The Meaning of Bob Dylan’s Christmas Album: The Music (Part 3)

Posted on November 18, 2009 by | 2 Comments

Seth Rogovoy, author of Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet, wrote yesterday about Jewish-American musicians recording Christmas music and on Monday about Bob Dylan’s Judaism. He is guest-blogging all week for MyJewishLearning and the Jewish Book Council.

Almost lost in all the commotion surrounding Bob Dylan’s new Christmas album, Christmas In the Heart — his first charity album, as the proceeds from all sales are being donated to hunger charities, according to his website — is a fair consideration of the music itself: where it sits in the context of Dylan’s overall output, and how it relates to the decades-old genre of Christmas recordings by popular music artists. Continue reading here.

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2 responses to “The Meaning of Bob Dylan’s Christmas Album: The Music (Part 3)”

  1. Pingback: Quick Roundup « fionasimons

  2. dale | November 18, 2009 at 5:37 pm | Reply

    Well. I do not like traditional Christmas music (like all the songs on Bob’s album). But Bob’s voice has caused me to actually get in touch with some of the deeper spirit of some of the songs. When he sings “I’ll be home for Christmas”, there is a sense of sadness, hope, joy, resignation and love that I have never gotten from the song before. For the first time ever, I have a sense of the smallness and vulnerabilities of the Little Drummer Boy. The feelings invoked are not religious at all, but human on a very high level. In fact, for me they have nothing to do with Christmas, as the songs could be about anything; it’s the spirit of the songs as brought out by dylan’s voice that is transcendent and remarkable.

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