The Band, the most self-conscious American band, have transformed everything they’ve touched into a permanent image of the past as it was supposed to have been, which is as good a definition of mythologizing as rock requires. Among the more obvious recent examples, culled from American artists: Dylan’s interpretations of John Wesley Hardin and Billy the Kid the Eagles’ underrated parable of a rock band as an aging group of obsolete outlaws, Desperado, and Steve Miller’s attempts to unify new and old myths through the creation of personas like the Gangster of Love and the Space Cowboy. They have been defining and redefining myths and icons, symbols that can stand for both their private feelings and those that transcend their personal point of view and speak to the audience’s collective consciousness. The best rock lyricists have always used words in just those ways. In the meantime, he has cut himself off from all the other ways in which lyrics can be used - most importantly, to create imaginative worlds in which characters, ideas, fantasies and illusions are invented and appreciated apart from our interest in the artist’s private life, per se. Ten years from now he may have accumulated enough personal data on which to base another as provocative. John Lennon was good for one great album based on musical direct address, Plastic Ono Band. To write about oneself literally, in the first person, presumes a more interesting personal life and philosophy than most rock lyricists possess. Everyone eventually winds up writing about themselves - the problem is finding the best way to go about it.
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