Anyway they already expect you

To just give a check

To tax deductable charity organizations

And the audience cheered parts of "It's Alright, Ma."

Nevertheless what was perhaps most haunting in the audience's response to the second song was the selectivity of its applause. The sound system probably limited which words people heard, but still the audience seemed to hear or at least anticipate those lines with fairly consistent political meanings: "...others say don't hate nothing at all/Except hatred" "It's easy to see without looking too far/That not much/ Is really sacred." "But even the president of the United States/Sometimes must have/to stand naked." These are the apparently defiant lines, the pacifist lines, the moralistic, political lines. But the song goes on:

While some on principles baptized

To strict party platform ties

Social clubs in drag disguise

Outsiders they can freely criticize

Tell nothing except who to idolize

And then say God bless him.

The political thrust of this message rings just as clear: Don't join. The Movement's an illusion, a fan club. Nothing's changed, and you're not going to be the one to change the world now.

Left with these contradictory moments, an audience's response to Dylan is bound to be ambiguous. Is it just people's frustration with the politics of a movement that has not yet succeeded that generates their appreciation? Is it that Dylan continues to sing in the comforting voice, however poetic, of the middle class white man? Does his message lie in the passivist, more than the pacifist strain in his music? Or does Dylan's appeal still lie in the undercurrent of moralism, the attractiveness of a message like that of "Blowin' in the Wind," the song with which he chose to begin the evening concert's second half? The one time Dylan attempted manifesto was two years ago with "George Jackson," a song which for blandness alone deserves its present obscurity. But the plea for freedom still rings powerfully, even if in middle class, individualistic terms.

One thing the audience was happy not to do was pass definitive judgment on Dylan's politics. Virtually all his songs were meant to stress the theme of individualism. Maybe Dylan has moved emotionally from "Don't Think Twice" to "If Not for You," but choosing to sing only the first song this week was deliberate. Indeed, if anything, his stunning performance seemed a conscious attempt to prove that being himself, for Dylan, is a helluva lot to be. The audience seconded that judgment.

Where Dylan will go now is, as usual, uncertain. From his reaction to the audience, what is hardest to imagine is how a man who enjoys performing so much stayed in hiding so long. Advance reviews of his soon-to-be-issued album are raves, and he will reportedly net a million for himself from this tour. His political contribution notwithstanding, Dylan seems satisfied he has not been imprisoned by his money or his image as anti-middle class poet. Monday evening, he offered as an encore the same song he started with, a song which pointedly expressed his relationship to the audience:

I'm just gonna let you pass,

Yes, and I'II go last.

Then time will tell who fell

And who's been left behind,

When you go your way and I go mine.