Tangled up in law: the jurisprudence of Bob Dylan.

• Author: Perlin, Michael L.
• Position: Bob Dylan and the Law

Introduction I. Civil Rights II. Inequality of the Criminal Justice System III. Institutions IV. Governmental/Judicial Corruption V. Equality and Emancipation VI. Poverty, Environment, and Inequality of the Civil Justice System VII. Role of Lawyers and the Legal Process Conclusion INTRODUCTION

If all you knew of Bob Dylan's law-related work was Absolutely Sweet Marie ("to live outside the law/you must be honest") (1) or Ballad of a Thin Man ("With great lawyers you have/discussed lepers and crooks"), (2) you might think that Dylan had little use for the law or the legal system. But you would be wrong. (3) Dylan has had a robust career as a litigant, both as a plaintiff (4) and as a defendant. (5) He has also been a witness before congressional committees examining copyright legislation. (6) A careful examination of Dylan's lyrics reveals yet another role--that of a scholar with a well-developed jurisprudence on a range of topics including civil, criminal, public, and private law. The canon is truly tangled up in law. (7)

My friends know the story of how, in 1963, I came to the world of Bob as a seventeen-year-old college freshman. I was visiting Gerde's Folk City on a night when I should have been studying for my Political Science 102 exam. (8) I abandoned Bob (as did so many other observant and secular Jews) during the Born Again period, and I came back into the fold in the mid-nineties. (9) Some also know how and when and where I had my "A-ha!" moment. I was poolside at Governor Prence Motel in Orleans, Massachusetts, in August 1995. In the midst of writing an article about the Colin Ferguson trial and the right of a mentally ill, yet competent, criminal defendant to represent himself, I realized "dignity was the first to leave" (10) was the perfect before-the-colon title for my paper. (11) This realization inspired me to look to other Dylan titles and lyrics for many of the law review articles and book chapters--more than fifty by my most recent count--that I have written over the past fifteen years. (12)

I also began to look at the way that courts used Bob's lyrics (13) and to think about how, if we took the long view, Bob's speculations about the legal system could be viewed as a coherent and structural jurisprudential philosophy.

Bob's lyrics reflect the work of a thinker who takes "the law" seriously in multiple iterations--the role of lawyers, the role of judges, the disparities between the ways the law treats the rich and the poor, the inequality of the criminal and civil justice systems, the corruption of government, the police, the judiciary, and more. Of course, there is no question that many of Bob's lyrics are, to be charitable, "obscure." (The frequent use of the word "mystical" in lyrical analyses seems to be a code word for obscurity.) And Bob being Bob, we will never know exactly what means what. But even in this context, many of Bob's songs about law are "crying [out to us] like a fire in the sun." (14)

In this Article, I will try to create a topography of Bob-as-jurisprudential scholar by looking at selected Dylan songs in these discrete areas of law (and law-and-society): civil rights; inequality of the criminal justice system; institutions; governmental/judicial corruption; equality and emancipation (political and economic); poverty, the environment, and inequality of the civil justice system; and the role of lawyers and the legal process. (15)

Where appropriate, I will also note how his discrete lyrics--often in other songs than the ones that I will be discussing--can be read to reflect specific legal positions, arguments or philosophies. And only limited time will prevent me from sharing when and where I saw him sing each of the songs for the first and/or most recent time (I do cite some I have never seen him sing, alas). (16)

1. CIVIL RIGHTS

   Dylan has always been seen as a symbol of the civil rights revolution. (17) Certainly, this is not news. It is also not news that his music has retained its relevancy to civil rights struggles throughout the nearly half-century since he wrote Blowin' in the Wind ("Blowin"). (18) But it is important to note how Dylan's music reflects a vision that combines "gospel redemption with scathing critiques of American society" (19) and also serves as a blueprint for the great Civil Rights Act of 1964. (20) Next, consider the themes of some of Dylan's "civil rights songs." (21)

   Blowing': (22) These lines--"how many years can some people exist/Before they're allowed to be free?/Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head/Pretending he just doesn't see?" and "how many ears must one man have/Before he can hear people cry?/Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows/That too many people have died?" (23)--probably encapsulate the heart and the soul of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s as well as anything that has ever (or ever will be) written about this time. I think Howard Sounes was absolutely right when he characterized Blowin' as "the foundation stone of Bob's career and a catalyst of the singer-songwriter revolution." (24) And I do not think we can ever underestimate the significance of the link between the pop cultural revolution and the civil rights revolution.

   Times: (25) Dylan wrote this song in 1963, as Congress was heatedly debating the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This verse is among the most verismo lyrics of his career:

   Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside and it is ragin' It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin' (26) Tim Riley concludes that Times "defined a generation's values simply by articulating its potential." (27) Times forever linked the Civil Rights Movement and the folk music movement. (28) Oliver Trager characterizes it as a "clarion call to left-wing political activism throughout the 1960s," (29) and I think that is absolutely right. I am sure many others heard it the same way that I did in my college dorm back then.

   Oxford. (30) There is little question that Oxford Town was inspired by James Meredith's enrollment as the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi, a "crucial turning point in the civil rights movement." (31) There is little ambiguity about these lyrics. (32)

   Pawn: (33) This song was one of several that Dylan chose to sing at the "I Have a Dream" March musical program. (34) That selection most likely reflects the urgency that Dylan felt to share this song when, indeed, the "whole world was watching." (35) Interestingly, Dylan almost appears to partially absolve Evers' actual killers (as being "pawns" in the violent and deadly game of racial politics), but there is no ambiguity as to his sentiments. (36)

   Emmett Till: (37) This song is "a straightforward, emotionally-charged narrative account of both the brutal slaying of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till and of the scandalous failure of American justice to punish his killers." (38) As with Pawn (39) and Oxford Town, (40) the lyrics are unambiguous. (41)

   Dylan's judicial philosophy on questions of civil rights is crystal clear. If the lyrics of these songs are to be "translated" into legal arguments, he locates himself (explicitly, in the case of Times) (42) as a supporter of legislation that provides equal rights for racial minorities in matters including: access to education, (43) the right to protest peacefully, (44) and simply, the right "to live in the world." (45) Blowin (46) and Times (47) were written at a time when Jim Crow laws were still common

   in the South and border states. (48) It may sound odd to anyone born after 1970, but I believe, with my heart and soul, that the civil rights movement would not have captured the "hearts and minds" (49) of the American public as it did had Bob Dylan never existed. (50)

2. INEQUALITY OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

   Even if Dylan had only written Hurricane (51) and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll ("Hattie Carroll'), (52) he would have had more of an impact on the way that the American public thinks about the criminal justice system than all the professors of criminal law and procedure (including myself) put together. I say this not to be provocative or aggressive, but to state a simple truth. These two songs, while written only eleven years apart, are seemingly from different eras. They brutally force us to confront the corruption of the American judicial system in cases of racially-charged crimes in ways that law review articles or classroom lectures simply cannot equal. (53)

   Hattie Carroll was a fifty-one-year-old, black hotel worker who was struck with a cane at a Baltimore, Maryland charity ball by William Zantzinger, a twenty-four-year-old, Maryland tobacco farmer. (54) Zantzinger, already intoxicated, demanded another drink and complained when Carroll said, "Just a minute, sir." (55) Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a professional boxer accused of a triple murder committed in a Paterson, New Jersey bar. (56)

   When read together, Hattie Carroll (57) and Hurricane (58) are opposite sides of the same coin. Both speak eloquently about the role of race and racism in the criminal justice system. (59) Hattie Carroll reflects the sort of sentencing decision that, in some ways, ultimately led--for

   better or worse--to the creation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. (60) Hurricane is a textbook example of how racism can affect every aspect of the criminal justice system (61): racial disparity in Terry stops; (62) accuracy of identifications; (63) one-man "show-up" identifications; (64) suggestive questioning by the police appealing to racial prejudice; (65) conditions of pre-trial confinement; (66) judicial bias; (67) racial bias in jury selection; (68) tainted publicity; (69) and conditions of prison confinement. (70)

   In Dylan's Visions of Sin, Christopher Ricks begins his "Justice" chapter with...