I really wish that I had even one original thought about anything important, but the fact of that matter is, I don’t. I listen to too much Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. I can’t play a horn, but if I could it wouldn’t matter. I listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I read Hemingway, John MacDonald, David Sedaris, Hunter Thompson, PJ O’rourke and Dave Bry. I don’t have an original idea in my whole gigantic head. I occasionally think of something that sparks a something, but I am usually too lazy to get out of bed to write it down. Shit, not even get out of bed. Too lazy to roll over and sort through the drawer full of unopened condoms and one-hitters to reach for a pen and jot it down.
I would like to think that my brand of laziness in original, but it isn’t. Everything I do, from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed is, in some way, stolen from something. I drink Scotch because “Arthur” is my favorite movie. I wear black t-shirts because Hank Moody and Willie Nelson do. I drink Plymouth gin because Travis McGee drinks Plymouth gin.
Any remotely original, humorous, or even offensive thought I have, either goes unsaid or forgotten. I once got called out on it in high school. My friends and I used to play a game where we all get very high on the pot, and our friends that play guitar would play a Dylan-esque chord progression, and we go around the circle and make up our own Dylan lines. I did well for a few rounds, then I changed a few words from an actual Dylan song. I believe I mentioned a honky tonk lagoon. It wasn’t until weeks later that my friend John, who is the only person that knows Dylan better that I in our group of friends, realized my transgression. John used to drop his little sister off at middle school and then drive around the block and smoke a cigarette. On this particular day, as he was having his smoke and listening to Bob, he heard the actual line from Blonde on Blonde. I will never forget his ire as he stormed into the Universal Commons, lanky white finger wagging in my face. “You Motherfucker. Honky Tonk Lagoon. You bastard!!!!.” To this day, he still gives me shit about it. But to my credit, and to his as well, no one would have ever picked up on my slight lyrical shuffle. Except those of that used to drive around, by ourselves, smoking cigarettes, and listening to “Blonde on Blonde.”
Incidentally, John and I both now agree that “Blood on the Tracks” is the superior Bob Dylan album. And then there is “Desire” or as we call it, the fiddle album. Or the piano album, “New Morning.” And of course the epic, Bob-stopped-smoking-until-he-heard-it-and-started-again-album, “ Nashville Skyline.”
There are very few songs/albums that I remember when I first heard. “Desire” was one of these albums. I remember sitting in my dorm room in Crozet, VA, and my roommate palyed me “Hurricane” for the first time(I’m listening to it right now.) I didn’t know the story and my roommate’s boom-box had a speaker out. I remember later that day listening to as I walked to tennis practice, and I heard the fiddle part for the first time. It didn’t leave my DiscMan for three weeks.
Of course, as I got older and more Dylanified, I got too coo for “Hurricane,” especially after the movie with Denzel Washington and some light research that revealed that Rueben Carter, did indeed, most likely, commit the crime that he was so “falsely” accused of.
Bob Dylan was never one for politics, despite what his fans and critics have always spouted. That is why it never bothered me that he may been wrong about Hurricane Carter. Regardless if he did or not, Carter still got a raw deal from a racist legal system. And I respect the fact that Bob spoke out against it.
At the end of the day, I don’t care about Bob Dylan’s politics. He has written some of the greatest American poetry/songs ever. People go on and on about Jim Morrison. He was a great rock star, but his poetry sucked. That is someone else’s line, but it escapes me now. Bob Dylan is more American than Uncle Sam eating apple pie while listening to Rosa Parks sing John Phillip Sousa songs through Betty Crocker’s ass.
But......at the end of the day, Townes Van Zandt is the greatest songwriter since Mozart. And to quote Steve Earle, “Townes Van Zandt is the greatest songwriter in history, and I will stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and tell him so.”
I don’t think Bob would disagree.
