We were born on the same day, me and Robert Zimmerman. The same day. 19 years apart. Him in 1941. Me in 1960. By the time I was born, he’d left the small town in Minnesota where he grew up, hitchhiked to New York and started writing and performing songs. He’d also changed his name to Bob Dylan.
For the first 50 years of my life, I took no notice of him at all. I was scathing about his music. It was all a bit too folky for me. A bit too political. Then he got religion. And so did I. A different kind of music emerged. I dismissed that too. Bob’s “born again” phase lasted 3 years (about as long as Jesus preached for, he said afterwards). And so did mine.
But one day our paths were sure to collide - both being on the planet at the same time and both being so into music. About 10 years ago, Bob’s Never Ending Tour (currently paused for the first time since 1988) brought him to Shepherd’s Bush. A short bus ride from me. “Why not?” I thought, “He’s one of the most popular artists of my time. I really should see him before one of us dies.”
Realising that I could only put a name to 3 or 4 of his early hits, during the weeks leading up to the gig, I did a bit of swotting. Having listened to Blood on the Tracks a few times, I had to admit that it was really rather good. And so - I was even more amazed to discover - was the music from his Christian phase.
Even so, on the night of the gig I boarded the bus with pretty low expectations. Tales abounded of a voice wrecked by a lifetime of smoking. Nights where he could barely sing at all. A habit of barking at the audience for transgressions such as taking photos - if he deigned to speak to them at all. “If it’s crap,” I thought, “I can always leave”.
“You’ve never seen him!” shouted a gobsmacked Ardent Fan over a rather dire post-Dire Straits number by Mark Knopfler (the support act). “You’re in for a real treat! I’ve seen him 17 times.” “17!,” I shouted. “Wow!”. “No, 70!” he shouted back. And he was right. I loved Bob Dylan. Over the next few weeks I listened to everything he had ever recorded. Every bootleg I could get my hands on.
A few years later, I was wandering round a small private art gallery when I was drawn to a roughly-sketched vibrantly-coloured print of a set of train tracks stretching endlessly into the distance. The sky and landscape were painted in bright shades of orange, red and yellow. It was the most stunning piece of art I’d seen in a long time. I crossed the room to see who the artist was. “Bob Dylan” said the card. “Surely not THE Bob Dylan,” I thought. But Google and the man in the gallery confirmed that it was.
I was so blown away by Bob’s artworks, that after several years of shilly-shallying (they don’t come cheap), I bought one. Not the one I’d first seen, but a blue and green version of it. It’s the first piece of art I’ve ever owned by a well-known artist.
To think that life could have passed by entirely, without me deriving a moment’s joy from Bob’s music and art. All because I shut my mind to him 50 years ago.