A day belated
So, Bob, you hit 84 yesterday. Those nights at Gerdes in the village, days when poets railed in Washington Square, guitars and folk songs ditched the status quo, and said no. You picked it all up and were free wheelin with new poems that asked questions…“How long must a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea”. Everyone listened and hoped that indeed that the times were a changing.
It was in Newport when yes things did change. You picked up an electric guitar and struck everyone with a jolt. Someone tried to pull the plug. The audience aghast. They didn’t think that times would change quite like that.
One night in a Manchester England concert, from the audience was howled…Judas!...“ I don’t believe you, you’re a liar..”. Your solution to the issue? Turn to the band and yell…“play real fu***n loud” and a rolling stone was born.
One change after another. Inventing yourself on the road. A life of relentless poetic you. I say life instead of career because no poet has or even wants a career. Some of us understood. After continued listening a realization that it wasn’t him we needed to understand, but ourselves we needed to understand. It stands that with any art form if you’re not having a dialogue with it on your own terms you will never understand what lies before you.
A Rolling Thunder Review toured from stage to stage with Dylan driving the bus. Who knows who would join him, Ginsberg, McGuinn, Baez, and all who would hitch along. Where was all this going? Sitting at Kerouac’s grave, he brought Jacks’ spirit with him.
What about that voice? It is the voice given to a troubadour from a time lost. Put the marketing of pop music aside and listen to a voice that screams from the stage of the Greek tragedy. Rock’n roll, blues, country, jazz and folk rolled up into something called Bob Dylan.
Now Bob, you write to us about love and age, you “use to care but things have changed”. Ya with every decade I see myself and all that has changed in every word and stanza. Thanks Bob, the tour never ends. You are after all living in rough and rowdy ways and are of multitudes.