Talk:The Wicked Messenger

A fact from The Wicked Messenger appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 22 October 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the title of the Bob Dylan song "The Wicked Messenger" mirrors a Proverbs passage, which reads "A wicked messenger falleth into mischief; but a faithful ambassador is health"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/October.

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Bob Dylan Mid‑importance

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Interpretation[edit]

Calling the song "nonsense" is not really right, especially when unsourced. I'm not satisfied with [1] but at least they try. No doubt it has a meaning if properly understood. At a first guess, I'd say the messenger is Dylan, the "good news" = gospel, and the confrontation is over religious differences. Wnt (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that to call the song "nonsensical" is not right, it's subjective, perhaps WP:OR. I have substituted the word "opaque". Mick gold (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mick Gold's decision. By saying "nonsensical", I wasn't directly referring to the song itself being nonsense. I was simply trying to convey that the song was, perhaps, difficult to interpret at first. The lyrics, obviously, could have hidden meanings that don't appear at first (as is the case with many Dylan songs). So yes, perhaps "opaque" is a much better word. - I.M.S. (talk) 21:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notes & References[edit]

I added sections called Notes and References. This has been changed to:

References 1. In-Line 2. General

Is this right? On the Bob Dylan article, there is a section called Notes which are ref/cit, and a section called References which are the books that these notes derive from. The same is true of the articles on Frank Zappa and Michael Jackson. All these 3 articles are WP:FA, so I assumed that this is the conventional lay-out. Mick gold (talk) 22:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mick, I think you're right. I've always done it the "reference" way, but looking at all those articles you talked about, I believe that "notes" would be the proper header. Feel free to change it back. Thanks for alerting me - I.M.S. (talk) 01:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, no problem. Mick gold (talk) 06:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]