Happy birthday Bob Dylan: Irish admirers pay tribute to the music legend
Bob Dylan turns 80 on Monday, May 24.
As one 80-year-old to another, and as one poet to another, I felt I should share with you my view that the best poem on an 80-year-old is William Wordsworth’s 'Michael', which deals with the consequences of the enclosures in England in the 18th Century, and their making of a working class of men, women and children for the factory system at the cost of intimate rural life. I feel it’s a beautiful work and would love sometime to talk to you about it.
In 2016, I said of you: “Bob Dylan’s linking of the American folk tradition to moral, economic and political challenges has been a significant achievement, and the appeal of his music has been inter-generational. His lyrics, with their rhythms, have linked followers of country, jazz and rock to counter-cultural and politically engaged movements. In doing this, he has narrowed the space between the poetic, the musical and the political.” My opinion hasn’t changed.
Keep going.
Good luck with everything.
Traoslaím leat (I congratulate you).
Beir bua (May victory be yours)!
Idiot Wind is the song that made me finally decide I wanted to go into the music business.
One of the things I love about Bob is he doesn’t hide his ugly side. Most of us are so busy almost being our own agents, that we pretend we’re nice all the time. I found Idiot Wind was a very brave song, because it showed his temper.
In the Ireland I grew up in, there was no place for anger, especially if you were a girl.
It made me think, okay, I’m so angry that I don’t really fit anywhere except the music business. Idiot Wind taught me that in music you can say anything that’s forbidden outside of music, whether it’s “I hate you” or “I love you”.
In the early 1980s, I was playing cover songs at the Lions Tavern in my hometown of St Catharines, and I thought I should probably add a few Dylan numbers to my repertoire. I went down to the library and took out his Greatest Hits.
As I began performing songs such as It Ain’t Me Babe, I Want You and Positively Fourth Street, Dylan enthusiasts would request songs I wasn’t familiar with, and it was from this desire to please people that the world of Dylan’s music began to open up for me.
In the late '90s, I was asked to open for Bob in Vancouver. The show was fantastic, and right before his last encore I hear Bob say “I wanna thank Ron Sexsmith for opening up tonight!” I can’t even begin to tell you how that felt!
I have seen Bob Dylan live three times and I adore him and his music. I think that the reason he doesn’t in any way really 'play to the crowd' when performing live is because he knows he has already done his bit for humanity. It is as if he knows that he has already left to the universe genius songs and that he doesn’t need to do a single thing more.
I would find it nearly impossible to pick my favourite song, so I am picking the most memorable moment from one of those three shows… the moment he flicked his hair. A smooth movement of his right hand, slight body twist, a swift flick of his hand through the hair, along with a quick head motion. The crowd went absolutely wild. I can still hear and feel that moment.
Good on you Bob.
One of my all-time favourite Bobby D shows was the 3Arena in 2017. I’ll never forget it... rather, I did forget it, because I had a concussion for the whole gig! I woke the morning of the show run-down with flu-like symptoms. However, nothing would stop me seeing my idol. I took every flu medicine on the way up in the bus, and went straight to Supermac’s for a quick bite before the gig. I blacked out, splitting my head on their pristine tiles.
I assured the paramedics that I was fine by listing Dylan’s discography start-to-finish, and off I went to the gig with some new stitches.
Next morning, the doctor told me I had a severe concussion, and had no idea how I had stayed upright for so long!
The moral of this story is that Bob Dylan is worth a few stitches in the head. Lá Breithe Shona, Bobby D
Clare Sands is a Cork-based singer-songwriter
Bob Dylan is not known to be partial to sing-alongs. Fly-by-night attendees of his shows lay down their bandanas and complain they didn’t recognise any “hits”.
To the dedicated Bobcat, of course, the more obscure and twisted the song performed, the better.
I attended an early ‘90s Bob show at the Point Theatre and witnessed a rare event. As Bob sang It Ain’t Me, Babe, his idiosyncratic delivery of the “No No No” sections were increasingly drowned out by the crowd bellowing back at him “NO! NO! NO!” After the very last chorus, he beseeched the crowd: “Do that again! You sound so beautiful to me!” Everyone there, at the top of their lungs, joined in. Spine-tingling!
I love Don’t Think Twice. Having sung it for years, I find it inspiring and cathartic. A story recalled, immaturity painted, precious time wasted, yet still an undercurrent of kindness sits beneath the surface of this bitter-sweet finger-picking report of stoic heartbreak.
The lyrics and delivery penetrate straight to the heart. A half-spoken, half-sung narrative has me in the minds of both victim and villain.
The timeless journey flickers with vulnerability, strength, depletion, sorrow, peace and love.
From the cutting remark: “I once loved a woman, a child I am told / I give her my heart but she wanted my soul” to the tender “I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind / You could have done better but I don’t mind” carries me through a withdrawal of forlorn passion.
What a gem. Thank you, Mr Bob Dylan.
My favourite Bob Dylan song? Well, it all depends on which me you’re talking about and, of course, which Bob. It might be a song that I hear today – one that I didn’t quite get when I was in my teens; or it might be a song directly from those teenage years that has held me steady for decades. It might also be whatever I need to hear at any given moment but, for the sake of argument, let’s go with Brownsville Girl.
Co-written with Sam Shepard, it’s a sweeping, conversational epic in which Dylan pulls a trick, not for the first time, where the woman he’s speaking to is not the woman he’s speaking about; the woman he’s singing about is not the woman he’s with. It touches on creativity, inspiration, anxiety, love and the complicated end of love.
What’s it about? I don’t know. It’s about 11 minutes.
