Listen while you read! Spotify playlist of a recent Bob Dylan setlist

Bob Dylan is playing Mershon Auditorium, November 4th, here in Columbus.

So this Monday I am seeing Bob Dylan for the third time. Not to sound morbid, but odds are this is probably my final Dylan show. While I am a fan of the music and the man, I’m an even bigger fan of the myth. No single Bob record has impacted me the way some Springsteen records have, but Bob’s book Chronicles and the movie No Direction Home have both had a profound impact on my thinking as person and an - ahem - artist, if you will. 

In fact, as I am writing this at Colin’s Coffee between serving customers, I dug out my personal copy of Chronicles from the shelves. I used to underline parts of the book the way I suppose other folks might underline Biblical passages or whatever. The only other book I have done this with is Woody Guthrie - A Life, written by “a fella named Joe Klein” as famously plugged on Springsteen’s Live 75-85 collection. Woody begat Bob begat Bruce begat..….?

I guess the connection between those two books are that Woody and Bob are spiritual searchers. They never rest. They move forward even when - or especially when - they aren’t sure which direction is best. I guess the lesson I take away from this is in two parts: 1) Never stop trying, and 2) Trying something, even if it fails, is usually better than being scared to try anything at all. 

Or, to put it another way: 1) It would be a lot easier to NOT write this essay. 2)There is a good chance it won’t be very good anyway. But just engaging in the creative effort justifies the effort no matter what the result. That is my takeaway from Bob Dylan. 

You’ll notice I used the word “usually” two paragraphs up. This kind of mentality does open the door for some spectacular failures. As Ricki C. often says, “Bob Dylan has made more bad records than good records,” and I suppose he might be right. But still, that is what you get with Bob Dylan. He is on HIS journey and you are welcome to follow along. Or not. His live shows are the same way. Springsteen may drag you through the weeds, but eventually you end up at a shiny city on the hill. Bob might drag you through the weeds and leave you in a dark swamp. Then the house lights come on. 

Here are a  couple of passages I underlined in the Chronicles book. These are both from the 1986 tour when Dylan was backed by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers:

Tom was at the top of his game and I was at the bottom of mine. My own songs had become strangers to me. The mirror had swung around and I could see the future - an old actor fumbling in garbage cans outside the theater of past triumphs.

A bit later on the same tour:

The shows with Petty finished up in December, and I saw that instead of being stranded somewhere at the end of the story, I was actually in the prelude to the beginning of another one.

I like that. I want to think like that. 

As for the movie No Direction Home, in my opinion the best rock documentary ever made, it gave me the historical background on why Bob Dylan means so much to people older than myself. I wasn’t around to experience the 60’s with the times a changin’ and then changin’ again when Bob went electric. The Beatles might have been the big bang for rock n roll but Bob plugging in made a loud sound too. Or so I learned watching this movie. Growing up I knew Bob Dylan was important but I didn’t really know why. The music I heard never seemed to justify the hype. When he appeared with Keef and Woody at Live Aid I was excited because it was Bob Dylan making an appearance, but the music just didn’t move the needle for me. (As a kid) I vividly remember buying my first Dylan record at Used Kids when I was 14 or 15 years old. I said to Ron House, “I should probably buy a Bob Dylan record, right?” He came out from behind the counter, fished through the bins for about 30 seconds, handed me Highway 61 Revisited and said, “This would be good for someone like you.” Not knowing what that meant I promptly bought that record along with Dokken Under Lock and Key. 

And I suppose I identify with Bob on some vague Midwestern/Great Lakes level. When he talks, I just get it. I’m paraphrasing here but at one point in the movie he talks about growing up in the North and how the weather teaches you to think abstractly. When it’s hot, it’s eventually going to be cold, and when it’s cold it will eventually get hot.  I embrace that and every once and a while I’d like to think it filters down to songs I’ve written like “Superior” and “Cold Weather.” 

Anyway, that’s the story of myself and Bob Dylan. - Colin Gawel

(By the way, the first time staff writer Ricki C. saw Bob Dylan live was before most of our Pencil Storm readers were even born; read all about it here in Growing Old With R&R: Shows I Saw in the 60’s, part one; Bob Dylan & the Hawks, 11/19/1965)