“You’re nobody if you don’t get booed sometime”

Bob Dylan has made a career out of confounding expectations and doing the unexpected. He became popular in the early 60’s as a solitary Folk musician, writing the era’s most important folk and protest songs; but at the Newport Folk festival in 1965 Dylan started using electrified instruments and singing loud rock and roll music – much to the shock and disappointment of his purist folk fans.

In the late 60’s, at the height of the psychedelic rock movement, Dylan went to Nashville and released a couple of down home simple country albums unlike anything he had ever recorded – which greatly puzzled the legion of his folk-rock followers.

In the 70’s Dylan, who was born and raised in the Jewish faith, became a born-again Christian and released three powerful albums of Christian music that were not well received by his Jewish friends or his non-religious fan base.

During the first Gulf war at a time when the popularity of the war was at its patriotic height, Bob Dylan went on the Grammy awards and sang his most biting anti-war protest song “Masters of War”. The audience sat silently while Dylan sang about the corrosive effects of America’s military-industrial complex.

Dylan lost a lot of his supporters during these career transitions as people abandoned and disparaged him because he did not live up to the image and expectations that they had created for him. But that didn’t bother Bob, as long as he was being authentic to his art. An interviewer once asked him how it felt to be booed by the audience while he was performing – Dylan replied “Miles Davis has been booed. Hank Williams was booed. Stravinsky was booed. You’re nobody if you don’t get booed sometime.”

Bob Dylan’s goal was not to be popular or famous; in fact he shied away from those things. He was bothered and annoyed with the fame that came from the acclaim he received as a musician. So troubled by it was he that he deliberately made bad music at times and played up the stereotype of an out-of-touch drug addicted musician just so people would leave him and his family alone and stop expecting him to have the answers to all of their life’s questions.

I think we all can learn an important lesson about Bob’s approach to life. It is human nature to want to be liked; but sometimes in our desire to be popular we are pressured to do things that don’t feel right. It is at those times that we need to have the courage to think for our-self and to do what we feel is right  – regardless of what other people think or whether it will be popular or not.

I have taken unpopular positions at times in my life that I do not regret even though they came with some unpleasant consequences. These include:

• Standing up for a Jewish friend who was being bullied at high school – and as a result becoming an outcast with some of the school’s more popular students.
• Insisting that my college fraternity participate in charitable activities and scheduling certain fraternity bonding events where alcohol and girls were not permitted.
• Refusing to go out for lunch with co-workers during the Lenten season to avoid breaking my spiritual promise to Fast.
• Turning down a promotion at work because it would have involved extensive traveling, possible relocation of my family and more time away from my wife and young daughters.
• Actively participating in prison ministry programs that help the incarcerated – even though many friends and family did not feel that these prisoners deserved to be helped.

In all those situations I did what I felt was best and I believe those decisions helped to shape me and give my life a positive direction. For those of you out there who are also willing to hear the boos for doing what you believe is right – I applaud you.