bob dylan at 70

Just a quick set of reflections on his 70th birthday.

I'm not sure when I first heard Bob Dylan - he is something always there. The first track of his I remember consciously listening to was Desolation Row when my father played it to me especially. I was pretty young and very interested in long folk ballads.

Like those ballads - Steeleye Span's Montrose, Martin Carthy's Long Lankin, King Henry - Desolation Row made a world that was bigger than its parts. In part because of the writing but also because of the performance. For a long time it was 'my' Bob Dylan song.

There was also the cover of Bringing It All Back Home - the almost fisheye image on the front sleeve and the monochrome shots of Dylan looking serious (sometimes in a top hat) - which frightened me. That record sleeve and the fact I'd always known who he was convinced me he must be dead until I was around 14.

More so when I was younger Dylan fitted many different parts of my life. There was the civil rights movement I knew from my father, who would quote chunks of Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali. That overlapped with some of the blues and folk my parents played - Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee.

Then there was the folk scene as something separate - Steeleye Span, The Watersons, Martin Carthy. Folk songs - like the Bible - were full of strange and troubling images, contradictions and what as I child I thought of as immorality. They repulsed and attracted.

And with a child's logic that biblical imagery, the fact my father was a priest, that support for the rights of others, the old voice Dylan had, my belief he was dead made me conflate him in my mind with Jesus and my father. Important moral teachers and good men who I should try to be more like.

I think I have a healthier view these days.

There's no artist I've ripped-off more with the possible exception of Mark E Smith - the only other people I've come close to ripping-off as much are Derek Jarman and some of my friends.

For reasons I genuinely can't explain since my father's death in 2003 - when the sermon at his funeral spoke at length about Dylan - I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine has become one of 'my' Dylan songs.

In fact most of John Wesley Harding has become very important to me. The songs are concise and don't explain themselves but retain an allusive richness. Rather like the best folk ballads they're strange with only partial narratives but somehow make perfect sense.

And like the best folk ballads don't mistake them for poetry. Their life comes from being performed - remade every time.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Bob!

Comments

Anonymous said…
nice. I can but hope that you've ripped me off at some point in the past, although it seems unlikely, because that would be kinda cool. :P
Matt Dalby said…
I would have named names - but what do I know? Anyway people might take me seriously. Even I believe myself sometimes - and that's a dangerous thing.
Anonymous said…
You paint an excellent potrait of dylan and folk, melancholy and perverse. Reminds me of feelings i've had about songs from my youth. Don't ask me what they are though. My dominant musical memories from my parents are the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack and china in your hand by t'pau from my mum and... I dunno, roxette from my dad? I often wonder how i turned out the way I did considering...
Anonymous said…
Yes, it is very dangerous when people take you seriously, but that's half the fun if you ask me. Someday people will take me seriously and oh, how i shall laugh!
Matt Dalby said…
That's about right. I spend most of my time smiling these days. It's a lot easier than the days things used to hang heavy.

Getting back to the essay I could have gone off about the other things that frightened me. The Voices books I've covered before, folk myths, a lot of art, hidden noises, mirrors.

The beauty is those terrors got somehow changed into what I pretend is art. Really it's a kind of elevated fucking-about.
Anonymous said…
elevated fucking-about? Isn't that the OED definition of art? If it ain't, it should be!
Anonymous said…
Also, I'm totally digging your new outlook on life. I've believed for a long time that the whole point of life is to get the most enjoyment and amusement out of it as possible.
Matt Dalby said…
Yeah - me too. I just got kind of sidetracked for a few years believing my own bullshit. Must have been fucking insufferable.
Anonymous said…
personally, I quite enjoyed it and found it somewhat fascinating.
Matt Dalby said…
Sometimes I did. If nothing else it makes you feel important.

But there was a point 2006/7 when I realised if I carry on like this I'm going to be dead. And I don't much want to be dead.

Doesn't have much to do with Dylan.

Except, another comparison I didn't put in was with Shakespeare. Another source much quoted.

Dylan like Shakespeare - like the Bible, like folk music, like a lot of art where there's no single agenda - covers a range of experience and thoughts. Often contradictory, often unresolved.

I was relating to art - especially my own - as something personal. It became more important than it could ever be and ended up trivial. Which frustrated me and gave me something more to worry about.

If I'd realised it was just pretty colours and cool sounds sooner - if I'd tried to be trivial to begin with - then maybe I might have written things I'd want to read now.

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