Me ’n Bob Dylan.
Me’n Bob Dylan first got together in 1975. We met through an intermediary, a tiny, moustachioed Geordie accountant called Ken with the features of a vertically challenged Apache who had been thrown in the hot wash, warrior-hook nose, high cheekbones and imperious and coldly mysterious mien, crowned with a shock of jet black hair. He did not carry a tomahawk. Ken was the first proper Bobcat I had met and such relationships lead to an almost continual exposure to Bobness of all kinds. A kind of cultish indoctrination but with a large joint maybe substituting for the waterboarding bits and a chilled setting where the Bobcat endlessly spins his (sometimes hers but not too commonly) carefully curated vinyl discs of Bob’s truth-strummings . Bobcats seem to be obsessive collectors and, for many of them the vinyl revival was immaterial as they will just keep on keeping on, till the wheels fall off and burn, as it were.
Ken however did have one early recognised substantial problem. He appeared to suffer from significant alcohol induced psychosis. After only three pints the wiry little Geordie would up and target a likely victim or group of victims, it mattered not how many, how big or how tall. And he would proceed to scare them shitless. I will always remember him confronting a group of hairy bikers enjoying an innocent pint in a Blackpool pub and offering them all outside where he was going to ‘fook the lot of yoo fooking bastards’. The bikers who had been sprawled across their table like a tribe of vikings out for rape and plunder, meekly gathered their helmets and left, looking back at him fearfully.
I explained to Ken patiently, for the umpteenth time, that I could not tolerate his continual transformation into a psychopathic bully after consuming miniscule amounts of alcohol. I told him that scaring people was wrong and the clincher, I told him Bob would never approve of such behaviour.
We had a row. He offered me outside for a fooking. Upon the instant of the fight, He punched a metal bin hard enough to break his knuckles and truth be told I never actually saw him fight anyone. It was all to do with the threat of a fight, with the fear arising from his violent presentation. I went off in a huff. He chased after me and begged, literally begged me, to return with him to his house claiming his wife would never understand if I didn’t go back with him. Despite my better judgement I went back and as I mused upon the surreal night’s happenings he put ‘Blood on the Tracks’ on and I finally understood, listening to that album for maybe the tenth time, what all the fuss was about. All my heart’s pain came welling up. All the loss. All the missed chances. But hell! We’re only sitting around listening to music. Why are we all sinking into maudlin musings, suicidal ideation and holding back the tears as well as the night? That’s Bob for you. He’ll sucker punch you in a minute. ‘Tell her she can look me up…If she’s got the time…’ Nobody can kick you in the guts so snarlingly, so caringly, so duplicitously, so poetically.
Typically, as a scaredy-cat kind of a guy, I went back to the beginning of the work, so as not to miss anything, not the total beginning but just to ‘Freewheelin Bob Dylan’ with the picture of Bobby and Suze crunching through the New York snow, over the graves of countless dead Indians. Cute.
But it wasn’t really what I was up for. ‘Girl from the North Country’ is a pretty song for sure but it didn’t measure up to the ‘Blood on the Tracks’ pain and rage. I moved quickly on to ‘Another Side of Bob Dylan’ with Bob in Guthrie-style workshirt and ‘Grapes of Wrath’ style ‘seen-it-all-eyes’ on the cover. Bob, who’s never jumped a train or done a days physical labour, slaving in the burning sun of a Californian fruit pickin’ farm with his Mexican compadres, in his life, staring out at you like he’s definitely bound for glory. But ‘Chimes of Freedom’ is a great song, and it speaks of an ability to feel the pain and transmit it with enormous empathic resonance. ‘Times they are a changin’? Well I’ve always thought it was a shit song man! Get out of the way! Hells-a-comin’ to breakfast sort of vibe.
So I moved on to ‘Bringing it all back home’ and that was it. I touched the raging wellspring of genius from which I recognised the eruption of ‘Blood on the tracks’ and my mind was well and truly blown. Did ’Subterranean Homesick Blues’ predict rap? Like many young lost souls I knew without doubt that I was down with Johnny in the basement watching him mix it up.
In 1974 I opened an Open Air concert in the amphitheatre in Stanley Park in Blackpool (yes yes, I know!) and sang, solo, ‘It’s alright Ma, I’m only bleeding.’ I must have been crazy but I learned that a guitar in your hand is a major attractor to the female sex. Thanks for that Bob! Thanks for all that pain! Thanks for nuthin’ Bobby!
I spent hours listening to the album on repeat play and allowing it’s chaotic rhymes and antsy visionary images to wash over me, turning me into a tiny Bob-figurine. I changed my hair to duplicate Bob’s mop, got a leather jacket and obtained a new nose from somewhere. I began to smoke incessantly and even slept wearing my Raybans.
Then I encountered the inevitability of ‘Highway 61 Revisited.’
The miracle of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ described so memorably by Bruce Springsteen as the first hit of the snare drum being like the sound of the door of your mind being kicked open.
This album changed the way I thought about music. It changed me. It alerted me to the magical marriage of snarly poetry and rasping guitar. It got me loving the organ. Whoever would have invested so much in a whining harmonica? It taught me the meaning of resistance through poetry and song. Like all the great texts it educated me.
Because I too was in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues. I too was checking out suitable properties on Desolation Row. I was obsessed with the wee speed-addled chappie. I was in love with Bob’s rage. I had become a Bobcat.
Fast forward with me to Earl’s Court 1983 and I’m staring at the thousands of clean looking Christians holding their lit lighters aloft and occasionally shouting ‘Praise the Lord!’ or ‘Hallelujah!’ To return to my spinster analogy I regarded them with the curiosity of someone attending a fancy dress party where a particular few are naked. What exactly are these people doing here I thought.
Bob’s up there on stage looking a tad chunkier than I thought he should. And he looks a bit pissed off. A bit miserable. It’s the Shot of Love Tour and I’m encountering the last ebbs and flows of Bob’s born-again conversion.
Jesus had personally spoken to him, of course he had, who else would he speak to on this bereft planet apart from Bob and maybe the Dalai Lama? But Bob was getting bored-you could tell that.
With a wave of his hand and a snarl, he sends the Band off and returns alone with his acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Here’s his set list for the night-(A Tammy Wynette cover!!!!)
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Believe in You
Like a Rolling Stone
'Til I Get It Right (Tammy Wynette cover)
Man Gave Names to All the Animals
Maggie's Farm
Simple Twist of Fate
Ballad of a Thin Man
Girl From the North Country
Dead Man, Dead Man
Slow Train
Abraham, Martin and John (Dion cover)
Slow Train
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
In the Summertime
Mr. Tambourine Man
Solid Rock
Just Like a Woman
Watered-Down Love
What Can I Do for You?
All Along the Watchtower
Lenny Bruce
When You Gonna Wake Up?
In the Garden
Blowin' in the Wind
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
That’s not a bad little menu for a Bobcat! But for me it proved to be a temporary Swansong and we were to part for many years.
The Christianity killed off my mad enthusiasm and with the death of John Lennon I went off with The Beatles and Miles Davis and Stockhausen to another party. I still flirted with Bob though, like old friends whose paths have diverted in the wood but who remain in touch for birthdays, weddings and funerals.
Then, years later I got hold of ‘Time out of Mind’ slapped it on my playlist, listened to it about twenty times and Bam! There I was once again hit by these amazing lyrics, and this great tight band. TOOM was released in 1982 but I collided with it in 2018 and here I remain, a returnee to the fold, having just purchased the Mobile Fidelity vinyl Ultrasound recording of ‘Blood on the tracks’ for zillions of pounds and wow, but its mean tragedy drills deeper than ever.
November 2022- And here comes ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ with it’s 17 minute clincher track
1983 fast forwards to 2022. The gig at Manchester Apollo. The tickets are scammed online with massively inflated prices with viagogo. The t shirts at £30 each. Bob behind his piano. A bit doddery but in fine voice with amazing interpretations of 'I contain multitudes' and especially a wonderful reinterpretation of ‘it’s all over now Baby Blue .’
I am struck initially by the hordes of Mancunians filling the theatre carrying giant 2 pint plastic glasses and I sit there prune faced and tight lipped like a disapproving spinster invited to an orgy. They’ll be pissing all through the gig I say spitefully to my wife, Millie who tell’s me to chill the fuck out. Bob and his band emerge out of darkness onto the stage. Is it him? Where is he? Oh he’s there in his sparkly jacket. Yes its him! I can just make out his head behind that piano bobbing up and down like a sniper’s invitation-'they shot him down like a dog' he later drawls.
Dylan's band were:
Tony Garnier – bass.
Charley Drayton – drums.
Bob Britt – guitar.
Doug Lancio – guitar.
Donnie Herron – violin, electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel.
And yes, those two pint plastic glass-slurping fuckers were pissing though the entire gig!
