We salute you Bob

Bob Dylan was 70 this week. He has had many guises in 50 years as a musician — from folkie to protest singer to prophet and preacher — but he is always relevant, says Carl Dixon

IT was revealed this week that music legend Bob Dylan kicked a heroin habit as a young man in New York. The news coincided with Dylan’s 70th birthday, which he celebrated in Sursee, Switzerland, on Tuesday. Given his reputation for hard living — a chain smoker for much of his life, he has had long love affairs with whiskey and marijuana — it is a wonder that Dylan has survived so long.

What is hardly surprising is that he continues to be the subject of controversy: as long as he draws breath, Dylan will give both pleasure and offence. In April, he toured China and was condemned when it was reported that he had ceded to the authorities’ request that he not perform his best-known protest songs, including Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They Are A-Changin’. Dylan has denied that he was censored.