‘아나키적 엠퍼시’ 관점에서 본 밥 딜런의 「Like a Rolling Stone」

Abstract

Bob Dylan's folk rock single “Like a Rolling Stone” has been evaluated as one of the greatest songs of all time in popular music history. Use of electric instruments in folk music was considered a provocative experiment in terms of sound, and the lyrics of the song surprised the audience because the lyrics expressed resentment, mockery, and ridicule of a woman, Miss Lonely, who has drastically fallen in social status. The taunting and jeering tone contrasted with the optimistic and encouraging ones other contemporary songs had. This paper argues against the generally accepted interpretation that the narrator of the song treats Miss Lonely with a negative and criticizing attitude. This paper draws on Brady Mikako's concept, anarchic empathy, which is an ability to “understand and appreciate another person's feelings, experience, etc” which is achieved while a person belongs to nowhere. This paper argues that the narrator requests, by asking the repeated question in the refrain, “How does it feel?”, that the woman develop an ability to explain her experience in her own words. The listeners are also asked to employ empathy and imagine how Miss Lonely, though not worthy of sympathy, would feel. When Miss Lonely is interpreted to be Dylan himself, the song becomes Dylans' declaration of independence as an artist, which says he will resist against being defined as an artist serving a certain goal or a purpose.