Bob Dylan: Salute Him When his Birthday Comes

A light hearted look at the compulsion of being a Bob Dylan fan that I am republishing in light of the current hit movie ‘A Complete Unknown’ starring Timothee Chalamet as our erstwhile hero.

Dylan at Kronberg Castle (Hamlet’s Castle) Denmark in 1966

INTRODUCTION:

The name of this Substack, ‘Letters from Desolation Row’, is taken from a Bob Dylan song.

This article was originally written for Bob Dylan’s 75th birthday and I have subsequently updated and republished it a few times in magazines etc.

It’s not the type of fare you usually get from this Substack so thank you for humouring me and giving it a read.

Sometimes we all need some light relief and a day off from trying to save the world.

Come to think of it, that sounds like something the great man himself might have said …..

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The ‘Fifth of May’ appears on your office desk calendar.

What crosses your mind?

To most normal people it’s just another day in close proximity to a possible bank holiday hangover, but to those of us of a certain leaning, it subliminally screams, Bob Dylan.

Without thinking, a switch will flick in your brain and you will immediately begin singing the lyrics from the song ‘Isis’, in Dylan’s unmistakeable nasal tone:

“I married Isis on the fifth day of May

But I could not hold on to her very long

So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away

For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong” (Desire 1975)

It would be all you could do to stop yourself from singing out loud, whether you are at your desk alone or chairing a meeting with the secretarial temp with whom you’ve being trying to portray a level of coolness in the pitiful hope that she might throw some sugar your way.

Of course the ultimate fantasy fulfilled would be if she joined in as you started barking out the lyric.

It’s also very possible at some stage that you seriously considered getting married on said date, regardless of the inconvenience of no girlfriend in your life.

Even though it’s highly unlikely that your fiancée would be named after an Egyptian goddess, at the very least her name would have to scan in line with the song.

The point of this is not that ‘Isis’ is one of Dylan’s greatest songs or that you know the words but that the lyrics explode in your brain instinctively.

You have no control over it.

For better or worse you’ve got the Dylan equivalent of the MRSA superbug.

An obsessive compulsive disorder with a soundtrack to die for.

This superbug has two different but distinct strains - ‘Dylan Borus’ & ‘Dylan Borus Nervosa’.

While both strains leave the afflicted with no control over their Dylan thoughts, a ‘Dylan Borus’ sufferer is able to exercise restraint in not pointing out every Dylan connection they happen upon in the course of their day.

In other words, the general public don’t plan their lives to avoid their presence.

A ‘Dylan Borus Nervosa’ victim like me however just can’t help themselves.

It’s a thin line that I have long ago crossed.

Recently a young child of a friend was singing along to to ‘Rock me Mama like a Wagon Wheel’ sung by Nathan Carter.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and had to proclaim to all and sundry that, and I quote,

“it’s hard to believe that a throwaway Dylan song could be such a hit”.

I didn’t want the words to come out of my mouth but I couldn’t help myself.

It sounded pompous in my head before I said it.

It sounded pompous as I was saying it and the deafening silence afterwards echoed this pomposity.

I could see the fear in the eyes of the others present that the Dylan Rubicon had been crossed and that I might now plough on to try to explain to the un-initiated, the romantic nuances of ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, Bob’s 12 minute epic love song to his wife, Sara.

This could inexorably lead to a glassy eyed dissertation on the longing encapsulated in the tone of the harmonica breaks on ‘Sara’, another paean to his wife/muse/erstwhile plaintiff in a messy divorce case.

Needless to say my friends stopped me in my tracks and the moment passed excruciatingly while my self loathing abated.

It was akin to the proverbial scorpion stinging the fox that is carrying him safely across the river and in the process drowning the both of them.

I do it, like the scorpion because it’s in my nature.

Such a person cannot help themselves, they are only to be pitied.

Another nervous tic of the condition is the compulsion to sprinkle your emails, texts and conversation with scraps of Dylan lyrics as a sort of hidden Freemasons handshake to other Dylan fanatics out there.

My own weakness is for signing off on correspondence with ‘keep on keepin on’.

Yes, it is important not to put ‘g’ on the end of ‘keepin’.

A non-believer will think nothing more of it than I have a regressive hippie gene but a Dylan fan will smile knowingly and automatically tag on the next lines of the lyric in their head which are ….okay let’s not go there.

If you need to be told then you don’t want to know.

I see Dylan connections everywhere.

In songs, in movies and in life’s great journey.

I even see them when some say they don’t exist and they are the best ones.

I see them “in the sky above, in the tall grass, in the ones I love” and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

His lyrics, voice and passion for life bring solace to the heartbroken, ebullience to the joyful and shine an interrogating light on the dark recesses of the human condition.

To the chagrin of those in the 1960’s who tried to anoint him ‘spokesman of a generation’, he has never claimed to have the answers or wished to lead the battle charge against ‘The Man’ but he continues to this day to pose the questions that matter about life, love and mortality.

Since he released his first record in 1961, Dylan has released over 50 albums and all this while playing up to a 100 concerts a year across the globe since 1988.

On May 24th, Bob Dylan celebrates his 82nd birthday and no matter what your taste in popular music, he is owed a debt of gratitude.

Why not uncork a bottle of red, put on your favourite Dylan album and to paraphrase the man himself :

“Salute him when his birthday comes”.

I couldn’t help myself !