I am not an expert in Bob Dylan. No Dylanologist I. I do not know the dates, facts, figures and garbage-snooping details that some obsessives seem to revel in.
This blog is just an opportunity for me to think aloud... Why does Bob Dylan's music seem to have such an impact on my life?
I have been considering what makes Dylan different from other singer/songwriters. Some people get hit by a lightning strike - a road to Damascus, an epiphany, a blinding flash of piercing clarity. Others, like myself, have it creep up on them gradually. My life has been filled with Dylan's music and, like the air we breathe, we do not notice most of the time that we are being sustained and kept alive by this invisible, undetectable force. Like oxygen, Dylan's songs keep my blood running through my veins.
That sounds dramatic, but the essence is correct. I recently was asked, as people do sometimes, which of my senses I would miss most should I lose one. My immediate reaction was that if I were deaf, I would never again hear Bob Dylan's voice in my ear.
Dylan's songs fulfill so many purposes. They rile, they tease, they seduce, they hurt, they inspire, they confuse and provoke thought. There are even a few that can raise a smile or an outright laugh! They are always intense, multi-faceted... nothing is to be taken at face value in Dylan's world.
Entering - no, immersing - oneself in Dylan's world is like living Alice's Adventures Through The Looking Glass. Characters recur. Reality is exaggerated and twisted until it becomes a new reality. Dreams merge with consciousness and the lines become blurred.
And yet, through all the twisting, blurring, posturing and allegory, listening to Dylan is like standing in a hurricane-force wind of truth. It is like standing on top of a mountain and taking a deep breath of the clearest air imaginable. It is enough to knock you off your feet with the power of the realization. Human emotion and condition laid bare. Painfully so sometimes.
It is as though Dylan says, 'Listen to me. I know how it is. I have lived it. I have felt the joys and the pain; the highs and the lows. Let me take that burden from you and guide you through to the other side.'
Hopefully, this blog will give me a chance to explore my relationship with Bob Dylan's music and my reactions to particular songs or albums. As I said at the start, this is not an 'expert' view - no analysis or thought beyond how I respond to the music. It might prove cathartic.
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