go play the music for me,
all with a bottle of rum,
because there's the waters
we plow, the great
and raging sea.