@Nico -
I want to restate I genuinely that's good if you can look past John's mistakes. I want to stress I'm not trying to change your mind with what I'm about to say.
Just to explain in more detail why I feel the way I do. In Cynthia's book Johm she describes an incident Julian told her about that happened at his birthday party in 79.
They were having a good time. And someone did something humorous. Julian starts laughing hard. Without warning, John screams "Shut up! Stop laughing. I hate the way you f---ing laugh. Don't do that ever again."
John wasnt the subject of the humorous event BTW. This event traumatized Julian for years. Where he would never laugh in public. He only got over it once he got older. Oh yeah, he also left Julian out of his will. Real classy move there.
Also, when John was going through his immigration issues, Bob Dylan vocalized his support in the media for John to be able to stay. He also wrote a letter to the president encouraging him to make John a legal citizen of the united states.
How does John reward that friendly gesture? He slags Dylan off in interviews once he comes out of his house-husband phase. Then writes Serve Yerself as a takedown on Bob.
I actually enjoyed the satire of Serve at first. Until I read about what Bob did for john. I was bewildered like anyone else when Dylan went through his born again phase. But in retrospect I think he went crazy cause of the divorce from Sara. And I think like he mentioned in chronicles with recording a country album then being pictured in israel to alienate people so they would leave him alone.
I think the christian period was partly the same. He was tired of being worshipped again so to speak. And I think he knew that going into Christian music would alienate his audience. But I think he was lost mentally and vulnerable. A combination of those factors I think lead him into being born again.
But eventually he snapped out of his depression and went back to Judaism. Getting back to my point, regardless of what Dylan was doing at the time, for John to be so vindicative in such a vulnerable period was wrong.
You dont treat friends that way. Also reading Geoff Emerick (beatles engineer) book he was very unjustly nasty to him. There is also the fact he helped in getting Paul busted for weed. (Though Yoko did most of the dirty work). And the reason was because Paul told John on the phone he was staying in the same hotel room that him and Yoko stayed in. He was afraid of Paul ruining his good karma there. John was heavily into mysticism and astrology at the time thanks to Yoko Those are just a few of the incidents.
Again, not trying to change your mind Nico, just explaining my point of view. I kept trying to look the other way. But when you find out more and more negative things about John coming from his own friends/family/colleagues it just becomes a buzzkill.
The man is a brilliant musician. I think he wrote some of the greatest songs ever. He lost touch with his own humanity. That is too disturbing to not let it distract me from enjoying his music.
Again, props to you Nico for staying true to John. I can't sadly enough. At least Lindsey worked on himself to his credit. So in the end I can still enjoy his work.
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