It ain't me, babe

The ad is a ridiculously intense scene played out to Dylan's tune "Love Sick." It features supermodel Adriana Lima as an angel sporting wings, push-up bra, underpants, and spike heels as she floats through the streets of Venice. A shaggy Dylan, dressed all in black, stands around a bit awkwardly in the background looking as though he had been voted off his senior tour bus and would give just about anything for a mug of strong coffee.

Dylan tosses his cowboy hat on the ground, and the angel picks it up and wears it. That probably doesn't mean they're going steady, even though this is the second time the Dylan song has been used by the lingerie purveyors. Last year's commercial featured a group of angels in their skivvies dancing around the Palazzo.

That commercial also set off howls from the purists, as did Dylan's loan of an unreleased version of "Forever Young" to Apple Computer in 2000 and his approved use of "The Times They Are A-Changin" in a Bank of Montreal commercial in 1996 and in a Coopers & Lybrand accounting spot in 1994.

The howls are even louder this year because Dylan isn't just selling his music but, by some lights, his very soul for actually appearing in an ad for the first time. He's being blasted on computer message boards, Web logs and in the print media for conspiring with the enemy once reviled in the song "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."

Those lyrics include: "Advertising signs that con you/Into thinking you're the one/That can do what's never been done/That can win what's never been won . . ."

But the critics should remember that Dylan also wrote "Don't Think Twice," and "Like a Rolling Stone" and was the subject of the 1967 documentary "Don't Look Back" -- a sung philosophy of change.

Acoustic troubadour, amplified rocker, countercultural icon, born-again Christian, Old Testament prophet, wizened folk archivist -- Dylan's career has been the essence of versatility.

His songs range from the historical ("The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down") to the oracular ("All Along the Watchtower"). Who is Bob Dylan? Anyone he wants to be. As he said in a 1984 Rolling Stone interview: "People call you this or they call you that. But I can't respond to that because then it seems like I'm defensive. And you know, what does it matter, really?"

A ladies' underwear ad cannot possibly define this cultural chameleon. And if one looks closely at the well-lined face staring into the camera, there seems to be just the hint of a smirk at the whole silly sell. Dylan's public should share the laugh, and the music, with a satisfied mind.