The latest rock 'n' roll 'conspiracy theories' — Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and The Beatles

The protest song series, sort of

Welcome, everyone. Today I’m going to be talking about three musical ‘entities’ — Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and the Beatles — that are coming in for what I consider to be radical reinterpretations.

All three were, in some way or another, part of the counterculture of the sixties. We’ve already covered two songs by Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Masters of War,” and one song by John Lennon/the Plastic Ono Band, “Give Peace a Chance.”

We didn’t cover a song by Jim Morrison and the Doors, but in fact they did put out a Vietnam War protest song called “The Unknown Soldier,” in 1968. You might want to watch their live performance (above) in which Jim gets metaphorically shot onstage.

In case you didn’t know, Jim graduated from UCLA’s famed film school just prior to co-founding the Doors and also had some student acting experience, so dramatics were his ‘thing’ (and this has a bearing on the conspiracy theory related to him).

Because this post is not my usual research-reliant approach, but instead focused on giving opinions and sharing some personal stories, it’s this month’s dedicated post for paid and founding subscribers.

But don’t worry if you’re not a paid subscriber, because you can check out the reinterpretations of these artists for yourself and see how you feel about them:

• the Hollywood reinterpretation of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in the film The Complete Unknown, available now on several streaming services

• the conspiracy theory about Jim Morrison in the documentary Before the End, which provides evidence that he may be alive and well and living in Syracuse NY as a maintenance man named Frank

• a new theory about the far more profound impact of the Beatles, based on evidence that John and Paul were in a romantic and sexual relationship, in Faith Current’s SubStack series.

With regard to the Bob Dylan film, I’ve read a slew of reviews by SubStack writers and I found myself most in synch with the reactions of Matthew Ingate. I will be quoting from him in this post, and I recommend reading his piece.

Before we dive in, in case you haven’t seen it, I want to bring to your attention Rolling Stone’s list of “The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time.” Thanks to Stephen Craig Love for linking to this in one of his recent posts.

You will see in the list quite a few of the songs we covered in this series, my favorites and substack writers’ favorites, as well as some mentioned in comments. But you will also see a lot more that didn’t come up. It’s an interesting and provocative list.

Also, a very fun interview with the last surviving member of The Monkees, Mickey Dolenz, just came out in The Guardian. You didn’t know that was a conspiracy to separate us kids from our allowance, did you?

With some regret, we are saying goodbye to the protest song series with today’s post. Never say never, and it hasn’t stuck before, but that’s the intention. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

OK, on to the so-called conspiracy theories.