"I'm not much of a Dylan Guy..."
I don't know how many times I've said those words or ones like them over the last 39 years of my life. It's a lot though. For 39 years I not only didn't get into Dylan, I often dismissed him. I liked a song here and there, but the Dylan I grew up with wasn't the Dylan of the 1960s who was breaking new ground. It was the Dylan of the 80s.
The year I was born he released "Saved." That's the Dylan I was growing up with. Post "Saved," pre...well...pre-return to writing songs people wanted to hear. When I was young, Dylan wasn't the same Dylan we had before and he hadn't yet become the elder-statesman he would eventually be. It's possible that until I was deep into my teen years, the only Dylan song I really knew was "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." And even then, I thought it was a Clapton song. And if I knew "Like a Rolling Stone" I thought it was probably by the band of the same name.
So, yes. I spent 39 years dismissing Dylan. Up until as recently as this Summer I would find myself saying things like, "I just don't get it" and "A Greatest Hits is more than enough for me." And until this Summer, it was. Even though I knew how much Dylan means to people. That the faithful among us have come to consider him an American Shakespeare. That on historical significance alone it was weird that I had so much Louden Wainwright III and so little Bob Dylan... Even though I knew I was willfully in the wrong. I just wasn't that much of a Dylan-Guy.
Then a strange confluence of events took place. It all goes back to November of 2018 when I was regularly listening to a podcast called "Kurt Vonneguys," which explored the books of author Kurt Vonnegut. One of the hosts (Michael Swaim) would regularly mention his fondness for the Coen Brothers and particularly the movie "Inside Llewyn Davis." If you haven't seen the movie, it is about a down on his luck folk-singer working in the time just prior to Dylan's arrival on the scene, trying to make ends meet. I decided to watch it. It struck an odd tone with me--it's a Coen Brothers movie. It's less about the plot of the story than it is about a mood. Not much happens in the flick. And ultimately I didn't love it or hate it upon first viewing. But it did stick with me and make me want to further explore folk music.
Dylan shows up in the movie. Of course he does. Or rather an actor playing him does. It's not a major spoiler, but it is right at the end of the movie. Llewyn Davis leaves the stage and Bob Dyaln goes on. Dylan's career begins while Davis is outside, getting his ass kicked by an angry fan. Dylan showed up and the other folkies got their asses handed to them. Little did anyone know. Especially me.
I don't want to go into detail in this context, but right after I watched that movie, I found myself plunged into a deeply personal sadness. A very deep depression--I've been fighting depression for my whole life and will always do so. This time it was bad. Maybe the worst it's been. Maybe not. But it was bad, and I wasn't sure how I was going to climb out of it. During that period, I decided I didn't want to associate any of my favorite things with the feelings I was experiencing. As a result, I completely stopped listening to music and rarely watched TV. So I turned to something outside of my usual experience. Something for which I'd always had a fondness, but that wasn't something I spent a ton of time with.
I turned to magic.
In particular, I turned to Penn & Teller. I've been something of a fan of theirs since I was a kid, but only on a surface level. They'd show up on a talk show or elsewhere and I'd think, "Neat! Glad to see they're still doing stuff!" I didn't know much about them other than I thought they were funny and their magic tricks entertained me and also made me think critically. (Which is what GOOD magic done well should always do.) At the time I thought I could use a little magic in my life and thought those guys would be my most fun option.
And it WAS fun. I found myself HAVING fun in a time where I couldn't even trust music to give me that. I was having so much fun I started seeking out everything I could get my hands on from the duo. This included old specials, old SNL and Letterman appearances, their HBO show "Bullshit," and their CW show "Fool Us." But it also included something a lot more life-changing for me (in more than one way) in Penn Jillette's podcast, "Penn's Sunday School." I could talk about the impact Penn has had on my diet (check out his book "Presto") but more important to our cause here, I learned via the show that Penn is a massive Dylan fan. Like a scary, huge, obsessive, BIG fan.
If you listen to Penn's Sunday School, you're likely to hear about Bob Dylan in each episode at least once. I will admit that even then I was thinking, "I understand...I'm like that with The Who. But Dylan just isn't for me." And I'd tune out a little until Penn and his co-hosts would talk about something else. But then one of Penn's Dylan-based stories grabbed my interest and I started enjoying his passion for Dylan. Life is like that. When somebody starts talking about something they genuinely LOVE, it's hard not to listen and get caught up in it. Even if it's not your same passion. Soon I wasn't just enjoying Penn's Dylan stories, I was HOPING for them. Yet even still, I didn't rush out and buy any Dylan. Instead I went out and bought nearly the complete Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel.
Penn Jillette had mentioned in one Sunday School episode that Paul Simon was retiring and discussed Simon's last performance for a bit. I realized I'd always meant to dive into Simon's work and went out and bought a box set of the complete Simon & Garfunkel then downloaded a box set of the complete Paul Simon. And I liked it. A lot. I was already on a folk kick thanks to the Coen Brothers, and Simon and/or Garfunkel fit the bill. And of course even they mention Dylan in "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)." "He's so unhip that when you say Dylan he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas. Whoever he was."
Then one day, out of the blue and because I was still sad about some personal events I remembered that I owned a copy of "Blood on the Tracks." But more importantly, I decided to LISTEN to "Blood on the Tracks." I've always liked the album. I've always considered that to be "MY Dylan record." (I figured everybody only really needed one.) It hit all the right beats for me. It was a deeply moving listen, this time around. I loved it. I loved it so much that I then downloaded the complete "More Blood, More Tracks" Bootleg recordings, just to hear the now legendary "button takes." And that's where I should have known I was in trouble. But even then I was thinking it wouldn't go any farther than an obsessive love of just the one album.
Ha.
In the weeks that followed, Dylan kept coming up. He would be mentioned in conversations where it didn't seem like he should have been named. And I wasn't the one bringing him up. His songs would pop up in unexpected places. And of course Penn Jillette kept talking about him. I found myself unintentionally learning not just about Bob Dylan's music, but also his painting, his iron work, and his whiskey. I even felt the need to rewatch "Inside Llewyn Davis."
Which brings us (finally--sorry!) up to a week ago. I found myself in a Barnes & Noble staring at a wall of Criterion Collection BluRays that were on sale for 50% off. I picked up a documentary called "Festival." It's a (too brief!) exploration of the Newport Folk Festivals of the 1960s. Of course, Dylan is all over that. (I was hoping to see some Leonard Cohen--it hadn't even occurred to me that of course Bob and also Joan Baez would be the stars.)
Realizing the inescapable, I began reading up on Bob online. He's got a pretty good Wikipedia page, if you're interested. I knew by now that I wanted to buy more of his music. And looking through his discography, I quickly realized that there were so many albums I wanted that a box set would be in my best interest. Some light Googling revealed there was one containing every studio album and several live ones from the first album up to 2013. But it was listing for $200-300 and that seemed a little much. I figured maybe I'd be on a long hunt to slowly bump into every record in my local stores for the foreseeable future--and that would only be the ones I REALLY wanted!
Then this past Wednesday, I met an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time and out of nowhere he started talking to me about Bob Dylan. His words were just as passionate as Penn Jillette's, but were more personal and poignant. We were talking about personal things and he had a Dylan lyric for each one of them. And I might have Dan to thank for what came next--Dan and fate, anyway. Dan described Dylan on a mystic level that I've certainly heard people reference before, but this time it was coming from a friend and in reference to what has been weighing on my heart. It was more meaningful. And on the drive home, I played "Time Out of Mind" and REALLY listened to it for maybe the first time in my life--and now even I knew I was in TROUBLE. (Side note -- Dan even kind of looks like a young Bob Dylan, now that I think of it. Huh.)
The next day, on a whim, I walked into a record store (Planet Score in Maplewood, MO). That's not an unusual practice for me, and I had an agenda that took me there that had nothing to do with Dylan. I wasn't there to look for anything even tangential to Dylan. But then...I saw it. The box set was there! The out of print, 47-disc, complete (through 2013) box set of all of Dylan's work. JUST SITTING THERE! And it was $150. That's less than $4 per CD for 47 discs. With only three studio albums having come out since then. So I took it home, making a small stop to also grab a bottle of the Heaven's Door Tennessee Bourbon to go with it.
In two days, I've made it into the 1970s, and I've been meticulously noting my findings. In the posts that follow, I'll be talking about each album, mostly in order, I think. And I'll also talk about other Dylan stuff of note. The whiskey for sure. Soon.
Because 39 years was too long to wait. I've got a lot of lost time to make up. Time to pop the cork.
By the way, the hardest part of this process was finding a name for the blog. Most of the good ones are taken, including Blog Dylan, Blog on the Tracks, Tangled Up in Blog, and so on... And a couple of them don't even have anything to do with Dylan! I like alliteration, so it was either "Derek on Dylan" or "Derek Does Dylan." I went with the less horrifying mental image. (I also considered "Derek Dreams of Dylan" but thought it might not make sense to some folks.)
More soon. And it won't be this long. There was a lot of ground to cover in this first post. Thanks for coming with me.
Cheers.
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