M
uch has been written about Bob Dylan. In fact rarely a month goes
by when his face is not peering out from a magazine cover on the
shelves in the newsagent. In- depth, ten page articles on how particular
albums were recorded, news on unheard bootlegs, or in even rarer
circumstances and interview with the man himself, or at least somebody
who knows him. Rarely has a recording artist had so many words written
about him. But then again, rarely has a recording artist written so many
great songs. Really great songs, with lyrics, phrases and hook lines that
John McCusker’s
have embedded themselves in popular culture, for over forty years.

Like anything, there are people who care and people who dont. Those

who live by his music and his words, those that cant stand his voice,
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and those that like a few songs, but prefer Elton John. But whatever you
feeling, his presence over popular music is undeniable and continual.
He put poetry in the jukebox according to Allen Ginsberg and
changed the landscape of modern American music.
Most people of my generation find Dylan through their parents who found
him about the same time he was finding himself. My parents preferred
him when he was folky but they also went off the Beatles when they went
weird. The first Bob Dylan album I heard was the best of bob Dylan which
I liked, but not as much as the best of Simon and Garfunkel which sat next
to it on the pile. Both albums gave me the same feeling that I got from
looking at pictures of my grandparents when they were young.
Impossible now to imagine as a reality, I took Empire Burlesque out of the
library a few years after that, but took it back the next day because even at
the age of thirteen I got the feeling that I was far too young to be listening to
music like this. I stuck with Iron Maiden and AC/DC for another few years.
The English poet Simon Armitage talks about there being something
inevitable about a music fan eventually finding Dylan’s work, and talks
about his own experience as one where it took a Dylan anorak to take him
under his wing and give him a Bob Dylan birds and the bees conversation
as almost an altruistic act of Dylan-aid. That’s true for me also, but it didnt
take a person, it took a summer travelling around Europe just after leaving
school to discover his music properly. I left Dundee station with five of his
albums taped from library LPs to listen to on my Walkman, and five weeks
later came home a different person. Id been through Norway, Sweden,
Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61,
Bringing It All Back Home, The Freewheelin and Blood On the Tracks.
Id done some travelling, physically and mentally.
The feeling of being on the move, passing through moments of other
peoples lives every day, all that stuff, not being able to put your finger on
why you’d ended up someplace, but being glad that you had. Something
was happening here and I didnt know what it was, and the more I thought
about it, the more I preferred it that way.
His Lyrics get to the heart precisely because you’re never exactly sure what
he’s going on about, so they embody a state, one where you don’t really
need to understand what’s going on around you, to get a feeling that you
do. Or as he puts it “I learned a long time ago to trust my intuition”. I think
if you listen to Bob Dylan, its a lesson he teaches us all.
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