Bob Day 2008: A New Music for a New Century
On Saturday 24th May I joined a select group of fans, popular musicians and journalists in an undisclosed location on the south coast for the fifth annual BOB DAY. Bob Day is a group celebration of the birthday of Bob Dylan, and a practical workshop in Dylan appreciation. A large crowd kneels on the floor, straining their necks around a compendium of Dylan songs, and attempts to fit the words of - say - Tangled Up In Blue to the accompaniment of several guitars. Group fervour reaches religious pitch and anyone who's not "feeling it" is ejected and told to go and buy takeaway.
This year we piloted a new kind of "tribute songwriting". Each attendee was given a scrap of paper, asked to write down a word that came to mind when they thought of Bob and a single chord that Bob might use. The results were then placed in a large "beanie", shaken vigorously and read out in random order. Conjunctions were added where necessary and the following group composition was born. (The first two words to come out of the hat, incidentally, were "Bob").
Bob / Bob / on a harmonica
D / G / E / Am
Blue / paunchy / despair
Am / G / D minor7
Music / rolling / memories
D / G / A
I wish I was there
F / Am
But I was sorta there...
F / Am
The results were interesting. Some had chosen words from their favourite Dylan lyrics, while others had gone for less reverential observations based on his outward state or appearance. And no matter what was done to try and improve the chord sequence, it came out sounding like The Eagles.
Is this a new genre of music? The Fan Song - characterised by a haphazard combination of an artists's lyrical thumbprints, a fan's mildly drunken observations and an Eagles chord progression. The procedure might be repeated, with equally unsatisfactory results, for all major bands and musical icons.
Other events celebrated on he 24th included International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day. What did you do?
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Bob Dylan's 115th leopard-skin pill-box hat
I did nothing for Bob Dylan's birthday. I didn't even send him a card.
Today, a combination of boredom and hyperactivity caused me to cut-up the lyrics of Bob Dylan's 115th Dream and Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat. I put all the words in a glass dish and have been arranging random selections into vaguely coherent sentences, in the hope of creating my own lyrical bootleg.
"Before I jumped your handsome bones
upon a mattress in the Bowery Jail parlor.
Before I hocked my expensive sailor skin
and this cheatin' blue house brotherhood
robbed my health."
I always...
... "salute when his birthday comes"
He's now 67 and has recently begun his latest leg of The Neverending Tour. Last night was Reykjavik. Details here:
http://www.boblinks.com/
What a trooper.
Out Of Mind
I forgot it was his birthday. Actually, I had one of those rare days when I didn't listen to any Dylan at all. Then, late at night, he came up in conversation as a friend said to me that he thought he was dead, and I said no actually - 67 today. Today however, it is 42 years exactly since Dylan dedicated Like A Rolling Stone to the Taj Mahal at the Royal Albert Hall, on the final night of his 1966 tour:
http://theband.hiof.no/sounds/rhaintro/poets.mp2
Old Bob
Didn't realise either, thought he was in his seventies now.
Will listen again to his last "Smokin" theme time radio in his honour.
It's a good one
He plays Wilson Picket's "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You" which I've never heard on the radio before.
"Ooh, that whiney voice..."
Not to boast or owt, but I had noticed Bob's big day, so next week's "Music of the Week" at school will be his finest moments, to be played in assemblies and classrooms. I'll show prime video footage to try to sell the idea of Dylan to 5-12 year olds and staff who tend to "quite like Dido".
(Any suggestions on what video clips to show would be appreciated. I don't want to undersell him.)