Thoughts on Dylan

1) I saw Bob Dylan on Saturday here in Wichita, which was only the second show of his 2025 extension of his never ending tour (nominally supporting his most recent album, the excellent Rough and Rowdy Ways, but really just Bob being the traveling poet and song and dance man he's always been). It was a great show, with Bob sitting at the piano the entire time, playing pretty consistently, adding bluesy chords, rockabilly swing, and some romantic melody as the song required. And his four-piece band was tight, never showing off, but providing a solid foundation for a supremely musical evening. I wish I could have snapped some pics, as I have a very good seat, but it was a strict no-device show (including old cameras like mine!), and security was tight. But other than that, I had a wonderful time.

2) His set list? Almost exactly the same as his set list from Tulsa last Tuesday, where he kicked off this round of touring; the only change for us in Wichita was the addition of "Across the Rubicon," which was awesome, since I think that's maybe the best song on Rough and Rowdy Ways. ("Murder Most Foul" would outrank it, except I have a hard time considering it an actual song; more like some ancient bard orally capturing the whole gestalt of a particular society at a particular moment in time.) I was moderately disappointed with his significantly shorted version of "Desolation Row," and would have preferred almost any cut from Nashville Skyline aside from "To Be Alone with You," but I loved his harmonica work on "When I Paint My Masterpiece" and, especially, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," which he and his band made whimsical, upbeat, and almost sweet; on the basis of the couples I saw leaning into each other and swaying to the song, I'd bet that I'm not the only one who considered it the highlight of the night.

3) Speaking of Tulsa, Melissa and I took a day-trip there only two weeks back; we've lived in Kansas for going on 19 years, yet in all that time, Melissa had never seen this city only a little over two hours southeast of us, and I'd only been there once for a conference which didn't give me any time to explore. We had a grand time there--and for both of us (which is surprising for my wife, since she's not a Dylan fan), the highlight was the Bob Dylan Center. I had kept my expectations low, since I feared that it would just be a glorified add-on to the Woody Guthrie Center next door, which I've long heard raves about. But a bookseller at Magic City Books strongly encouraged us to check out the Dylan museum, and I'm glad we did. It really does a brilliant job at organizing its immense collection of photos, letters, films, notes, and more; the introductory videos do a great job situating Dylan as an artist and a cultural figure, and the main exhibit is filled with wonderful discoveries (the loopy, gushing letters Johnny Cash wrote to Dylan were charming). My favorite feature was a jukebox programmed with Dylan songs, Dylan covers, and "Dylanesque" tunes selected by Elvis Costello, but that just scratches the surface. It's not a huge museum, but after two hours there we still hadn't seen it all.
4) Becoming the sort of person who could spend most of an afternoon hanging around a Bob Dylan museum has been a long process. As I've detailed here on my blog many times over the years, my pop music sensibilities have always been, first and last, about the radio--and by the time I really started listening to pop radio around 1978, Dylan's time as someone who got much radio airplay were done and gone. So I was generally aware of him as a singer and song-writer, and occasionally recognized when other artists were covering his songs, but it wasn't until sometime in late 1993, when I picked up a double VHS tape copy of the 30th anniversary concert held for Bob at Madison Square Garden, that I really woke up to this astonishing and unpredictable artist. Besides all the wonderful music, just the range of the man's writings, both in substance and style, blew me away. I mean, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"? "My Back Pages"? "When the Ship Comes In"? I mean, it's folk, but also rock; it's political, but also personal; it's judgmental and dismissive, but also sneakily open-hearted. It's hardly an original realization, that Dylan contains multitudes, but it's what began my 30-plus years of recurring curiosity in the man. Being the political nerd I am, I dived into analyses of his lyrics, examinations of his interviews, reflections on his historical role--but more than that, I listened to his songs.

5) As for the songs, what can I say? I was delighted to finally be able to check seeing Bob in concert off my bucket list, but that doesn't change my most basic judgment about his music (one shared by my wife as well): the man just isn't ever the best interpreter and performer on his own material. I won't go as far as her (and, to be honest, many tens of thousands of others) in declaring that Dylan's voice grates. Like Mick Jagger, I think there's something distinctive and musical to his vocal instrument, even when it's not at it's best (and at the Wichita concert, as indecipherable as many of the words which came out of his mouth were, its sometimes wry, sometimes wistful, always gentle tone was quite engaging). But still, the point stands: he can write incredible songs, but there will always be someone (often many someones) who will be able to do those songs better than he. Examples? Oh man, don't get me started; I could list a couple of dozen. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"? Joan Baez. "All Along the Watchtower"? Jimi Hendrix. "Boots of Spanish Leather"? Nanci Griffith. "Chimes of Freedom"? Bruce Springsteen. "Desolation Row"? Robyn Hitchcock. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"? Dolly Parton. "Forever Young"? The Pretenders. "Girl from the North Country"? Rosanne Cash. "Gotta Serve Somebody"? Shirley Caesar. "I Shall Be Released"? Joe Cocker. "If Not for You"? George Harrison. "It Ain't Me Babe"? Johnny Cash and June Carter. "Just Like a Woman"? Nina Simone. "Like a Rolling Stone"? Michael Hedges. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"? Warren Zevon. "Masters of War"? The Staple Singers. "Mr. Tambourine Man"? The Byrds. "Positively 4th Street"? Bryan Ferry. "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)"? Manfred Mann. "What Was it You Wanted"? Willie Nelson. "With God on Our Side"? The Neville Brothers. Just accept that, save for the towering exception of the Lennon-McCartney due (who only had about 12 years of collaborative production, whereas Dylan has been producing consistently for over 60), there simply isn't another English-speaking artist in the recording era that has written as many great songs as Bob Dylan has. You don't have to grant that he was the definitive interpreter of all these songs too!

6) Oh, and as for politics? Well, by all available evidence, the man's favorite president was Jimmy Carter. As another great story-teller once commented, 'nuff said.