Light Come Shining: The Transformations of Bob Dylan

by Andrew McCarron

Bob Dylan is the prince of self-reinvention and deflection. Whether it's the folkies of Greenwich Village, the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Born Again Christians, the Chabad Lubavitch community, or English Department postmodernists, specific intellectual and sociopolitical groups have repeatedly claimed Bob Dylan as their spokesperson. But in the words of filmmaker Todd Haynes, who cast six actors to depict different facets of Dylan's life and artistic personae in his 2009 film I'm Not There, "The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was."

In Light Come Shining , writer Andrew McCarron uses psychological tools to examine three major turning points - or transformations - in Bob Dylan's the aftermath of his 1966 motorcycle "accident," his Born Again conversion in 1978, and his recommitment to songwriting and performing in 1987. With fascinating insight, McCarron reveals how a common script undergirds Dylan's self-explanations of these changes; and, at the heart of this script, illuminates a fascinating story of spiritual death and rebirth that has captivated us all for generations.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook

232 pages, Hardcover

Published January 13, 2017

Reviews

[Sparrow .]

In this “psychobiography,” Andrew approaches the Problem of Dylan analytically. What is the central question for the Nobel laureate? It’s the fear of extinction. And what is his solution? Searching out a deep tradition.

It’s a paradox that Dylan’s fabled iconoclasm ultimately emerges from a respect for the past. Three times the singer almost disappeared: after his motorcycle accident of 1966, after Street Legal flopped in 1978, and while spinning into a whirlpool of drugs, alcohol and apathy in the late 80s. Each time he reinvented himself by clinging to a great tradition: folk music, Christianity, jazz.

Andrew is an erudite Dylanologist. He’s read all the biographies, and heard a lot of gossip (which he often transmits in footnotes). His writing is rigorous, clear, convincing. To find a new approach to Dylan in 2017 calls for national rejoicing! Light Come Shining cleared my sinuses on this subject.

Opening at random:

“Considering its saliency within his narrative of self, Dylan’s experiences and representations of “destiny” warrant investigation. Do specific cognitive/affective structures and processes undergird it? Is it relatively static or has it signified different things to him at different times? During his appearance on 60 Minutes in December 2004, the late Ed Bradley asked Dylan what he meant by it. Evoked in the passage from Chronicles quoted earlier, Dylan is asked to clarify. Dress nattily in a black velour suit with a neat haircut, his sharp blue eyes looking unflinchingly ahead, he answers with aphoristic restraint, describing destiny as ’a feeling you have that you know something about yourself that nobody else does. The picture you have in your mind of what you are about will come true.’”

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit repetitive and I don't buy all his conclusions, but interesting pschobiography and worth reading.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review title: Inventing Dylan

Spoiler alert: The best part of this short "psychobiography" comes in a quote from another author on nearly the last page:

Dylan has invented himself. He's made himself up from scratch. . . . . Dylan is an invention of this own mind. The point isn't to figure him out but to take him in. He's not the first one to have invented himself, but he's the first one to have invented Bob Dylan. (p. 190)

McCarron is a doctor of psychology, and uses words like "generativity", "narrative identity ", and "destiny scripts" in this essay-length biography. His theory is that Dylan's three major transformations--the 1966 motorcycle accident, the 1978 Christian conversion, and the 1987 rededication to his songwriting craft that has carried him into his 6th decade of writing and performing--reflect a lifelong pattern of spiritual death and rebirth. I will not recap the argument any further for fear that I may have already spoiled any insights you might gather from the book on your own reading.

Dylan has been plagued throughout his long career with biographers and critics who examine every word and action to uncover what they claim is the core of his personality. McCarron acknowledges this but then proceeds to add his voice to the mix. Dylan has certainly brought much of this on himself, with his famously false or unverifiable autobiographical statements, his abrasive and unlikable personality, and avoidance of journalists and writers except on his own terms (which include refusing to correct biographical details). So we can at least be thankful McCarron's addition to the noise is brief and easily read in an hour or two.

Whether you enjoy this book more than I did may depend on your tolerance for the 10-dollar psychological terminology he uses that in the end translate to basic common sense five and dime concepts. I'm a huge Dylan fan and I probably have a higher tolerance than most for involved and complex analysis of his music, lyrics, and performances, but I don't have that much patience for complicating the theories behind the published documentation behind the persona behind the supposed personality of a man who has so purposefully and playfully obscured his real biography;. You'll never get to the core of the man with any truth, so why waste the paper and ink on him instead of the words and music which are the parts of Dylan that will last?

[Mike Fendrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know, I have been listening to Dylan's music since high school (has it been that long) and have long admired his music. I have read a few biographies of him with interest as I did live through many of the events that marked his life. In 1974 when he came out with "Blood on the Tracks" I shared his experience of remembering love in the past, looking forward to love in the future but rarely experiencing love in the present. I became a Christian in 1979 shortly after "Slow Train Ciming" came out and it is difficult to express show vindicated I felt listening to the "poet of my generation" sing about Jesus. One,of my favorite memories with my oldest son Peter is when we went to see him at White River amptheater in Indianapolis on the Modern Times tour. My family has seen him two times since, the last was the last event at Roberts Stadium in my home town with my wife, two other sons and my daughter Ruthanne. I have always marveled at how he could put words together with such perception and dexterity. To those who say his voice isn't good, I say you don't get it, that's not the point.

Yet, the question of "Who is this guy?" continues to come up. He was the first(?) to invent and reinvent, always shifting, always at least two steps ahead of those who wanted to mold him into what they wanted as their spokesman. (Maybe not the first - I dunno, but he does a better job of it than Madonna, Britney Spears or more recently Taylor Swift). So this book "Light Come Shining" is another addition to the vast attempt to figure this out. It comes in the form of a self called "Psychobiography". The author takes past and current psychological theory and applies it to Dylan's life in particular the three life changing events; his motorcycle wreck, his conversion to Christianity and his recovering his art in the late 80's. Dylan on the couch but he's not there. I'm at the point to simply take Dylan at his word, "if you want to know me, listen to the songs". I'm kind of tired of dissecting our celebrities to the degree we do, you know, I really don't care how many times a day Dylan (or the Kardashians for that matter) go to the bathroom. Dylan is known to be a very difficult man to be with. I am sure he can be butwhen does that become my business. So I think I'm done with reading about him. One day he will face the Lord, and I do pray that his conversion was real. In the meantime, I think I'll put "Blood on the Tracks" on the old turntable and enjoy what he produced through the obvious gifts that God has given him. Thanks Bob for your music, the rest of it is your business.

[Marcas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This psycho-biography, like any psychology, makes some strong claims without any clear authority for interpretation. But it is nice to see some form of teleology via Ricouer and a more rounded view of human persons. Personhood cannot be collapsed into tidy rationalist boxes of reason and unreason. McCarron knows, with Jung, that our dark sides and shadows can shine as much light about us as our brighter sides. He takes us through these shadowy character creations and mythic spins, for good or ill, across Bob Dylan's long career.
Some come from the man himself and others from Dylanologists. We can seperate the wheat from the chaff with the whole of the man's life to reflect on. Bob is still a man of mystery, but one who self-consciously revels in Transfiguration, and still happy to be redeemed by Christ. He sings about it til this day, and shares his gratitude to God in interviews, as a "...true believer."

At the crossroads between psychology and theology, we see the creative tension between past and future resolved when we co-create with God. Like Him, we must die and be reborn. McCarron chooses some key events in Dylan's life to express how this pattern of co-creation through life, death and rebirth has taken shape for him.
This book, whilst focusing too much on the man side of the partnership, at the expense the active force of Revelation, still shows us that God builds with the creature through their own time and place. By speaking in language they understand. Bob's language was The Blues and Gospel, Folk and The Mississippi river.
McCarron has done his homework and does cover fascinating ground, but the writing style is not the most pleasant. Take the long excerpt below as equal evidence of both:

— “I Shall Be Released” (1967), “In the Garden” (1979), and “Where Teardrops Fall” (1989)— each of which was written and recorded after one of the three turning points taken up in this book and each of which Dylan himself seems to have had a special affinity for. What’s more, the three songs build on one another to tell a Bible- infused story that mirrors Dylan’s own jagged experience of struggle, destiny, and transformation. The themes of death and rebirth in these songs were no doubt inspired by multiple sources, including developmental changes, periods of sobriety, and events in his romantic/ personal life. Time and time again, however, his more redemptive compositions feature a return to musical roots. On many occasions, Dylan has referred to “those old songs,” which is his name for an idiosyncratic canon of music to which he has always been faithful. According to him, whenever he has strayed from the melodies and principles of “those old songs,” his music and life have gone off course. Their lyrics, melodies, arrangements, and histories have consistently influenced Dylan’s sense of self and direction. “I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs,” Dylan said in 2015. “And I played them, and I met other people that played them back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that’s fair game, that everything belongs to everyone.” When asked about his religious views by the New York Times in 1997, Dylan responded psychologically: “You can find all my philosophy in those old songs. I believe in a God of time and space, but if people ask me about that, my impulse is to point them back toward those songs. I believe in Hank Williams singing ‘I Saw the Light’. I’ve seen the light, too.” The old songs offered him visions from a world that no longer existed, a spiritual way forward in a world plagued by “power and greed and corruptible seed.” What’s important here is that Hank Williams’s song didn’t simply influence Dylan’s guitar playing or vocal technique, but it suggested an orientation in the world that felt more authentic than the one he was living. The signs, symbols, sounds, lyrics, and Biblical roots of “those old songs” have mediated his evolving self- understandings, leading him onward in his journey, offering him refuge from stagnation, fear, and death. It’s to the dial of the radio and its salvific powers that he has turned during times of worry. Take the rough- and- tumble middle verse of the bluesy 2001 song “Lonesome Day Blues,” written shortly after the death of his beloved mother, Beatty, in 2000:
I’m forty miles from the mill— I’m droppin’ it into overdrive I’m forty miles from the mill— I’m droppin’ it into overdrive Settin’ my dial on the radio I wish my mother was still alive And the radio for Dylan is always only a half- step from his guitar, piano, and a notebook of lyrical jottings and jags penned in his microscopic script. Useful in this context is the postmodern French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1970), who developed a double hermeneutics of regression and progression to help conceptualize how artists use creative projects to transpose core- level preoccupations into new life- affirming forms. Improving on Freud’s monograph on Leonardo Da Vinci (1910), Ricoeur demonstrated how regressive psychological energies, which in Leonardo’s case may have been an unresolved Oedipal complex, were transformed through the progressive solution of his activities as an artist and scientist. Ricoeur asks, “Could it be that the true meaning of sublimation is to promote new meanings by mobilizing old energies initially invested in archaic figures?” (Ricoeur, 1970, 175). This mobilization was thought by Ricoeur to take place whenever a person used words, images, music, or stories to advance his or her consciousness to a new understanding of the self and world. The dynamics behind this “advancement” are psychologically revealing because they expose the tension between archeology (the regressive and unresolvable conflicts of one’s childhood) and teleology (the progressive impulse to move beyond “archaic figures”). Ricoeur shows how works of art such as Michelangelo’s Moses, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, reveal dialectics between the innermost conflicts of the artists and those solutions enacted by the creative process. The dialectical tension between archeology and teleology led to the creation of something that wasn’t there before, an artifact, or what Jean- Paul Sartre (1968) called the progressive project.8 In Dylan’s case, the transfigured self that emerges out of a significant change becomes realized through the music he composes, records, and performs immediately after the change. As he explained to journalists after his Born Again experience in 1978, if people really wanted to know what he felt, they should listen to his songs. If scripting reveals the “deep structure” of a life, and if Ricoeur’s double hermeneutics helps draw attention to the lived permutations of this structure, important questions remain about the sociocultural realities that shape the person. Robert J. Lifton’s concepts of atomic anxiety and the protean self shed valuable historical light on the origins of the destiny script. According to Lifton (1979), many Americans whose lives coincided with the middle part of the twentieth century were besieged by feelings of rootlessness and affected by images of widespread extinction through mass media. A capacity to be multifaceted and changeable, or protean, had become increasingly necessary for psychosocial survival. In addition to putting together disparate elements of identity into “odd combinations” and frequently changing these elements, the protean self took on the psychology of a survivor and underwent symbolic forms of death and rebirth."

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice idea, not entirely well executed - several dates are wrong which is an obvious point of irritation and gives across the picture that McCarron simply doesn't know his subject well enough; why then should be believe any of the 'insights' of this "psychobiography"? The aims of the book are well established though if not always well executed.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Dylan's music, which moved my girlfriend to buy me this psychoanalytical book on perhaps the most cryptic, impactful musician in history. The read didn't do much for me save to confirm that I am less interested in Dylan as a person or as an idea than I am about Dylan as only embodiment of lyrics and music that inspire me. The author's perspective was interesting yet, despite being clothed in fancy jargon, relatively shallow in its insight. I'd not recommend the book to any Dylan lover and would instead save it for a student of psychology interested in studying someone other than your run-of-the-mill dictators, sociopaths, and uninteresting celebrities.

[David Leeds · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Light Come Shining" is a fascinating look at one of 20th-century America's most fascinating pop culture icons. It is thoroughly researched and very thoughtful, yet still accessible for those, like myself, who pick up the book with little prior experience with Dylanology or psychology. On that note, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the field of psychobiography. However, this book would also make an insightful supplement to the research of seasoned, hard-core Dylan fans.

[Aaron Novak · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first psychobiography.

This one on Bob Dylan's transfigurations and destiny. How the Atomic Age and the radio were the catalysts for Dylan's pattern of self-reinvention. Periods of insightfulness, but a bit laden with psychology vernacular for me.

For serious Dylanologists only.

[Ilana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although it has many information and assumes a particular angle, it forces into conclusions without necessarily having all the reasons to do so. It shows at a great extent the limits of academic investigations into pop-culture but also of the specific method used by the author.
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange of an honest review

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Psycho biography or psycho babble? I think it’s condescending and superior tone annoyed me throughout the entire book.

[Gini · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're a Dylan follower or just curious this book might be what you want. Psychobiography? A new term for me. Didn't exist back when I was taking psychology courses. It's an interesting way to approach a biography though and that kept me reading. What makes a person choose his direction that ends up being his biography?

I am aware that the reviews for this book haven't been stellar, and after reading it I can understand that since the author stops and explains what he's doing at every turn. Dylan is the subject of this study more than a person. But what makes a person? Some of what this author investigates like outside influences on his life and how he reacted to them as he matured.

The author prefers the idea of a script, a sort of predictable go-to position, that Dylan developed to handle significant life events like fame, injury, divorce, illness, death. The script forms and repeats, but is adapted to the different stages of life. He builds his case using interviews and other biographical material primarily to show a pattern in Dylan's life. Lyrics are used only to illustrate a point, but not as a guiding light to Dylan's actions motives. I think it works and seems more flexible than ways to organize an examination of what makes a person tick.

It is repetitive with some of the material and reminds me of the organization of an academic work more than a work for the general audience. It is quite accessible to that same public though which is why I think it was worth my time to read. Another point that disappointed me is that he wrote all this without his own interview with Dylan to verify his conclusions. Consequently, the case seems to support what the author has said, but lacks that final nod from his subject, unless allowing its publication amounts to that in the legal sense, at least.

I received this book through Netgalley from the publishers.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does bring something new and important to the over-crowded world of Dylan studies: psychobiography. Highly recommended for those (like me) who persist in their desire to get a handle on this most enigmatic of contemporary geniuses.
Just re-read for class; gleaned even more the second time around.

[Garrett123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

His other books such as Three New York Poets, were fairly mediocre, but this one is something special.

[Simon Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few great books on Dylan that places the art in the context of the artist and his time