In the film Amedeus (1984), protagonist Austrian court composer Antonio Salieri describes the antagonist of the film -- Mozart -- as having both the voice of God and an unseemly, juvenile temperament. What Salieri means by “the voice of God” is Mozart’s totally integrated ability to produce innovative, beautiful music that somehow makes sense on a prelanguage level -- you can almost hear your mind clicking into place when encountering some of Mozart’s harmonies. Put another way, the composer seemed to have innate access to deeply complex mathematical musical progressions that invoke a logical completeness, release, satisfaction. But the irony that eventually drives Salieri insane -- the crux of Amedeus -- derives from the fact that Mozart’s a seriously unrefined character, and so to Salieri undeserving of the gift God bestowed him.

You might be able to compare Amedeus's Mozart to Bob Dylan, if you were in an uncharitable mood. Throughout his immensely influential five-decade-long career, Dylan's persona has teemed with indignation, difficulty, unwillingness to participate, and desire to stay on the outside of just about every label, movement, and idea with which he's been associated. As idealistic or authentic as the message of Dylan's go fuck yourself attitude was (whose target, mainstream journalists and pop culture, deserved) --  especially in the 60s -- there's also a sense of indulgence and affected performance to it, a sense that the guy was just not a very pleasant person to be around if you weren't in his brand of know.

It was in NYC where Dylan established himself as a unique intellectual voice in folk music, after growing up in a bleak, nondescript mining town in rural Minnesota. Within a year of moving to the city, he had already risen from the Village coffeeshop/cafe/open-mic scene and been swooped by Columbia Records, and within two years, he and folk singer Joan Baez had become prominent (if unwilling, in Bob’s case) figures in the Civil Rights Movement. Dylan's aggressively cynical lyrics stood in direct opposition to the characteristic cookie-cutter pop of the 60s, and very much channeled the emerging zeitgeist of youth and activist culture. Throughout the rest of the decade, Dylan became a rock icon as his popularity soared, changing the definition of pop music and what pop stars could be.

The profound effect Dylan's music had on youth may have been due to the fact that it described what they knew before they knew it. Many of his fans and peers had grown up in the suburbs under the wing of their parents, and their migration into dense urban centers like New York City catapulted them into a liberating psychological space free of parental and small-town expectations where the atmosphere was positively electric with exploratory new ideas and lifestyle experimentation. While mainstream America continued to buy into sugar-coated pop and status-quo politics during the loss of innocence and harshness of experience represented by moments like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the tension of the Civil Rights Movement, the core of youth culture began to swell with unease, cynicism, grim existentialism, and the search for something more realistic than the mainstream worldview.

So, for example, it was no surprise that Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone," which featured totally jaded, accusing, vitriolic lyrics unheard of in popular music at that time, went the 60s version of viral when it was released in 1965.

And Dylan’s persona, whether he liked it or not, was pretty spot-on in terms of capturing the angst of a generation expected to perpetuate a myth of ultra-positivity and “everything’s fine." He was indignant in interviews, often going beyond a more socially palatable version of hiding his distaste or simply being blunt about his beliefs to actually going on the offensive by being deliberately flippant and inflammatory. See for example the video above, in which Dylan brings a prop just so he can frustrate journalists by being evasive about it. Or the first part of the clip below, where Dylan just refuses to say anything about his own album cover. Or maybe one of the most extreme instances, where at a National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee award ceremony dedicated to honoring Dylan’s prominence in the Civil Rights Movement, he accepted his award drunk, characterizing the members of the committee as old and balding and saying that he saw a part of himself -- and everyone in the room -- in JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. This is a pretty intense thing to say at an awards ceremony for being an outstanding civil rights activist.

Throughout the 70s and 80s, Dylan’s critical reception was a bit more mixed than it was toward his output in the 60s. He toured and recorded extensively, and allegedly became a born-again Christian, though statements he's made on the subject after this period suggest otherwise. His touring and recording continued into the 80s, performing with such acts as the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. In ’88, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen, who said that “Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual.”

Currently on his so-called Neverending Tour, Dylan’s still at it, with upcoming tour dates on the US East Coast. His releases have continued to be heralded by critics as inventive and unique while remaining characteristically Dylan. And it's still him against the world -- just watch Scorsese's No Direction Home or read/watch any of the myriad interviews he still deigns to give. Only now his particular brand of personal rebellion seems a bit out of place -- an artifact of 60s counterculture where it was truly relevant and useful -- especially against the backdrop of his Pepsi sponsorship and collaboration with will.i.am, Cadillac commercials, Victoria Secret ads, and other sellout-ish stuff he's done over the past decade or so that stands in direct opposition to his anti-message of the 60s. Regardless, Dylan does have the voice of God. You can't deny him that.