"Now that it turns out Barack Obama and Bob Dylan share a mutual admiration, the analysis can be the beginning of what all this means and how Dylan's oracular, obscure lyrics might shed light on Obama's candidacy. After all, the two men are among the most highly analyzed of their times. Dylan's songs have prompted a talmudic literature so extensive as to constitute an entire field of study, with every utterance and offhand lyric studied as though it were a scrap of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And analyzing Obama's significance has become an equal obsession in some quarters. Put the two together and you get a sort of harmonic convergence of delphic inquiry, a perfect storm of over-analysis. You can picture a group of geeks in a room somewhere--the sort of people who would otherwise be arguing about the finer points of Klingon grammar, or who used to believe that Paul was dead--cross-referencing Dylan's lyrics with Obama's speeches.

An interesting element of Obama's musical preferences, by the way, as described in the issue of Rolling Stone out today, is that they track some of the candidate's key demographic support groups. For instance, the candidate says he likes the rappers Jay-Z and Ludacris, and so do many of the young, hip and/or African-American voters who have lent so much energy to his campaign. Obama also cites among his favorites some of the well-worn staples of classic rock radio--songs by the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder--likely to resonate with the educated, upper middle-class voters that form the other key pillar of Obama's support."

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