His laughter at the start is pretty infectious, actually.
Bob Dylan is in the news now due to hitting the big 8-0. Obviously there's a big retrospective aspect to that. Everyone seems to remember how he didn't show up to pick up his Nobel Prize in Literature. And I mean, can you blame him? Sure it's a great honor, but it doesn't exactly rock.
2 comments:
He said his name was Columbus and I just said, 'Good luck'.
That's a great album. At the time it came out a number of people wondered if the face of the girl in the background was his. I'm still not sure about that one.
Kunstler wrote a nice birthday piece about Bob Dylan yesterday part of which said: When he stole into New York City from his Midwest Nowheresville in the winter of 1961, he was unformed, ambitious, intelligent, cunning, and not yet grown up. He did his growing up in public over the next decade. He acted it out in the songs he wrote.
It's true he was amazing. Every so often when we're out driving and episode of Themetime Radio will start to play. He always gave credit to the fine musicians, song writers and performers who made American music so distinctive.
The great thing about that song is that even though he's clearly joking--he actually cracks up at the start of the recording--it also has the sort of mercurial details that really do suggest a hazily remembered dream.
According to Wikipedia the lady in the background is Sally Grossman, wife of Dylan's manager Albert Grossman. I'd say that's probably true, although the shot is distorted enough that you could introduce reasonable doubt. Dylan in drag is a reach, though.
I read that piece by Kunstler and it's pretty right on. A lot of people have taken Dylan to task for being a jerk in interviews, as seen in Don't Look Back. But we tolerate a lot worse from creative people. If you're not going to have a sterile environment you kind of have to.
Those Themetime Radio shows are wonderful. He really came up with a great motley of artists to play.
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