A Complete Unkown
The Tracks of Bob Dylan Through My Life
I was not even a thought, plan, or imaginative figure in 1962. My parents, living in the Dakotas at the time were well busy with a bustling house of four boys all under the age of ten in a world that was at the same time flourishing from post war victories yet exploding within from unattended wounds of the past still festering. Fear engulfed a culture witnessing the reality that at any moment another bomb could drop; but, that this time it could be on the good ol’ U.S.A.
Bob Dylan did drop a bomb on the world in 1962, an eponymous debut album that would introduce the beginnings of what is one of the greatest stories and catalogs in american music and poetry. Columbia Records signed the young Minnesotan to a contract that still runs through this very day, and while that tepidly accepted first record broke him into the dust bins of record stores alongside his heros Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, the second, third, fourth and beyond releases would steadily climb Bob Dylan to the top of the music world where he would spend decades perplexing millions. He disrupted an entire genre of music and pushed every limit possible, defying not just odds, but the very systems and cultures he would have to work within for a life’s entirety.
But, I learned it all in reverse. I didn’t come into the world until 1965 when my family welcomed me as its fifth son, five years younger than the next oldest. Still in the Dakotas, South Dakota. I was born the year Bob Dylan released his gear changing fifth album, “Bringing It All Back Home”, yet it wouldn’t be until my early teens in 1979 that he would even be a figure in my view, and peripherally at that. Another decade passed before I began to go back into his history and learn his early catalog, and humanity was pushing into the 90’s before I understood the haunting desperation of “Hollis Brown” which was set within the very Dakotas I was born. In spite of my midwest religious upbringing and my propensity for the spiritual in my music fandom, it would be when I was about the age of Dylan on his debut’s release when I discovered the timeless impact of “With God On Our Side”. Both of the songs mentioned above come from Dylan’s historic third release “The Times They Are A-Changin’” from 1964.
My house was not a Dylan house. My parents never had any Dylan records. There wasn’t a copy of “Blonde On Blonde” hiding between Herb Alpert and Hank Thompson. The few Beatles records housed within our tv stereo console were not stacked upon “Highway 61 Revisited” on the record changer. My brothers and I missed Dylan’s early years simply by the timing of all of our births; The sounds in our houses were replete with anything from soft rock sounds of Seals & Croft to the 8-Track metal of Deep Purple and theatre rock of Alice Cooper, but Dylan was a complete unkown.
However, like millions of American households, we were a television family. If there was an eye open in the house, even if it was our mini dachsund Prince peeking from his slumber on the green shag carpet, the t.v. was on. As the seventies dragged to a climax, we dove into Saturday Night Live. And, in 1979, Bob Dylan made an appearance on the historic show. It would be the performance of “Gotta Serve Somebody” that was my first real impression of Dylan, and without the aid of his history to accompany me, I floundered in a non-attentive dance through his religious conversion period and straight into my college years when “Infidels” hit me square in the spiritual jaw. After spending years trying to put spiritual meaning into anything possible, I continued the effort by trying to make sense out of Dylan’s move away from a blatant Christian message by trying to implant my own personal narrative onto his lyrics. The result simply gave me more unneeded, intelligence lacking spiritual bluster that would take me decades to unwind. Yet, I sure had a good soundtrack.
The first time I saw Dylan live was shortly after college graduation when he appeared at Starwood Amphitheater in Antioch, TN outside of Nashville. The gargantuan ‘shed’ with a sprawling sloping uncovered lawn that seemed bigger than any ball stadium’s outfield played home to countless jaunts through my college and post-college years in Music City. I attended a ton of shows and witnessed much greatness during those days, but there was nothing like what I saw on that July Friday evening in 1988. Leading up to the concert, the radio ads blared with a cut of a song unfamiliar to me. It was what I quickly learned to be the classic “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Being IN radio, my mind was mesmerized by all things audio, and one of those ‘things’ that particularly got to me were concert ads. The quickly spliced and diced :60 second ads attempted to paint pictures with snippets of an artist’s best parts of their best songs of what one might experience in concert, narrated by some other worldly booming voice that I could only wish I might attain someday, had there been enough alcohol and Marlboros to accomplish such a feat. “Subterranean Homesick Blues” definitely hooked me with that classic first line, “Johnny’s in the basement mixin’ up the medicine.” It was different, mystical, funny, odd and 100% appealing.
After a wonderous set from Welsh rockers The Alarm, who were flying high with the biggest stateside hit of their career, “Rain In The Summertime”, Dylan hit the stage. His set, opened with ‘Subterranean’ and was a lightning quick run through nothing but classics. No new songs, no drum solos. After spending the previous decade going to Christian rock concerts, I expected a ‘prophet’ of Dylan’s magnitude to have something to say, a sermon, a word of encouragement, a chastisement for living like the world, a call to salvation. None of that came. The only words from Dylan’s mouth, outside of his songs, were, “Goodnight. Thank you.” Those words were not a call to redemption, but I couldn’t help to feel like things changed for me a bit that night. I don’t recall quite how long it took me, but soon after that concert I went to Cat’s Records and purchased a cassette of Bob Dylan’s “Bringing It All Back Home”.
My friend Jeff and I saw Dylan again, less than two years later, at Vanderbilt University’s Memorial Gymnasium. The cavernous and oddly arranged basketball gym was an audiophile’s hell, but who could resist seeing the cavalcade of stars whose echos had reverberated throughout those walls, financed by Vandy’s student government budgets? A few days prior to Halloween in 1990, it was Dylan’s turn. What would he open with? ‘Subterranean’? Perhaps something from his most recent masterpiece, the Daniel Lanois produced triumph, “Oh Mercy”? NO! Backed by a world class band that included guitar virtuoso G.E. Smith, and donning a straw hat, Dylan opened with a cover of Z.Z. Top’s, “My Head’s In Mississippi”. This show was much different from the amphitheatre set in 1988. Bob actually talked. Now, we couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I was certain it wasn’t an invitation to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. Quite some time after the show, possibly a few years, my buddy Jeff acquired a board tape from the Vandy concert. Our first chore with that cassette was to figure out what he said. And, it was magical. After performing “Queen Jane Approximately” Dylan sermonized: “Neil Young did that once, played one note on the harmonica, all night long!”
Years passed, cities changed, the Dylan albums and shows piled up for me. The waves of his career continued to careen off the walls of society and through the change of centuries. I took my daughter, Sophia, to see him in 2013 as a part of the Americanarama Festival at the newly opened amphitheater in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was a wonderful lineup that included Richard Thompson, My Morning Jacket, and Wilco. Sophia called Dylan, ‘Ol’ Froggy Voice’ throughout her childhood and youth. I remember one road trip when the two of us forced our way through the nearly 14 minute long epic title track from “Tempest”. We laughed at how Dylan swayed back and forth between the historical account of what happened to the Titanic and the famous DeCaprio film version. The night of the festival, during a break between bands, Sophia snuck away to the merchandise tables at some point and bought some My Morning Jacket rolling papers.
My most recent Dylan concert was here in Birmingham, Alabama. This time I had the privilege of Shannon accompanying me. She had never seen Dylan. This was during Dylan’s ‘Crooning’ phase, shortly after he injured himself in Memphis and was unable to play the guitar. His show was a mix of the classics and songs from the American Songbook. I was awestruck, watching the finest of wines age into immortality. At one point during the concert, gleefully comfortable in my BJCC Concert Hall chair, I leaned over to Shannon. She whispered in my ear, “This is painful.”
This week Shannon and I saw “A Complete Unkown”, the James Mangold directed biopic of Dylan’s early career, starring Timothée Chalamet and Ed Norton. The film is based on the book “Dylan Goes Electric!” by Elijah Wald and is a journey through Bob’s early days in New York through the genre upending moment he blew up the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 by hitting the stage with electric guitars and amps. That event happened a few months before I was born. The film is fantastic, and I have never read the book. I have it on order, and it will be my first read of 2025.
Dylan is to me what I believe Jesus may be to many: Yes, a prophet, but an enigma and puzzling historical figure. As time winds down for the dear prophet’s neverending tour on the wavelengths of this planet, I get older too. I find myself looking very differently at the man than how I looked at him when the early glimpses of him came into my life. The meaning of his words have changed as my understanding of life has evolved. I no longer expect a sermon that he was never about, nor do I impress on him the responsibility of saving humanity. His words aren’t infallible, and I don’t see them as scripture. Those who do are no better than the Bible publishers throughout the centuries who have continued to craft a tale in an attempt to keep the tide on the side of religion’s grip.
While some may yell ‘Judas!’ at me for saying these things, I am going to continue walking the path of faith, by dropping the needle on what has become my favorite Bob Dylan album, “Blood On The Tracks”.
The cast of “A Complete Unkown” knock it out of the park on the film’s soundtrack. Here is a link to that album, and I hope you find it enjoyable.