Tangled Up In Blue and Loving It

Last night, upon the excellent suggestion of someone who knows how to spend an election night, I attended the Bob Dylan concert at the U of M with two of my fellow progressive Minnesotans. We were among like minds in that hall. There was a kind of assumption between fans of Obama support. I asked a couple people how "he" was doing and these strangers immediately understood me to mean Obama, then gave me whatever new info they had. One man told me "he" got Ohio and I was confident of victory then, though I was feeling pretty good after Pennsylvania went blue for "that one."

Dylan and his band played a phenomenal set tearing through his meaty newer blues cuts and popping along the crowd-pleasing oldies. The show itself was deeply inspiring as a man heading into his 70s directed some of the finest rock n' roll musicians I have ever heard through truly great works that keep coming after fifty years of writing music. The set had a cool stylized compass on the floor encircled by a yellow band. Dylan played keyboards, harmonica, and for a few moments, an electric guitar on one side of the stage while his band formed a semi-circle facing him. The only musician facing the crowd directly for the entirety of the set was the drummer.

Dylan and his musicians were in an incredibly beautiful, musical conversation clearly being directed by Bob. I read an interview a couple years ago where Dylan said he knew his musician's abilities better than they knew themselves and he could get outstanding performances out of them. I remember thinking at the time this was an apt description of good leadership. Being able to watch the maestro in action creating a kind of sound vortex of deeply creative measure in the space between himself and the other musicians was a real pleasure for me.

I believe it was deeply kind and utterly appropriate for Dylan, a true genius and leader in his own right, to come home to Minnesota last night and musically mirror what was happening in our nation. Barak Obama saw in his fellow Americans a capacity for fairness, intelligence and democratic competence many of us were afraid to imagine. For myself, my hope was constrained by that looming possibility of disappointment. But last night, I was not disappointed.

Most of us were not disappointed. Our nation's next leader said to us simply and persuasively, "Yes we can." And for a moment we were able to bend our minds around that simple statement. Like the vortex of genius sound between Dylan and his band, the space between Obama and the American citizens became fecund with possibility.

Before the concert, we had a good idea Obama was winning while we filed into the hall and bought our beers. But it was Dylan who told us without telling us, a truly Minnesotan skill. While watching the band return to the stage for the encore, I wondered if Dylan and his band had been listening to the radio backstage. It seems so as Dylan, in a profoundly uncharacteristic move, talked to the audience for an effort other than to introduce his band. I cannot recall his exact words, but essentially he told the crowd that he was born in 1941, the year Pearl Harbor was attacked. He said it has been a dark world ever since but tonight it seemed change had come.

Dylan and his band performed just a few songs for the encore then released us to learn the election results from our personal electronic devises and more convincingly, from the enormous screen displaying CNN outside of the hall in the foyer. There were those who were disappointed, but they were in a stark minority. The vast majority went nuts in joyful expression. I did not cry, but moved my face in all manner of unnatural contortions to avoid it. I saved my tears until I got home and shared them, the hundreds of them, with my happy husband.

There is a genius in our system of government and it is this: a way through to second chances. Ours has been an often ugly country with hateful expressions many times overpowering our loving ones. But in America, at least for now, we have a mechanism by which to redeem our better selves and create an opportunity to make good on our highest ideals. We have that opportunity. Now lets get to work.