The Patriotic Bob Dylan (for Levi Asher)

Writing in The New Ledger, Paul Cella argues convincingly with an unaffected and lovely eloquence: "Over time I have come to associate Dylan and H. L. Mencken in my mind."

To wit/ness:

"Serve God and be cheerful." I am hard-pressed to find a better and more succinct counsel for an old troubadour to bequeath to his admirers. Bob Dylan is the great 1960s bard of radicalism, whose hurled imprecations against this or that ever speak of something deeper, of faith and of purpose. He is the voice of an anti-American generation who could never be at ease because he so loved his country. He is the poet of squalor whose signature touch is joy. He is an innovator of language and sound, and a man haunted by the God of the Scriptures. He is an American.