[Darris McNeely] Are you a Bob Dylan fan? A lot of people are. Bob Dylan's been around a long time, many decades, making music – as long as I can remember. And he's still playing, as far as I know, today. I have a friend of mine that looks at Bob Dylan almost as a deity, almost as a god. He goes around to multiple Bob Dylan concerts whenever he can, he analyzes the words in the lyrics of the songs, and he tries to find meaning of life from the words of a Bob Dylan tune. That may be a little extreme, but it testifies to the popularity of Mr. Dylan. Recently, a large compilation of his work came out, and it was studied by some people, using the internet, using the search engines that are available, and really delving into the origins of the lyrics of Bob Dylan's songs. You know what they found? They found that much of what he had written, many of the famous lyrics, had been found in other writings from other authors, poets, musicians, and sources, going back decades and even more than a hundred years. In fact, as they combed through the archives of Mr. Dylan's music, they found elements of material from Ernest Hemingway, the American author. They even found some material from travel guides. And yes, they even found poetry from an obscure American Civil War poet embedded in some of the lyrics of Bob Dylan.
Now, I looked at that and I recognized, you know what? It's interesting. I write, I speak, and we all have to – when you do that as a published individual, you have to be very careful to avoid plagiarism – and if you do borrow someone else's words, you must give attribution, appropriately. That's just the way it is done. But I also recognize that we are all the sum of what we have read and observed and been a part of throughout our life, and sometimes that does slip in. A lot of famous people have been caught, unintentionally perhaps, using material from other people, without giving proper attribution. And so, Mr. Dylan's – the discovery of his lyrics and his words being used from multiple sources for years, decades, and even centuries past, probably shouldn't surprise us – especially given the power of search on the internet today, where so much information is out there, and it can be easily obtained. It shows the power of the internet.
It also shows us one other principle that I think we should understand, especially when it comes to, maybe a musician, or a poet, or an author – someone whom we may look up to, someone in a sense who kind of speaks to us musically or poetically to us – and be very careful that we recognize sometimes that we're all human. In Ecclesiastes 1:9 it says this: "That which has been is what will be. That which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." There is nothing new under the sun. This was written by Solomon more than 2000 years ago – a long time ago. And he wrote then, as he surveyed all that was in front of him, "There's nothing new under the sun." And so we fast forward back to today and look at the lyrics of anyone – someone's words, and the ideas, sentiments, and all that is spoken about, written about – we have to realize that someone, somewhere, whether documented or not in the past, has probably said the same thing. What does it teach us? We're all human. The word of God endures forever. As Solomon came to recognize at the end of this book, the whole total of man's summed up life is to fear God and to keep the commandments. Let's learn to worship God. Let's learn to look at human beings for what they are, not as people espousing, necessarily, the ultimate meaning in life. God gives us that in His word, and God Himself is the original. That, I think, is a big takeaway from the life of Mr. Bob Dylan, or any other artist for that example, and even for our own lives.
