Actually, my question was asked in reply to this statement of yours:

” If its between those two, for me, its Hag hands down. For one, I can understand his vocal delivery, as well as his lyrics. But even besides that, I think Merle Haggard comes from a more authentic place than Dylan. I’ll take a working mans song from a dust bowl refugee over a Jew from MN any day.”

Which said nothing about folk writers – a trait it shared with virtually every post that preceded it. And I asked, “more authentic” with respect to what? A question to which the answer is, at best, “with respect to something totally irrelevant to the discussion.” In my opinion, that’s not a very good answer. Nor am I comforted by subsequent efforts at clarification that seem still to be underpinned by some unexamined stereotypes (like, for instance, that Jews aren’t part of the “folk,” or that Jews are missing from the American working class). You might want to examine them.

Yes, I did mistakenly recall the wrong city in which he grew up. I see how this point invalidates my entire argument.

What would I know about a Jewish persons childhood? I know they would be less inclined to lead the kind of life style that a dust bowl refugee would. I’m not exactly seeing how that is not a reasonable statement. The same way my childhood, as a southern baptist, son of a horse trainer, differs greatly from that of Mormon, daughter of an engineer ex-girlfriend, so do would Merle Haggard on Bob Dylans. From their faith, to the geography from which they came, to the different cultural experiences that those entail. I’m not saying I see Bob Dylan as less American, but, in my opinion, less authentic in his writing.

Sadly, this whole discussion has gotten really long and off topic, all because there are those that jump on the first thing that may be offensive, or heaven forbid, against what they think. I thought McCarthy was dead.

That might have been what you intended, but that’s not what you said, and it in fact exhibits essentially the same problem as in the post that started the discussion. What do you know about the childhood he “would have had” as a Jewish American, and what do you know about his actual childhood? Evidently not that much, as you wrongly referred to him as coming from Duluth, which he didn’t (he grew up in Hibbing, a very different kind of place). So it seems you were leaning on stereotypes rather than on facts, which is generally a bad idea. I asked about the “authenticity” thing in particular since the discussion wasn’t about “working class” songwriters, or “poor songwriters” or even “folk songwriters,” but about American songwriters, and that meant it would be easy to read your comment as suggesting that a Jew from Minnesota (whether Duluth or HIbbing) is less “authentically” American than a white Christian raised in semi-rural California. Which would, of course, be wrong and bigoted. Hence my question – one which, regrettably, remains essentially unanswered.

Beyond that, I’m of the belief that a song – and that’s what the subject is, or at least was, not singers – stands or falls on its own merits. Knowing that Merle Haggard’s dad wasn’t blind, nor his mother deaf, and that he didn’t play in a family band with them as a child doesn’t make “Daddy Frank” a worse song, nor a less “authentic” one, no matter how far its first-person narrative strays from Haggard’s actual life. Songs are art, not reportage.

I made a statement that was completely taken incorrectly. My point was the background of a writer directly affects his writing. The part about him being a Jew was merely pointing towards the childhood would have had, given the culture of the Jewish race/faith. To imply to that I am some sort of anti-semite for stating fact is looking for a reason to be offended. Its not worse than saying my truck is silver. It is silver…just like Bob Dylan is Jewish.

Stormy, I didn’t say Dylan couldn’t write a folk song. I said given the two, I’d prefer Haggard because I feel as though he’s more authentic.

As far as would I rather get parenting advice from a parent or someone with no kids. I’d, of course, prefer to get it from a parent. I don’t, however, think it’s the same as listening to a song about being a parent. getting actual advice is real life and one’s imaginary life, the song being a place where imagination is crucial. I believe it’s very possible for someone to be believable in a song about being a parent even if he/she doesn’t have kids of their own.

Anyway, at this point so many of these artists we’re talking about are so removed from being literally poor and their histories were so long ago that I’d think they’re all on even footing when it comes to being priveleged and technically having to leave that mental space to be able to sincerely sing a song about blue collar life. Alan Jackson is very rich and admits that he never even steps into a grocery store, but his songs don’t come off as pretentious in any way.

As much as I love Haggard and am not even a huge Dylan fan, Dylan comes off as just as authentic as Haggard when he sings (even if it is very poorly) to me.