A "Tempest" on the horizon

By Andrew W.
Griffin

Red
Dirt Report, editor

Posted: August 3, 2012

reddirtreporter@gmail.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – Incredibly, singer-songwriter and
American icon Bob Dylan is releasing his 35^th studio album, called Tempest, according to a new article in
Rolling Stone, on Sept. 11, 2012, exactly 11 years to the day after his Love and Theft LP was released.

Should we look at that as meaning anything?

When the Rolling Stone interviewer Mikal Gilmore
notes that some of the references in the the title track, “Tempest,” are not
historically accurate. At this comment, Dylan fires back: “But a songwriter
doesn’t care about what’s truthful. What he cares about is what should’ve
happened, what could’ve happened. That’s its own kind of truth. It’s like
people who read Shakespeare plays, but they never see a Shakespeare play. I
think they just use his name.”

Gilmore then notes that Dylan’s mention of
Shakespeare raises a question: The English playwright’s final work was called The Tempest, and some have already asked
if Dylan’s Tempest is “intended as a
last work by the now 71-year-old artist?”

Dylan dismissed Gilmore’s suggestion, responding:
“Shakespeare’s last play was called The
Tempest. It wasn’t called just plain Tempest.
The name of my record is just plain Tempest.
It’s two different titles.”

Indeed.

But is it deliberate? Has Bob Dylan plugged into the
synchromystic zeitgeist that points to a storm on the horizon? A tempest, as it
were? And a “tempest” in reference to the Titanic disaster? Of course we linked
that event to the Costa Concordia disaster earlier this year.

Twilight
Language’s Loren Coleman has been following this “storm”
theme for a while now, particularly since the massacre at the Aurora, Colorado
Century 16 movie theater – in theatre number 9.

And of course the idea of a “tempest” is something
we have been talking about in regards to the current London Summer Olympics. Of
course in the opening ceremony we have actor Kenneth Branagh read a line from
Shakespeare’s The Tempest. We have
the line, from The Tempest’s Caliban
(freakish offspring of a powerful witch and a devil):  “Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises.”
That line is also inscribed on the large bell at Olympic Stadium in London. Of course the "aisles" in Theatre No. 9 were full of noises early in the morning of July 20th - something that Twilight Language predicted.

The chief character of The Tempest, as we have previously noted, is Prospero. Shakespeare
(or was it Francis Bacon?) is said to have based Prospero on Queen Elizabeth
1’s “secret agent 007” John Dee, back in the 16^th Century (not
unlike Aurora’s “Century 16 theater … number 9, number 9, number 9 …). That is
something we have discussed at length here. And now we have film's James Bond (monosyllabic first and last names - like John Dee) as Secret Agent 007 with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, jumping out of a helicopter over Olympic stadium. A synchromystic echo over the centuries?

So, let’s look at Dylan’s upcoming Tempest album. You have song titles
including “Soon After Midnight.” “Long and Wasted Years.” Scarlet Town.” Early Roman Kings.” Of course there is “Tempest” and
the song “Pay in Blood” with the line “I’ll pay in blood, but not my own.” And
note “Scarlet Town.” This would echo the blood spilled in Aurora – a “red dawn”
event – in the state of Colorado (Spanish for “colored red”).

And wrapping things up on Tempest is “Roll On, John,” Dylan’s tribute to his friend John
Lennon, the slain Beatle who was on the verge of a comeback in 1980. In the
song, Dylan quotes a line from Lennon’s “Come Together,” the same track
up-and-coming British rock act Arctic Monkeys performed during the Olympics
opening ceremony. Seeing a pattern here?

There is a dark vibe to Tempest, just reading the song titles alone. Dylan said he
originally wanted to make a religious album. I’m not sure for what “religion.”
Is he still a Christian? Does it matter? We do know he said in a 1983
interview: “Whoever said I was Christian? Like Gandhi, I’m Christian, I’m
Jewish, I’m a Moslem, I’m a Hindu, I am a humanist.” This was the same year he released Infidels, an album that was evidence of the end of Dylan's Christian journey. Or was it?

And then there are those who say Dylan alluded to
“selling his soul to the devil” (“chief commander”) during a 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley.
See it here and decide for yourself. I don't necessarily think it's the "devil," Robert Johnson-style. Knowing Dylan, he can be sly with his wording. Now, as for a lot of these new pop stars and hip-hop kings, we'll let Vigilant Citizen look at that.

Regardless of what is going on on Tempest, it sounds
like it could be one of Dylan’s best latter-day recordings. We look forward to
seeing him and Mark Knopfler in Tulsa this fall.

Copyright
2012 Red Dirt Report