INFLUENCES- #1 Bob Dylan

Is anyone else out there nearly as stoked as I am? In less than two weeks, the great Bob Dylan will release "Modern Times," his first new album of all new songs in five years. I'm already hoarding pennies in the change jar.

Of course, I don't know if you remember what else was going on the day "Love and Theft" came out, on 9/11/01. Something to do with airplanes, I think. Seriously, I remember walking across the street from the Sir Speedy where I was working to buy that CD at Hastings, wondering if WWIII was breaking loose. (The answer, both yes and no, is a subject for another day.) If there is another terrorist attack on the 29th, I wonder if the DHS will be knocking on Bob's door.

I have been a Bob Dylan fan for nearly twenty years now. Actually, maybe "fan" isn't the right word. Nobody is really just a "fan" of the big D. There are people out there so into Bob it's scary. Thankfully, I'm not that bad. I've heard of people buying on e-bay cigarette butts smoked by Bob. That's just weird. My own collection of hair and nail trimmings is very tastefully arranged, and so falls on this side of "the line." I've also heard tell of people who name their first-born son "Bob" or "Zimmy" or something outlandish like that. Or people who play "The Wedding Song" from Planet Waves at their wedding. Please let me know if I ever cross over into that kind of zealotry.

My first exposure to Bob came when I was in high school. My stepmother Sherry had a Norton poetry anthology and in there with T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost were the lyrics to "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Bob was not only the only rock guy in there, but the only songwriter of any kind. This impressed me so much I memorized the entire song and would recite it William Shatner-style with little or no provocation. At the time I wondered why this didn't get me any dates.

The next step towards total Boblimation came when I duped a copy of my girlfriend's Dad's copy of "Greatest Hits, Vol. 2." The song that really hooked me was "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." You have to love a song that starts with: "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter-time, too," and ends with: "I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough."

After that, I started buying the albums in rough chronological order. There was at least one song on every album which completely blew me away. "Talkin' WWIII Blues" on "Freewheelin'." "It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" on "Bringin' It All Back Home." "Ballad of a Thin Man" on "Highway 61."

So why does Bob resonate so deeply with me? The words, obviously. Throw Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, William Blake, Dylan Thomas, the Beats, the Beatles, Lenny Bruce and Franz Kafka into a blender along with "mystery ingredient X" and you might come close. Although that blend would be heavy on the "X." Who else could conjur the furious barrage of apocalyptic imagery in "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," or the line "the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face" from "Visions of Johanna?" Or, if you think he's past his prime, how about the metaphysical comedy of the waitress encounter in 1998's "Highlands?"

But not many people would deny Bob's a great songwriter. It's the "singer" part of the singer/songwriter title that give people the most problems. I know plenty of people (including my wife) who can't get past The Voice. You know, that thin nasal gravel-rattle you can only achieve by singing like Bob Dylan for 40 years. I'll admit The Voice is an acquired taste. It's the instrument the man has to work with, though, and God knows when he's On, he works it for all it's worth. I dare you to listen closely to his delivery of "Desolation Row" on the MTV Unplugged album and tell me you don't get chills. "Right now I don't read so good don't send me no more letters noooo . . ." Go ahead. I double dare you.

So, since I've got Blog-o-listaphillia, here are some of my favorite Bob moments:

BEST ALBUM: "Blonde on Blonde." No. "Blood on the Tracks." No, "Blonde on Blonde." Wait, "Time Out of Mind" is pretty amazing. Dammit, I don't know.

BEST PROTEST SONG: "Masters of War." The early, directly political, pure "folk" songs don't speak to me as much as the later "plugged-in" stuff, but it's hard to deny the impact of this cutting tirade against the military-industrial complex, those who profit (greatly) from death and destruction. Sadly, this song is more timely now than it was in '63.

FUNNIEST SONG: "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream." A truly jaw-dropping piece of stream-of-consciousness achronistic Americana. "Moby Dick," The Beatles and Columbus are all referenced in a hysterically funny breakneck rhyme. RUNNER-UP: "Motorpsycho Nightmare."

BEST SONG TO SING ALONG TO DRUNK: "(Sooner or Later) One of Us Must Know." Believe me, I speak from experience. "I didn't realize how young you werrrre."

BEST BREAK-UP SONG: "Idiot Wind." Sure, the guy wrote "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "It Ain't Me, Babe," but for pure vicious bile and rancor, you can't beat this cut from "Blood on the Tracks." Actually, you can. Try the even more bitter acoustic version on "Bootleg, Vol. 2." Hear Bob say the line "Sweet lady" and make it sound like "you evil fucking whore."

BEST STORY SONG: "Brownsville Girl." OK, OK. Or "Tangled Up in Blue" or "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts." Bob's got this incredible ability to compress novel-worthy narratives into eight minute songs. I have attempted to replicate this in a short story, with utterly embarrassing results.

BEST LIVE SONG: "Like a Rolling Stone." The version on "Bootleg Vol. 4: Live '66." For the entire concert, Bob dealt with the hecklers with wit and good humor. But when some wag calls him "Judas," the camel's back is broken. "I don't believe you," Bob says. "You're a liar." Then he turns to the band and says "Play it fuckin' loud." What follows is the most blistering, confrontational and out-loud rockin' rendition of Bob's signature tune. Also qualifies as BEST SONG TO PLAY AT TOP VOLUME AFTER BEING FIRED FROM A JOB YOU HATED ANYWAY.

BEST "JESUS PERIOD" SONG: "I Believe in You." Defiant, unwavering faith in the face of popular scorn.

BEST "BOOTLEG" SONG: "Blind Willie McTell." Who would have thought a Minnesota Jew could deliver such a potent evocation of the African-American Southern experience? And then leave it off the album because he didn't think it quite turned out? "I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell." Or Bob Dylan, for that matter. RUNNER-UP: "Foot of Pride," if only for the one line: "You know what they say about being nice to the right people on the way up? Sooner or later you're going to meet them coming down."

BEST BOB SONG NOT ON A BOB ALBUM: "Tweeter and the Monkeyman" from "The Traveling Wilbury's, Vol. 1." This Jersey crime story out-does both Springsteen and "The Sopranos."

BEST USE OF AN OBSCURE BOB SONG IN A MOVIE: "The Man in Me," from "The Big Lebowski." Only now, damn it, I picture Jeff Bridges bowling whenever I hear it.

BEST BOB COVER: I still have a weakness for Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower." Jimi also did a very decent live version of "Like a Rolling Stone" at Monterey.

And, lest you think I'm unaware of the feet of clay:

WORST BOB SONG: "Under the Red Sky." The little boy and the little girl were baked into a pie? What the fuck, Bob?

WORST LIVE ALBUM: "Real Live." Except for an interesting re-working of "Tangled Up in Blue," excrutiatingly unlistenable.

WORST COLLABORATION: "Dylan and the Dead." Maybe it was what they were smoking back-stage, but Bob and the Gratefuls bring out the worst in each other. On some of the tracks, I don't even think the Dead are playing the same song Bob is singing.

WORST BOB MOVIE: (tie) "Hearts on Fire" / "Masked and Anonymous." Bob has less luck with movies than Madonna. I've never seen "Renaldo & Clara," but it's notoriously awful.

God, I've babbled on my Bob blog for a long time. I didn't even mention the surrealistic Victoria's Secret ads, the amazing work of random biography (Chronicles, Vol 1) or the fact that I've been pestering Lea to get me an XM hook-up so I can listen to Bob's "Theme-Time" radio show.

I'll leave it there, though, but rest assured I will give a full review of "Modern Times" as soon as I've listened to it. Providing, of course, that terrorists have not nuked Northern AZ, or wiped out the internet with an EMP.

(PS- Just by typing that last sentence, I have "red-flagged" myself onto a CIA watch-list. Oh, well, might as well go all out. Assassination dirty bomb anthrax Allah Michael Moore Mt. Rushmore Dr. Shoal's gel insert explosive. There. Call it post-9/11 blogger Tourette's.)