bobby dylan: direction home

I eagerly awaited the recent PBS showing of Bob Dylan: No Direction Home. I could have taped the show, or purchased the DVD, but I decided to watch it the old fashioned way – with everyone else who is watching it at the same time. There is something to be said for that, a connection maybe. Because most fans were probably taping the show or ordering the DVD, my imagined common audience was probably pretty small.

One part of the special really caught my attention – the photographs of Bob visiting Woody Guthrie in the hospital. I had never seen those pictures before. I always thought the “hospital visit” was very brief and probably not that important in the overall scheme of Bob Dylan things, but now I realize just how meaningful the whole episode was. Woody died a slow and tragic death due to Huntington’s chorea. Bob’s recounting of the visits was interesting to say the least. At the time, he had the feeling that Woody had been placed “in a mental hospital for having the shakes”. I have this feeling that Bob’s visits were also incredibly important to Woody. Woody undoubtedly got it.

Most people don’t get Bob Dylan or can pretty much take it or leave it, but as the film gratefully pointed out, for those of us who do get it, his music is a very meaningful and powerful thing. I would have to say that he is probably the best vocalist and songwriter in the history of music. There is no doubt that he is the best poet who ever lived and the Shakespeare of our time. Just read the lyrics to Desolation Row or Ballad of a Thin Man or Visions of Johanna or Love Minus Zero or Queen Jane or Shelter From the Storm or Chimes of Freedom or …

See what happens. If nothing happens, you are not alive.

It was interesting that Pete Seeger did not get it at the Newport Folk Festival, complaining that it was too loud and that people couldn’t understand the words. Even back then, they had to explain to Pete that they wanted it that way. It was supposed to sound like that. I have seen Bob Dylan almost twenty times, the first time being in 1980, (the huge afro, born-again Christian, 50 back-up singers period). At each concert there were people who were absolutely ecstatic and in awe, and people with puzzled looks on their faces – the “I can’t understand any of the words” people. What I think is really going on here is something akin to speaking in tongues. I can usually understand every word and so can others. If you can’t understand the words, you are not supposed to. You’re not ready – yet. “Play fucking louder.”

The whole debate about acoustic Bob or electric Bob is kind of silly. It’s all the same. The whole booing crowd scene seems kind of orchestrated to me. Even back then, Dylan was the master marketer. People kept buying tickets. Most of them knew what the show was going to be like before seeing it. They knew they were supposed to boo before going to the show, then booed, and then cried for autographs. Most of the bitterness among the pure folkies was caused because they were angry they didn’t think of it. But even for me, at his more recent shows that I’ve seen, when Bob switched things up and walked out on stage with just his acoustic guitar, it sent shivers up my spine. It is the part of the concerts that I appreciated most. But, I have not seen that for a long time. I have to admit that I just don’t understand his current standing at the piano for the whole show thing. Is there something that THIS fan is missing? “Why do they have to boo, that’s so BORING.”

One of the strangest moments on the show was when Peter Yarrow said, “Everyone wanted to sleep with Bobby. Everyone wanted to get high with Bobby”. Now, I never wanted to sleep with Bob Dylan, not that I KNOW of anyway, but I suppose that it would be nice to get high with the guy, or at least meet him for a cup of coffee. As with most fans, I really have only one thing to say to Bob Dylan: “thanks”. I would thank him for the music and for being the consummate champion of the underdog portrayed in the film. I would also probably tell him to keep it coming. His recent albums and concerts are just as good as his earlier ones. At 64 years old, there is no sign of slowing down. By the way, it is obvious that Joan Baez still has a thing for this guy. If I was Bob Dylan, I would go see her and beg her to take me back. She would probably say yes. Oh yeah, I would tell him to finally return those records he stole from his friend.

There were two parts in the film that caught my attention more than anything else, probably because I have often had the same thoughts. There are stories about a few of the old blues singers selling their souls to the devil in order to become great singers and guitar players. One commentator in the film felt it seemed the same way with Bob Dylan when the young singer returned to Minneapolis after being in New York for just a few months. It really was incredible how his talent just exploded. During the recording sessions for Highway 61 and Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan seemed like a possessed man who could not be held back. Producer Bob Johnston had another metaphor, saying, "Instead of touching him on the shoulder, I think God kicked him in the ass." When Arlo Guthrie performs, he often comments about how Bob Dylan is such a great songwriter because no thoughts or dreams or lyrics or phrases get past him. He catches everything. Arlo pleads to Bob to “please let some songs get by, so the rest of us can have some”. Dylan always knew that God was kicking him in the ass. He knew what he was born with.

Every Dylan fan has a story about how they got hooked. Here is mine. I was in 7th grade. (Today, if I was still in school, I would be in about the 30th grade.) One day I went to the very small and quiet local library, where the whispering rule was thankfully still enforced, to check out some LPs. That is what we did back then, that and use our clock radios and cassette tape recorders to record albums that some FM radio stations would play really late at night. Anyway, while at the library, I picked out a record called Blood on the Tracks, along with some Alice Cooper, Bachman Turner Overdrive and probably some Styx. I had no idea who Bob “Die-lan” was or what I was in for and chose the record just because the cover was cool and the back cover was filled with some strange story to read. I went home and set the needle down on side one. I started to walk away from the stereo but the guitar chords grabbed me immediately and I swung around to face the speakers. Since that first verse, my life has not been the same. I was literally shaking with the excitement and joy of finding something that I didn’t even know I was looking for. I will never forget that moment.

“Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’…”