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Saturday, September 6, 2003

don’t pass me by, don’t make me cry, don’t make me blue .. .

I see I must spring at the opportunity to write in this blog, otherwise i’ll get passed on by. Thought I’d give people a few days to digest Paul’s monster missive.
Now . . .

Nothing deep and profound this go-round, only to announce with pure and scintillating joy my discovery of a new Dylan song (new to me). I kid you not, I heard “Is Your Love in Vain?” for the first time yesterday evening, and by this afternoon, I am playin’ and singin’ it on my battered acoustic guitar. And me only playin’ the guitar for a year! I’m so proud of me.

So I am of course obsessed with this-here melody; but it seems to have renewed the bittersweet feeling which attacks those passionately obsessed with something that no one else cares about; a phenomenon common to those fans of polkas, 8mm film, and Star Trek, among others. With me it happens to be the music of Bob Dylan.

Now, I don't mean the lyrical, saccharine versions of Dylan, like the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man", or Judy Collins singing Dylan, or PP&M, or even the modern covers of his songs. I mean Dylan himself; gritty, mid-western, burnt-out; with his gravelly voice and rambling blues lyrics. I have about ten albums and the collection is still growing, and when I hammer out "Absolutely Sweet Marie" or "Desolation Row" in the car, my friends moan at me to shut up.

And I keep on listening, but it gets lonely sometimes, when I'm immersed in the tunes of that mad blue-eyed wild-haired prophet of our era; and there is no one to turn to when I find a new song or album and say, incredulously, "do you HEAR that?"

All I know is, Dylan sets my blood on fire, so i'll keep listening, and playing my guitar well into the next hundred years; 'cos first there was Foster, and then there was Gunthrie, and then there is Dylan; but he won't hold the torch forever, and we will need to keep our supply of beat poets stocked well into the future; it ain't gonna be easy.

Posted by Sonia