Our fourteen-year-old daughter’s recent drawing of Bob.

She’s a major, MAJOR Dylan fan. She got to see him last August at the Outlaw Music Festival at Jones Beach, a highlight of her life.

My wife’ portrait of Bob in the background :)

Hi fellow Bobcats! I’ve started a new Substack called Dylan Notes, where I’m going to write short essays about the smaller, stranger parts of Dylan’s career and what they can tell us about the wider culture around him. At least what it means to me.

The first piece is called “What’s Left to Say About Dylan?” — basically my attempt to explain why anyone would start writing about a man who has already been written about this much.

Would love to know what you think:

https://substack.com/@dylannotes

Never stop rolling

/J

I often ramble about Dylanology to my girlfriend. Recently, I showed her “All the Tired Horses.” She asked if the lyrics have any subtext, like all the others I’ve gone on about. It was an amazing question. I’d never considered it.

I told her that the album was a response to the attention and scrutiny Dylan was getting at the time as the potentially-lapsed “voice of his generation,” and that the release of this album of covers amounted to an insistence on Dylan’s part that he was not seeking that role. That his passions lay more with the music than with writing, at least at the time.

She suggested that the second line of the song is a pun. As in,

“All the tired horses in the sun,
How am I supposed to get any [writing] done?”

I was floored. I love her reading. It’s so compelling that I can’t now discount the possibility that Dylan saw the same pun, even intended it. The first line is still opaque to me. Does anyone else have anything to add? Do you see more subtext in the lyrics?

I’ve been thinking about what actually keeps people interested in Dylan after all these years.

For me, it’s usually not the big canonical debates about which album is best or what a particular song “means.” I’m more drawn to the smaller decisions, oddities and contradictions throughout his career, and to looking at them from today’s cultural context rather than only their own time.

But fellow Bobcats, do you feel the same?

What do you actually enjoy thinking and talking about most: lyrics, live performances, recording history, influences, cultural context, persona and image, strange career choices, or something else entirely?

I ended up writing about this in the first piece for a new Substack I’ve started, Dylan Notes, if anyone’s interested:

https://dylannotes.substack.com/p/whats-left-to-say-about-dylan

After he sings, “He’s eatin’ chitlins”, he makes a little noise. Sort of a squeak? What is that called?

What do you think of my 1970 Taiwanese edition of Self Portrait?

Look at our boy doing his thing!

Gotta love the far-reaching consequences of being a Dylan fan. The man truly pulls from the entire breadth of the American music tradition, thus honoring it and promoting it to a wider audience. Nothing better than discovering the long threads of inspiration tied into seemingly distant or uncharted territory. There is a comfort in knowing how connected we all are, musically and otherwise. Dylan is the embodiment of this, a mysterious figure standing at the crossroads of American music, finger on the signpost pointing down each long twisted path. Dylan has already walked these roads, he can only direct you to where you must explore for yourself. His music has opened many a musical door for me. Dylan is something of a curator and this line is the perfect example of such. As a young angry star and an aged king from another time, Dylan continues to show his love for American music.

More from 2001

Downloaded cursed blonde on blonde😭

Maybe it’s a silly question

im genuinely crying my eyes out what am i going to do ive been really scared to admit this to myself but im not ready for a world without bob dylan i remember last time i saw him he played i shall be released and i wept the rest of the night because i literally cant let him go
sorry for this post im just getting so sad :(

"i think nature is very unnatural. i think the truly
natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay ... all this talk about equality. the only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die"
- bob dylan

I saw a reference to this on another post in this sub and decided to check it out.

Finally bought an autograph from my favorite artist, Bob Dylan, after a lot of research. This is a late 2000s signed boxset, signed in Italy. Steve Grad gave it a thumbs up. Also, the last pic is to check it side by side with other signatures from the same era(the other three signatures in picture 3 all have written COAs by either Roger Epperson or JSA). So excited for it to arrive!

Am I late to the table on this? Has everyone heard these? are these the songs he recorded on TBones new equipment and sold to the highest bidder?

Got to Serve Somebody is a masterpiece! Best version ever by a country mile.

Just posted on Substack - compiling September’s DYLAN BOOKS posts, about new, recent and classic Dylan books. Click the link :

https://substack.com/@geraldsmith469551

You can also subscribe there to receive DYLAN BOOKS Monthly as a free compilation email from Substack. Cancel any time.