Inquirer's obit of my father

Sally Downey of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a wonderful obituary of my father in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. You can read it here:

http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/20110915_Charles_R__Bauerlein_Sr___84__civil_engineer_and_peace_activist.html

A sacred moment

At the moment of my father's passing, he was surrounded by my sisters, Annie, Lisa and Gretchen.

The picture above was taken just moments before my father, Charles Robert Bauerlein, Sr., passed on to another life shortly after 6 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 12th. He succumbed to a form of lymphoma, Burkett's disease, after a three-month battle.

This past Saturday morning he told my sister Gretchen he wanted to stop chemotherapy treatment and that he wanted his life to come to an end. His doctors were reluctant to allow my father to enter hospice care until they had seen him. They told my sister the pain he was in might be something easy to mend.

My father told her he didn't wish to go see any more doctors, that he wanted to die at home, in his own bed. My sister promised him she would not allow the doctors to keep him overnight, that she would bring him home afterwards.

When he arrived at the emergency room of Chester County Hospital, the doctor asked him why he was there. He pointed an accusing finger at my sister Gretchen and told him, "it's because of her!" He was dehydrated. It was an easy fix, but they wanted to keep him overnight for observations. My father had had enough. He wanted release from his suffering. We took him home to my sister Lisa's house in New Holland.

I was fortunate enough to be with him at the hospital on Saturday with Gretchen and a handful of other relatives, including my daughter Lili and my sister Trudy. My dad was lucid, though his voice was soft and hard to hear. He asked Lili how school was and he asked my nephew Karl how his recent move from Colorado had gone. He was fully in the moment.

By the early hours of Sunday morning, he was more than ready for the end to come. He asked my brother-in-law Joe (a physician) to give him enough pain relievers to end his life. He told him, "I'm sure if we sign the papers, the church and the state will be okay with that." He got angry at my brother in law when he didn't comply with this request.

I was going to visit him on Sunday but I called before I left home and Joe told me he didn't want to see anyone, he just wanted to be left alone to die. The hospice nurse told us he would only last a few more days, possible even hours and that if we came, we should not stay longer than 15 minutes and we should be ready to say five things to him.

"I love you, dad."
"I forgive you for any harm you did to me."
"Please forgive me for any harm I did to you."
"You were a good father."
"Goodbye."

I decided to let some of my other siblings go see him on Sunday because I live closer than the rest of them. I went yesterday morning to see him for about an hour and a half. I was glad I did.

By Monday morning, without any nourishment and with the cancer ravaging his body, he was emaciated and very weak. His eyes glazed over and his breathing was labored. I sat at his side and held his hand and squeezed his fingers, but I did not receive any sign from him that he knew I was there. The bed sheets and a thin red blanket that covered him moved perceptibly from the force of his lungs trying to draw breath.

A stack of unopened cards from relatives and friends were on a small table near the bed and one of my sisters suggested I read them to him and told me he could hear me, so I did. Nearly all of them told my father he was the object of their thoughts and prayers and suggested he could beat the disease that had brought him to death's door. They urged him to carry on the fight. Some friends told him they would "see him soon" and to "please get well." Some said they knew he would be better soon and would be able to join my mother, Agnes, at the retirement home in Wisconsin where she now resides as an Alzheimer's patient.

It was hard reading them to him, knowing how close he was to the end and that he would never see my mother and most of these well-wishers again.

I made my peace with him and asked him for his forgiveness for all the times I hurt him with unkind things I said. There were hundreds and some were fresh on my mind. I told him I forgave him for things he did to me and that I was sorry for holding on to those things for so long; things I should have forgotten and let go of years ago. I told him he was a great father, that he had carried a heavy load for decades raising 11 children and that his care for my mother these last five or six years was a remarkable effort that made him a hero in my eyes.

Nothing I said to him seemed to register. His life had been reduced to a short race to the other side and involuntary gasps of breath. He was unable to close his mouth and I used a small sponge on a short piece of plastic to swab his mouth and lips with cool water.

About 15 minutes before I had to leave to get to my Monday classes, my sister Annie came from her home in Bucks County. She carried her guitar with her and immediately opened it and started to sing hymns to him. She started with "Amazing Grace" and then searched for another song to sing to him from a church hymnal. I asked her to sing "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," a song I first heard when I was 17, on a visit with my father to Preservation Hall in New Orleans when I was a senior in high school visiting the city to see Loyola University.

I hadn't heard the lyrics of the song in many decades, but I was familiar with the tune because I had heard it played many times at jazz funerals in New Orleans and on my Preservation Hall Jazz Band CDs. I glanced her over shoulder and sang the words with her and was struck by how much comfort they gave me. I hoped my father could hear them. I wondered if they comforted him as much as they did me.

I am weak, but Thou art strong;
Jesus, keep me from all wrong;
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.

Refrain

Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares?
None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.

Refrain

When my feeble life is o’er,
Time for me will be no more;
Guide me gently, safely o’er
To Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore.

Refrain

We followed that up with Paul Simon's song of inspiration, "Bridge Over Trouble Water." I kissed my father's head and said my goodbyes to my sisters. Then I went back to my father's bedside and kissed him again and told him I would "see you tomorrow." I was pretty sure that even if that were true, he would not see me.

About ten minutes after I got home from my classes, my sister Lisa called me in tears to mention my father had passed just five minutes ago. The scene of his passing, with my sisters at his side stroking his head and telling him it was okay to leave and that they loved him and singing "Amazing Grace" to him filled me with peace.

I was sad my mother could not be there too, to be with him as he passed to the other side. But it seemed to me to be a most perfect way to leave this world. We should all be so lucky. I immediately called my own children to tell them the news and then started calling friends.

I drove out to New Holland and spent the next three hours in my father's presence with my siblings and some of my nieces and nephews while we all laughed and cried and told stories and anecdotes about the man who raised us.

There will be hundreds more stories to tell and retell in the next few days. His viewing will be held at 9:30 a.m. St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church in Germantown, Pa. on Friday, Sept. 16th. The funeral service will start at 11 a.m. We expect the church to be filled to near capacity with his family and friends. He leaves one brother, 11 children, 27 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. He was more than a patriarch of our family. He was the rock.

He lived a great life. We will honor it with a service that no one who goes to it will ever forget.

What has America learned since 9/11?

At the risk of subjecting myself to the ridicule of dozens of people who will say my post here is "anti-American" or suggest I am "using the hallowed anniversary of an attack on our soil for political purposes", I feel the need to say this upfront: I am very proud to be an American.

I am a dying breed of patriot, one who still believes in the power of democracy and who believes the American people are strong enough to rise from the stupor of this long national nightmare and reclaim the power that was vested in them by our Constitution. We are a hard working people with core values of honesty, goodness and decency that will sustain us.

I humbly suggest it is the responsibility of all citizens to question the authority of our leaders and of reporters to hold people in power accountable for the things they say and do. That's what I am trying to do here.

I love my country, in no small part because I am free to criticize it when I feel criticism is warranted. Criticism has been warranted for a very long time. The thoughts expressed here are not just mine, but they are thoughts rarely seen or heard by the public.

The media will not allow these kind of ideas to be heard on the airwaves or read on its pages because they're too "radical" or "liberal" to be granted airspace or ink. These opinions run contrary to the prevailing wisdom of our time. They might provoke some Americans to think for their own about the events of 9/11.

The mainstream media, which has morphed into an overbearing Ministry of Propaganda in the last 10 years, would never countenance the position I am advocating.

Without an ounce of cynicism, I believe we have not learned much in the 10 years since that fateful day. We remain as scared of terrorism as we ever were, despite spending untold, unaccountable billions of dollars chasing rumors and phantoms.

I believe a large majority of Americans are fed-up with fighting a never-ending war but that their voices are never acknowledged in the media because the media has become part of the national problem. The media no longer serves the public or the search for truth. It placates the masses with pablum and serves only the needs of its corporate masters, who care only about the bottom line.

The media are now linked, thanks to the decision by President Reagan to allow large corporations to own media outlets, to larger corporations that are part and parcel of the military industrial complex. The nation was warned about the increasing power of such corporations by a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, more than 50 years ago. But the mainstream media has done such an effective job of scaring the people about terrorists that Eisenhower's warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

I believe the war on terror was drummed up by the Bush administration because it knew such a war would be highly profitable to some of the administration's most important "clients", the same arms manufacturers, weapons developers and armed forces service companies who make meals and sew uniforms for men and women in the armed forces. They are the same corporate entities who contribute millions of dollars into Republican campaign coffers to keep them in office and who also work hard to manipulate the mainstream media to spin the war on terror in a way that keeps their profits rolling in.

Never-ending war is good for business, but bad for the people who have to fight it. When will Americans finally learn our corporate masters don't care about people? They care not about the people who are defending American economic interests overseas nor the tens of thousands of foreign peoples who are killed in our never ending wars. They care only about profit.

Americans still don't know the reasons behind 9/11. We have been told on numerous occasions by both the terrorists themselves and by some of our own policy makers who risked telling the truth after 9/11. Our military presence around the world is offensive to many foreign people, especially those who live in the Middle East. They don't trust us; they don't trust our desire for and our reliance on a non-renewable energy source that is becoming increasingly rare, oil.

But their voices were ignored. They were ignored because their opinions didn't serve the purposes of the corporate mainstream media or of the arms manufacturers and multi-national corporations that own the media. Their opinions were stilled, kept quiet, so as not to rock the boat or distract listeners from the drumbeat of war. George Orwell predicted this would happen in his classic novel of totalitarianism, 1984. We have ignominiously achieved his vision.

How many Americans know our defense budget is more than six times larger than what the Chinese spend defending their nation?

How many Americans know that the nation has more than 700 military bases around the world? That the bases located in Saudi Arabia were the primary reason why Osama bin Laden, who is a Saudi, planned the 9/11 attacks on America in the first place?

What percentage of Americans know that 15 of the 19 terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade center and the Pentagon were citizens of our closest allie, Saudi Arabia? Why are Americans unable to connect the dots and understand those Arabian youth were easily manipulated and drawn to the message of jihad hatred because of the oppressive American military presence on their homeland?

How many Americans know that many people around the world -- even many of our own allies -- regard the imperial power of the United States as a very dangerous threat to world peace or that they fear us because of the way we have acted since 9/11?

Why don't Americans know these things? When have you read anything even remotely "liberal" that raises these issues in a newspaper, or on television or heard them on a radio talk show? We are forced into a lockstep of patriotism by our media. We are not encouraged to question the prevaling wisdom espoused by our media.

It is time to ask ourselves why and to do something about it.

What have we learned in the 10 years since 9/11?

You tell me.

But before you answer that question ask yourself another one: How would you feel if the Arabs had military bases in America? What would you do to an imperial power who was occupying your homeland?

Answer that question and then tell me: what have we learned?

For more information on this subject, watch this George Pappas documentary, "Orwell Rolls In His Grave" here:

http://www.freedocumentaries.org/int.php?filmID=871984. .

Bittersweet Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all of you readers who are dads. It's an old cliche, but one that still holds a ton of truth. Being a father is the most important job in the world.

Few of us ever read a book about parenting. That's a shame, because it is not a job that comes instinctively. I know this from experience (contact my children for confirmation) and if you are a father, I bet you do too. It's a job you learn from experience and the older you get, the more holes you find in your game.

Sometimes, the template we use is the one our own fathers used. Sometimes, the template we use is the very opposite one our fathers used. We learn from their mistakes.

Then we make our own mistakes; mistakes so egregious they make our fathers recoil in embarrassment at the psychological and emotional damage we caused their grandchildren. That's life. I mean, that's how it all works. They screwed us up and we screw our kids up. What a neat little package it all is! Everyone has someone to blame for their lives of woe and regrets: our dads.

Thank God for fathers! Without them we'd all have to look in the mirror and be accountable for our own actions. Who wants to do THAT??!! The blame game is easier.

My father is far from perfect. He commands a room as if he is the only person with a tongue in his mouth; the only one capable of an original thought. If you try to hold a two-way conversation with him, he ignores you and plows right past you. I like to think this has made me a better listener than my dad ever was, but I am fairly certain this genetic tic has been incorporated into my own DNA and my kids feel as I won't ever shut up in public either.

My Dad is the original Pigpen. His car looks like the bottom of a dumpster the day after the circus has left town. Tiny clouds of flotsam and debris seem to follow him around like fleas clinging to the back of a coon dog. When I get into my school office, or the small room at home where I do my writing, I see the blueprint of my father's chaos all around me. Piles of compact discs stacked on piles of books, stacked on compact disc containers. I could find you "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis in 15 seconds if you asked, but don't ask me how. My life is a mess.

This is a disease I inherited from my father. God damn him. God bless him. Which is it? I cannot say for sure. Am I blessed or cursed with a lifetime of his "ability" to be inherently disorganized and organized at the same time? I never asked for this twisted personality trait. Surely it is all his fault.

I envy friends whose homes are free of clutter. They seem to reside in a state of perpetual grace and godly neatness. Their residences are testimony to a higher realm of consciousness. Why can't my home look like their's? It must be my father's fault.

Dad was admitted to Chester County Hospital on Friday. He had been complaining to me for at least 10 days about stomach pains and loose stools. After a week of his complaining, and taking some over-the-counter medicine that didn't solve the issue, I told him to see a doctor. He finally made an appointment to see a doctor last week and was scheduled to get a CAT scan of his troublesome stomach tomorrow.

When the stomach pains persisted all day Friday and seemed to grow worse, my father thought he must be having an appendicitis. If only the prognosis were that simple. After waiting around the hospital for four or five hours, the CAT scan and a physical exam of his abdomen revealed a tumor the size of a baseball.

My dad has cancer of the large intestines and the CAT scan revealed it may have spread to other organs in his body.

Doctors will take the tumor tomorrow at noon. But in the meantime, this Fathers Day has been bittersweet to say the least. He's had a steady stream of family members and friends come visit him in Chester County Hospital most of the day. I saw flowers there from my sister and at least four or five Fathers Day cards on the serving tray next to his bed.

For someone having a lethal tumor removed from his belly at noon tomorrow, my father was in high spirits. He'd been given a pain killer that had taken away the abdominal stress. He was teasing the nurses and commanding the room as usual. But it was hard to think about the long-term prognosis or to imagine all the suffering his 84 year old body faces for the next month if he opts to fight the spreading cancer for the sake of seeing his wife and children and grandchildren for another six or nine months.

Thanks, Dad. You really know how to take the fun out of a day dedicated to celebrating all you did for us.

None of us would be here to enjoy it without you. And none of us are ready to admit this might be the last one we get to spend with you.

So we'll try to soak up every minute we can, feeling the knots in our stomachs that we might not get to have time with you next year on Fathers Day.

And so, dear reader, should you. If your fathers are still alive, be sure they know how much you appreciate all they did to screw you up.

That's what fathers do best. God bless 'em. Especially mine. Kick that tumor's ass, Dad. We'd all like to have something to complain about next year, too.

Mid year pop music report

It's that time of the year again. Time to make some mid-year recommendations to friends and readers of music worth hearing. If you remain curious to know new music, these are some CDs that have been getting repeated play in my CD changer at home.

Some of these -- Okkervil River, the Decemberists, the Antlers and tUnE-yArD -- all are likely to be ranked somewhere on my "best of the year" list come mid-December. All of these discs are worth hearing if you love music as much as my geeky friends do.

I've listed them alphabetically, to avoid inducing prejudices. Seek them out and give them a spin! Summer is a great time of the year to hear live music and for listening to songs cranked up in the car.

Burst Apart, the Antlers. What are they putting in the drinking water in Brooklyn? This is the first of two bands who claim Brooklyn as home on the mid-year list. The Antlers drew critical raves for their thematically linked song-cycle Hospice back in 2009, a death bed narrative about an abravive cancer patient who falls in love with her nurse. Burst Apart, mercifully, is not as maudlin as that effort but still keeps the lo-fi home-made aesthetics in place. Songwriter Peter Silberman has a lighter touch this time around on songs like "I Don't Want Love" and "French Exit." Well worth finding.



Birds & Drums, the Bewitched Hands. This 6-piece band from Reims, France wowed audiences at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin back in March. Because they sing their lyrics in English, they seem intent on cracking the U.S. indie rock scene. They cover a gamut of styles on Birds & Drums, their initial full-length release on Sony, a sign that they haven't found a signature sound yet. Don't let that stop you from checking them out. The title track is a saccarine pop tune that seems to emulate the Cowsills. "Work" has elements of anthemic rock. "Hard to Cry", the first single, is a swirling pop tune with Feist-worthy vocals. Something for everyone!


The King is Dead, the Decemberists. Colin Meloy says he's hanging up his band director's shoes after this final CD with the Decemberists. I guess that remains to be seen. One can hope not, because this one might be their best effort yet. The band is playing the Academy of Music on June 15th and the show has been sold out for months. If they showcase this terrific collection of radio-friendly folk-rock tunes, they'll make lots of locals very happy. On the back of the new CD, the band is pictured with an array of acoustic mountain music instruments: accordian, banjo, autoharp and two guitars, one with just four strings. If this is a sly reference to The Band, it's appropriate. "Calamity Song" is one tune that will bring the house down all summer, a knowing apocalyptic smile at Harold Camping's End Timers.



Helplessness Blues, the Fleet Foxes. I haven't warmed up to this one as much as my 25 year old son has. But I am confident it will grow on me as the year goes on. The critics have been kinder than kind to the Fleet Foxes. This latest effort seems, on first listen, to be plowing the same fertile ground as the band's eponymous first full-length album. It sounds like a mix of the lush orchestral pop of the Beach Boys with a dash of British folk like the Strawbs and Fairport Convention tossed in. I don't hear anything as arresting as "White Winter Hymnal" on this new CD, but the band's hallmark fingerprints -- those lush four-part vocal harmonies -- are all over this record too. Tracks to download include "Bedouin Dress" and "Lorelie."




Eye Contact, Gang Gang Dance. Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance specializes in experimental rock that takes its cues from Brian Eno. If you like electronica or Eno's ambient and atmospheric music, you'll dig this effort. Most of the tracts are jams that go on for six to eight minutes and create soundscapes that work as well on the dancefloor as they do on your headphones. "Glass Jar", the CD's 11 minute opening opus, and "Romance Layers" are tunes for the Ipod. Adventurous souls can catch their act at Johnny Brenda's on Wednesday, July 20th.



Smart Flesh, the Low Anthem. When I caught their gig at a WXPN Free At Noon show four or five weeks ago, it became immediately obvious the Low Anthem are not your average banjo-stumming folk band. They are drawn to instruments that give their sound an old time gospel flavor: a pump organ, hammer dulcimer, acoustic guitars and fiddles were all on stage. One of the musicians used a fiddle bow to elicit eerie sounds from both a wood saw and a banjo. They recorded Smart Flesh in an abandoned pasta sauce factory in Rhode Island and the album has a ambling openness that feels drawn from the building. The Low Anthem makes folk music feel fresh.



Middle Brother, Middle Brother. On paper, it sounds like an idea that's guaranteed to create problems. Take three guys who front their own indie rock bands and mash them together to form their own group. That's exactly what John McCauley (Deertick), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) and Matt Vasquez (Delta Spirit) were asked to consider. Middle Brother, an uproarious mash-up of alt-country and punk rock, is the end result. With sonic tips of the hat to Neil Young, Robbie Robertson and Bob Dylan, this CD will appeal to your inner hippie. The best cuts include "Blue Eyes", "Portland" and a two rollicking back to back rave-ups "Me, Me, Me" and "Someday".



I Am Very Far, Okkervil River. Will Sheff's best songs plumb the depths of human loss and depravity. He is the Edgar Allen Poe of indie rock. No one makes more compelling modern American music. Sheff's songs, so full of the flinty flash of sharp knives dipping into ripped and torn flesh, can haunt you for days. The new record skirts beneath the surface into a dreamscape of revelations and nighmares. Mysterious, austere and powerful. Check out the YouTube performance of "The Rider" from David Letterman's May 13th show and you'll see a band primed to grab the audience by the throat and never let go. If you don't know them yet, you soon will. Okkervil River's The Stage Names was my favorite CD of the last decade. This new one may be as good.



So Beautiful, or So What, Paul Simon. Just as Bob Dylan made Time Out of Mind when he was contemplating the end, Simon has made this great album, So Beautiful. Heralded by the critics as his best since Graceland, this new album of songs has Graceland's gospel/world music vibe. Lyrically the songs investigate the fertile themes of religious faith, death and the afterlife, love gained and love lost. From the jaunty joyfulness of the opening tract, "Getting Ready for Christmas Day", to the shimmering afro-pop of the disc's finale, the title tune, this is a welcome return to form for Simon.


Whokill, tUnE-yArDs. How does something like tUnE-yArDs (yes, the misplaced uppercase letters are purposeful) happen? Merril Garbus is a name to remember. Garbus makes noise-pop with a worldbeat bent. She tosses jazz, hip-hop, R&B and folk into the mix in what the All-Music Guide calls "fascinating collisions that are as melodic as they are abrasive, and as globally minded as they are distinctly urban." Songs to here include “Gangsta”, a brassy tune topped of with sirens and “Bizness” a nod to the Afro-pop of Fela Kuti and Congotronics. Whokill is the soul record of the year so far, sung and written by an American white girl who sounds like she was raised on the streets of Kinshasha. Check out this live performance of the band's "Bizness" here, recording in the studios of FM station KEXP in Seattle.

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/42824-watch-tune-yards-on-kexp/

Yuck, Yuck. Yuck is no joke. This one is pure pop for now people. Feel the power of the 3-chord guitar riff backed by distortion. Listen to that nasty snarl! Makes you glad AC/DC left their hard rock formula around for these young Londoners to emulate. The perfect graduation present to that whipsmart prepster who thinks his dad's taste in music got stuck in 1985. Crank up the second cut, "The Wall" and watch his graduation party turn into a suburban exodus. Isn't that what makes memories!? Garage rock for muscle cars.

Pop culture alert: Okkervil River is about to conquer the world

I'll admit, the subject title of my blog today is far too subjective; entirely open to accusations of hyperbole. Unless you know the band. Then you just shrug your shoulders and say, "yeah, so what else is new?"

Fronted by one of the best songwriters working today, Will Sheff, Okkervil River is playing two gigs in Philadelphia tomorrow, June 3rd. They will be performing at WXPN's weekly "Free at Noon" show on at the station's World Cafe studios down on Walnut Street. Later that evening they'll perform at the Trocodero on Arch Street with Titus Andronicus, an up and coming rock band from Glen Rock, N.J. whose album, "The Moniter" made a lot of critics' best of the year lists in 2010.

Sheff's vocal style of singing puts some listeners off. Some folks don't like his over-the-top delivery or the way his most emotional songs seem to climb into the mind of homicidal psychopaths, intent on getting blood on their hands. Too creepy. Others don't like the way he seems to imitate the worst traits of 1950s crooners like Perry Como and Bobby Darin. Too lame, too retro.

I can't help myself. The guy fronts one of the best bands in the country and he commits himself to his performances like very few other front men will. His on-stage persona is enthralling: a tall, a loose-limbed imitation of Ray Davies in his heyday with the Kinks. Ray Davies is a great songwriter. Will Sheff may be regarded as his equal before his career is done.

If you don't know Okkervil River, this is an opportunity to discover one of the nation's best indy rock bands. Tickets are still available. The link below will give you a taste, his performace of his latest single, "Rider" that closed David Letterman's show on Friday, May 13th.



I Am Very Far, the band's new CD, is getting critical raves and is sure to be near the top of a lot of critics "best of the year" lists, including my own. The new single from the CD, "Rider" is my favorite song of the year so far. You can catch a glimpse of Sheff performing the song on Letterman's show from Friday the 13th at the link below.

If this doesn't impress you, you've probably been listening to Lady Gago too much this month.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uyel9EMFlI

Celebrating Bob Dylan: happy 70th birthday, Bob!

Bob Dylan turns 70 tomorrow, May 24th.

It's impossible to accurately measure Dylan's artistic achievements of the last 50 years or to overestimate his place in America's history. One could make an argument that he is the nation's preeminent artist, living or dead.

I won't try to do that here, but when he finally passes, you can be sure a lot of newspaper pundits will make that claim with confidence and no small justification. His artistic achievements go far beyond most of the great American writers you can think of off the top of your head: Hawthorne, Hemingway, Faulkner and Frost. Maybe even Mark Twain.

In some ways he is more like a Russian novelist than an American pop star. Along with the Beatles, Muhammad Ali and Mahatma Gandhi, he may be one of the most widely recognized icons of the 20th century.

He certainly belongs on any Mount Rushmore of American musicians. The debate would be who to put next to his visage on the side of the mountain. Armstrong? Guthrie? Sinatra? Presley? Springsteen? You get the point. He belongs among the greatest of the great. His influence on popular culture is inestimable.

Considering that Dylan has never been known as a very fine singer, this is not just a major achievement, it's an incredible achievement. We tend to value the singer more than the song. But Dylan's production as a songwriter is so outstanding, and his artistic vision so expansive, he seems likely to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature before too long.

He writes with keen passion and worldly, hard-won wisdom about life's big topics: religion and politics; love and war; race and finance. His best songs paint vivid pictures of smalltown snapshot moments but he can offer biting commentary on the most significant, historic movements and disasters, too.

Philadelphia's WXPN will be playing a list of 70 Dylan songs tomorrow to celebrate his birthday. I have no idea how many of my favorites, listed below, will be on the WXPN playlist. I feel sure I will hear this from more than a few friends: "how could you forget THAT one!?!"

A couple of years ago I was gathered with my son, Luke, and several of his friends and we all decided to jot down our favorite ten Dylan songs. There were five of us and out of the 50 total songs we compiled, only four or five songs were on someone else's list. We spent the rest of the evening marveling at one another's choices and wondering how we could have been so clueless and forgetful.

It's a daunting task. Try for yourself! Good luck! I had to get my collection of Dylan CDs out to help me put the list together.

1. Like a Rolling Stone (Highway 61 Revisited), 1965
2. Masters of War (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan), 1963
3. Tangled Up in Blue (Blood on the Tracks), 1975
4. Desolation Row, (Highway 61 Revisited)
5. Just Like a Woman, (Blonde on Blonde), 1966
6. Maggie's Farm, (Bringing It All Back Home), 1965
7. Ballad of a Thin Man, (Highway 61 Revisited)
8. Mississippi, (Love and Theft), 2001
9. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (The Times They Are a-Changin'), 1964
10. It Ain't Me Babe, (Another Side of Bob Dylan), 1964

11. All Along the Watchtower, (John Wesley Harding), 1967
12. Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, (Blonde on Blonde)
13. This Wheel's on Fire, (The Basement Tapes), 1975
14. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan)
15. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, (Blood on the Tracks)
16. My Back Pages, (Another Side of Bob Dylan), 1964
17. Hurricane, (Desire), 1976
18. Lay Lady Lay, (Nashville Skyline), 1969
19. A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall, (Freewheelin')
20. All I Really Want to Do, (Another Side of Bob Dylan)













21. Every Grain of Sand, (Shot of Love), 1981
22. Chimes of Freedom, (Another Side of Bob Dylan)
23. It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleedin', (Bringing It All Back Home)
24. Queen Jane Approximately, (Highway 61 Revisted), 1966
25. Knocking on Heaven's Door, (The Ballad of Billy the Kid), 1976
26. Positively 4th Street, (Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits), 1967
27. To Be Alone With You, (Nashville Skyline)
28. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,(Blonde on Blonde)
29. Blowin' in the Wind, (Freewheelin')
30. Visions of Johanna, (Blonde on Blonde)

31. High Water (for Charlie Patton), (Love and Theft)
32. Quinn the Eskimo, (Self-Portrait), 1972
33. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You, (Nashville Skyline)
34. Red River Shore, (Telltale Signs), 2008
35. Mr. Tambourine Man, (Bringing It All Back Home)
36. Idiot Wind, (Blood On the Tracks)
37. Clothes Line Saga, (The Basement Tapes)
38. Absolutely Sweet Marie, (Blonde on Blonde)
39. I Threw It All Away, (Nashville Skyline)
40. It Takes a Train to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Highway 61 Revisited)

41. Dear Landlord, (John Wesley Harding)
42. Love Minus Zero/No Limit, (Bringing It All Back Home)
43. The Times They Are a Changing', (The Times They Are a Changing')
44. Most of the Time, (Oh Mercy), 1989
45. If Not For You, (New Morning), 1970
46. Shelter From the Storm, (Blood On the Tracks)
47. Subterranean Homesick Blues, (Bringing It All Back Home)
48. I Shall Be Released, (The Bootleg Series, vol. 2), 1991
49. Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat, (Blonde on Blonde)
50. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, (Bringing It All Back Home)








51. Romance In Durango, (Desire)
52. Po' boy, (Love and Theft)
53. Jokerman, (Infidels), 1983
54. With God On Our Side (The Times They are a Changin')
55. Tryin' to Get to Heaven, (Times Out of Mind)
56. Mozambique, (Desire)
57. Catfish, (The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3), 1991
58. Please Mrs. Henry, (The Basement Tapes)
59. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, (Highway 61 Revisited)
60. I Pity the Poor Immigrant, (John Wesley Harding)

61. She Belongs to Me, (Bringing It All Back Home)
62. Ain't Talkin', (Modern Times)
63. Everything Is Broken, (Oh Mercy)
64. From A Buick Six, ( (Highway 61 Revisited)
65. I Want You, (Blonde On Blonde)
66. Girl From the North Country, (Nashville Skyline)
67. 'Til I Fell in Love With You, (Time Out of Mind)
68. If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Bootleg Series, Vol. 2)
69. Million dollar Bash (The Basement Tapes)
70. Not Dark Yet, (Time Out of Mind)