Tangled Up In Blue

Bob Dylan (1941–)

Another tweak alert: Mark told me that Delacroix, mentioned in the song, rhymes with craw, not coy, so I altered the rhyme to accommodate this.

The first time I saw Bob Dylan was in the Fat Black Pussycat on MacDougal Street in 1961. As he walked by my table I thought, there goes a punk from New Jersey who heard you could get laid in the Village by carrying a guitar case. Four years later I had the same brilliant insight when I saw the unknown-to-me Jimi Hendrix, then Jimmi James, walk by me with a guitar case while I was sitting around the corner at the Night Owl. He then walked to a table in back, took his guitar out of his case, put his feet up on the table, and proceeded to play a killer instrumental version the Beatles “She Said She Said”. Gulp. The next time I saw Bob Dylan he was on the stage at Folk City. I was outside looking through the glass door, and I could see him, but not hear him. However, it was obvious by his moves and that he was wearing a harmonica holder that he could really play. I finally heard him play at the Monday night Folk City Hoot. He played “I’m Gonna Get You, Sally Gal”. I had an instant realization that his singing style was an amalgam of traditional and rock ‘n’ roll. Fuck 1965, his voice had already gone electric. I had previously considered my two loves of traditional music and rock ‘n’ roll to be an incompatible combination, never the twain shall meet and all that. But Dylan showed me how stupidly wrong I was. It was one of the major epiphanies of my life. My head felt like it was bouncing around on the ceiling. After his set I went up to him and did the fanboy gush, which I have continued to do, when appropriate, throughout my life. I live and I will die a proud fanboy. He asked if I would do a favor for him. Anything, anything! I thought, but I just said, “Sure!” The favor was, his friend Jim Kweskin needed a place to stay and could me and my GF put him up? We did, for what ended up being almost two months. 

A week or so after we met, Robert Shelton’s rave review in the New York Times appeared, and I saw him do another show at Folk City. Seated at a front table were four lovely, chic, upscale, uptown women, who were obviously curious as to what the fuss was about. Here’s 20-year-old scruffy Dylan on stage. The woman all wore bemused what-the-hell expressions. So Dylan hunches his shoulders way up and starts playing and blowing harmonica while doing this goofy shuffling dance, all the while eyeing the ladies at the table, who started giggling and smiling. Charmed the hell out of them in seconds flat. He used to do goofy shit on stage all the time, sort of like a hillbilly Charlie Chaplin. I used to think of him back then as being, besides a musical wonder, a world-class genius clown. But when he quit wearing that little cap seemed to be when he quit being so goofy. Once I was talking to Dave van Ronk about the old goofy Dylan-with-the-cap, and he left the room, returning shortly wearing a sheepish grin and holding the very cap in his hands. I was surprised by how small it looked, as opposed to the iconic manner in which it loomed in my memory. Years later, I asked Dave what happened to the cap, and he said he gave it to his ex-wife (and my ex-manager), Terri Thal. I asked her about it, and she said it went missing when she moved. So it goes.

Another great lesson I learned from Bob Dylan was about my feelings about younger people. He was 20 years old and I was 22 when we met, and I had been disdaining anyone younger than I was. What do those damn kids know about life anyway? But here’s this kid that knew more than I had even dreamed of. And the world remains full of 20-year old kids who know more than I have even dreamed of. 

BTW, speaking of the Great American Songbook, Dylan has been writing songs for as long as Jerome Kern was alive.