My Back Pages: The Anti-Tea Party Anthem

Some 45 years ago, Bob Dylan wrote this song that rejects everything the Teabaggers stand for. It’s not too late, people, to look inside yourselves for that “freedom” and “liberty” your hardened souls deny. Dylan could have been writing about the Tea Party. He wrote of moving on from a protest movement with simplistic notions: “Romantic flanks of musketeers” (Revolutionary War costumes), “foundation deep” (Founding Fathers, Constitution), “Lies that life is black and white,” good and bad, deceived into thinking he had “something to protect,” and fearing he’d become his enemy “in the instant that I preach.” He wrote of transitioning to a poetry that rejected absolutisms, one that embraced the subtle and complex, not only black and white but shades of gray inbetween. He described his transformation from an “older” person set in his ways with ossified fundamentalist views — the Tea Party movement is overwhelmingly 50 and older — to one who is “younger” and open to a world that is ever changing and complicated: “Ahh, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.” This is the Byrds’ classic version:

My Back Pages

By Bob Dylan

Crimson flames tied through my years

Rollin' high and mighty trapped

Countless violent flaming roads

Using ideas as my map

"We'll meet on edges soon," said I

Proud 'neath heated brow

Ahh, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now

Half wracked prejudice leaped forth

"Rip down all hate," I screamed

Lies that life is black and white

Spoke from my skull, I dreamed

Romantic flanks of musketeers

Foundation deep, somehow

Ahh, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand

At the mongrel dogs who teach

Fearing not I'd become my enemy

In the instant that I preach

Sisters fled by confusion boats

Mutiny from stern to bow

Ahh, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now

Ahh, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now

My guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow

Ahh, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now