Happy Birthday, Bob!
Bob Dylan turns - wow - 85 today! I consider myself a fairly serious fan, although I’ve never personally met the man (but once got fairly close), I don’t own all his albums (I can easily live without a few of them), and I’ve only seen him in concert seven times. But I still listen to Dylan on a regular basis, reflecting on his music, lyrics, and cryptic life.
So here are my 14 personal Bob moments in chronological order. Everyone’s will be different, so I hope you’ll share yours. (You don’t have to have 14; one or two will be fine, even if you don’t like the guy.)
My introduction to Dylan came in 1975 with the release of the Blood on the Tracks. My favorite local radio station, WZZQ in Jackson, Mississippi, played all the songs from that album, but “Tangled Up in Blue” fascinated me most and still does. But I didn’t get Dylan fever until one year later when I heard “Hurricane” from Desire. Like “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Hurricane” also tells a story, yet one more straight-forward than “Tangled Up in Blue.” Something about the gritty story of prize fighter Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and his wrongful arrest and imprisonment for murder in Paterson, NJ spoke to me. I would learn that Dylan frequently wrote songs “ripped from the headlines,” but this was the first I’d heard. I even bought the 45 rpm single which had the first half on the song on one side, the conclusion on the other. I still have it.
Although I dug “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Hurricane,” I wasn’t truly a Dylan fan. I didn’t know any of his other stuff. Somewhere around this time my good friend Joe asked me regarding my music listening habits, “Are you a words man or a music man?” I answered, “A music man. The music has to speak to me first, then I focus on the lyrics.” Joe nodded, and we started talking about something else. Sometime later Joe gave me a gift, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, which was a double album back then. To be honest, I didn’t listen to it for some time, so to keep with my chronology, I’ll return to this episode later.
In the meantime, I sought out Dylan’s earlier stuff and stumbled on “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” from Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The first time I heard it, I was glad I was sitting down. It shook me. I thought (not to be sacrilegious), “This sounds like a biblical prophet!” The lyrics were so visceral, so urgent. I wrote them down, studied them, and even searched out the 17th century ballad that inspired it, “Lord Randall,” finding it in the school library. “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” made me think, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I still can’t. And to think Dylan was in his early 20s when he wrote it… I challenge you to listen to the song now in the context of our situation in 2026. It should make us all tremble.
Dylan’s conversion to Christianity in the late 1970s threw everyone for a loop. WZZQ played “Gotta Serve Somebody” frequently, but I didn’t think much of it until I saw the album Slow Train Coming in a Christian bookstore. A Dylan album in a Christian bookstore? The dude’s Jewish! Everybody, even my pastor, Charley Chase, was talking about the album. My friend Joe and I talked with him about how well Dylan seemed to understand many aspects of biblical theology. A couple of albums later, Dylan had returned to Judaism, and while neither Saved nor Shot of Love measured up to Slow Train Coming, I enjoyed them all. Yet I believe biblical elements frequently show up in Dylan’s work even to the present.
Although I’d tinkered around with the album since Joe gave it to me, I finally listened to all of Blonde on Blonde, which became an obsession, especially what would come to be (and still is) my favorite Dylan song, “Visions of Johanna.” The song haunted me in the aftermath of a breakup with a woman I thought was “the” one. It ended painfully, and I can’t tell you whether listening to the song provided therapy or torture. Perhaps both. Now I can look back at the song as a reminder of a time that was enormously painful, yet eventually made me stronger and more resilient.
I saw Dylan for the first time in 1988 at Mud Island in Memphis, an outdoor venue. I was so caught up in the “I’m actually seeing Bob Dylan!” moment I can’t remember all that much about it other than how moving it was to hear the entire audience singing “How does it feel?” during “Like a Rolling Stone.” After taking so much abuse for from so many people for being a Dylan fan, I was surrounded by 5,000 others who’d probably suffered also.
As jazzed as I was to watch Dylan receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1991 Grammys, the event turned out to be a real head-scratcher. Dylan looked and sounded awful, blasting out a song that was nearly indecipherable. I had to read the next day’s newspaper to confirm that it was indeed “Masters of War.” Afterward, Dylan - totally out of it - delivered this cryptic speech. After the event, Mick Jagger was asked what gift he’d like to give Dylan in honor of his award. Jagger said, “A new hat and a good song.”
In 1993 I had the great pleasure of seeing Dylan in Jackson, MS with two of my former students.
In 1995 a friend of mine won third-row seats to a Dylan concert in Biloxi, MS. That’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to Dylan.
It took some doing, but I finally turned my wife into a Dylan fan. Although she prefers his early pre-electric period, she accepted my challenge last year to listen to all of Dylan’s albums (and most of them twice).
One more concert memory: Dylan at UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) in 2019, the last time I saw him live. Dylan and his band performed a version of “Not Dark Yet” that nearly rivaled the despair and blackness of “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” If that version has been recorded, I’d love to hear it again. It haunts me still.
Like every other Dylan fan, I was delighted with Dylan’s 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways, but was unprepared for the strangeness of “My Own Version of You,” one of the most interesting and disturbing songs of his career.
Timothée Chalamet as Dylan in A Complete Unknown (2024) Photo: Slate I took my nieces (19 and 17 at the time) to see A Complete Unknown (2024), which they agreed to only because it stars Timothée Chalamet. When it was over, my older niece turned to me and said (with a considerable level of awe), “I had no idea Bob Dylan was such a big deal…” I corrected her, “IS such a big deal.”
And to keep from having 13 reasons, my 14th is being thankful that Bob is still with us. So put on some Dylan to celebrate the guy’s birthday, or maybe just walk out into the street and sing a chorus of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Happy Birthday, Bob!
I sometimes get in the mood to listen to Bob Dylan. I also have memories of Tangled Up In Blue. A boyfriend used to play and sing it for me when I was in high school. I prefer earlier Dylan. In my collection (which is in disarray) I found Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and The Times They Are A Changin'. I have another one (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) but I can't find it. The only time I saw him was in the 90s. I was excited to be seeing him but I really couldn't hear what he was singing. His voice was not clear. I will always love him as a poet and performer.
Got to see him at Wolf Trap about a decade ago. I liked how he ignored the audience – even had his back to them for much of the time – and played the songs he wanted in different styles than the recordings, except for those from the new album (Fallen Angels). Too many artists play exact replicas of the music they’ve released, and yes, you get the immediate thrill of recognition, but not much more.
About 19 years ago, I was lunching with a colleague who praised Dylan to the sky and, back then, like an idiot, I said, “But the guy can’t sing!” Shameful! But now I’m an unashamed fan. His writing is ofttimes exquisite. I only have 11 of the albums you pictured, though.
Agreed on the greatness of “Hurricane,” Tangled Up In Blue,” “Visions of Johanna,” and “Not Dark Yet.” However, “Murder Most Foul,” on Rough and Rowdy Ways, is way too self-indulgent, even for him.