Bob Dylan is not a prophet, nor is he a savior. However, he remains one of America's most influential modern troubadours. Dylan's tales, spanning from his eponymous 1962 debut to last year's Love and Theft, make up a patchwork quilt of modern cultural mythology, one that drapes over much of the popular American musical and colloquial history of the past forty years. Politicians, prostitutes and preachers weave in and out of Dylan's lyrics, all characters and caricatures that brush shoulders in the daytime and are easily confused on moonless nights. But even though Dylanologists perpetually seek to dissect and deconstruct, even the artist knows better than to take himself too seriously. With a wink, Dylan's always ready to show that -- at their core -- folk and vaudeville are one and the same.
