About me

I've been asked why I have such an angry soundtrack — and why the video is so darn long...

Well I'm not sure the song is even about anger at all. It feels more like cynicism and love, hope and alienation, a struggle to vanquish and understand exile, self and other.

Then I like the ambiguity and paradox of Dylan's wonderful music and "I-Thou" lyrics, as it creates a dialogue of foreground and background for the solitary movements of a single artist-type figure. Is the dancer the object of the song or its subject; its singer or singee?

The combination also highlights the relationship of artist and model. Subject/object, who is looking and who is being looked at? Who defines the picture and who tells the story?

I also see the song as a kind of gestalt commentary, a dialogue with displacement, with an earlier or future abandoned or alienated self. "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" corresponds to "I used to be among the crowd you're in with."

My alternative soundtrack was "Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini" but while I like the silly conceit, I couldn't bear to think of the sound repeated over and over.

Mostly I just liked the song and it seemed to fit.

Positively 4th Street by Bob Dylan, Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Kathy Forer
Locust, NJ 07760
Web: www.kforer.com
E-mail