Music Break: Talkin' Bob Dylan
At the height of COVID quarantine, I pledged to get a tattoo and go see a lot of rock shows once virus passed. I haven’t gotten tatted, but I’ve seen plenty of concerts. Next week I will be seeing Bob Dylan live here in Jersey. It’s the last show of his current tour, and who knows if will be another one. I hope it’s not his last, but maybe I will get to witness history.
It’s appropriate I am seeing Dylan next week because this week I have a book chapter coming out in a new collection on Dylan’s setlists, The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances: Play a Song For Me. I wrote about the connections between the Rolling Thunder Tour and the Bicentennial. If you get a chance, check it out!
Doing this project rekindled my love of the Bobfather. A couple of years ago on my personal blog I listened to every Dylan album in order and wrote about them. I started buying really expensive Bootleg Series box sets and yes, I decided I needed to see him live again after a 19-year gap.
The last time I saw him featured the most amazing moment of any concert I’ve been to. I saw him in West Lafayette, Indiana, driving over from Champaign-Urbana with friends. It was the day after the 2004 election. That morning I got the gut punch of watching Kerry’s concession and the reality that the nation had actually reelected the man who dragged America into an illegal war. The 2016 election is the only one that has ever stung harder for me.
Dylan was in a weird phase where he was playing a standup piano but sort of hunched over when he was singing. It looked very awkward. He sang without enunciating, except for one moment. During “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding” he sang “Sometimes the President of the United States must be made to stand naked” with complete clarity. The crowd went nuts and I had the feeling that we would endure. Dylan gave me far more hope in that moment than I thought possible.
I am seeing him again in a very fraught time. Fascism looms, war rages, and the world is on fire. During lockdown my one respite was taking long walks. In April of 2020, when hundreds died a day were dying here in Jersey, I would go out for walks with my mind spinning out of control in despair. I listened to two songs by Dylan on repeat “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall” and “Murder Most Foul.” The latter was his newest, the former one of his oldest. Both seemed to be epitaphs for America, one written at the height of Cold War hubris, the other in the nadir of Trump and pandemic. Listening to both songs gave me strength, much like that Indiana night in 2004.
When I did my Dylan catalog listen, I found another song of inner strength where I least expected it, in his Christian era. For years, I didn’t even listen to his three religious records, based on their low reputation and lyrical content. For my project, however, I had to actually give them a listen, and realized that amidst the tiresome proselytizing songs, there are some works of true beauty.
“Every Grain of Sand” is my favorite of this era, and Dylan is ending his concerts on this tour with it. I am afraid if he does so when I see him next week I will start sobbing. The best religious music truly lifts us, even if we are not believers. “Every Grain of Sand” is about finding solace in “the hour of deepest need,” something we could all use right now. To believe that “Every hair is numbered/ Like Every Grain of Sand” is such a comforting thought. Maybe he won’t sneer out lines from his 60s “finger pointing” songs, but in this truly desperate hour this song is a healing balm of a higher order. Hopefully, all this too shall pass.