I have been a fan of Bob Dylan since I was 16 (he’s the only artist of whom I would actually call myself a fan), so it was gratifying for me when Sean, quite recently, started to listen to him too.
I remember that when the children were around 10, we had a cassette in the car with some tracks from one of Dylan’s ‘official’ bootleg combinations. They particularly liked an early version of ‘Tangled Up in Blue’, and a song called ‘Seven Days’ from the Rolling Thunder tour. Later, on weekend nights, the four of us would sometimes take it in turns to choose a track from a CD to play (between us we have quite a few CDs), to which we all would listen. Perhaps this influenced their musical taste.
In the past year, I noticed that Sean was starting to listen to certain Dylan tracks quite a lot. ‘Wedding Song’ was a special one for him and Clio (as it is for his mum and me); also there were ‘Hurricane’, Forever Young’, a live version of ‘Shelter from the Storm’ that he found on YouTube, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’, and, especially, ‘Blind Willie McTell’. The last of these is one of the very few great tracks that Dylan recorded after the 1970s, in my opinion … it ranks with his best ever.
In the weeks immediately before his death, Sean often listened to ‘Blind Willie McTell’ turned up loud on the computer, and sang along. We talked about the song, and he also sang it at the top of his voice while walking around the house (Sean was not a quiet person to live with). It was a major part of his life’s soundtrack at the very end.
In the days following his death we found that if we put ‘Blind Willie McTell’ on as we were driving away from our house, it would finish at the precise moment we arrived at the graveyard. The simple, melancholy piano arrangement and Dylan’s powerful voice seemed to suit the mood well as we drove across the bog road in varying degrees of devastation.
Unfortunately, very little of Dylan’s music is available on YouTube, presumably for copyright reasons. Here are a few snippets … even the version of ‘Shelter from the Storm’ that Sean liked seems to have been taken down, sadly. We still love you, Sean.
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 
Some of the clips wouldn’t load properly in the post …
Hello Brendan .. there does seem to be a problem for me with these videos unfortunately .. the tracks just don’t play properly. However ‘Tangled up in Blue’ is my favourite Dylan song by a mile or two .. it just appeals to me so much more than any of the others … perhaps it’s the ‘thirteenth century poet’ bit.. 🙂 I always imagine that he refers to Dante.
Marya x
Hello Marya … that’s a pity. For me, the two in the post work normally and for the others I get ‘Embedding disabled by request’ with a clickable option to ‘Watch on YouTube’.
I remember you mentioned ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ before … one of my favourites too. Yes, probably Dante.
Good evening, Brendan … and the book,’Vita Nuova’, perhaps. It’s fun surmising what Dylan might have had in mind, I think. 🙂
Hello Marya … yes, although he may not always have known himself. There’s the transcendence you mentioned (sometimes, at least :-)).
Yes, indeed … that verse might have ‘written itself’ as poets have been known to say 🙂
Are you a Dante scholar, Marya?
Personally, I would not go hunting for Dante in Bob Dylan’s music.
No great hunting required … ‘Then she opened up a book of poems and handed it to me/Written by an Italian poet from the 13th century.’
The indefinite article ‘an’ for Il Poeta?
?
Ze Italian poet.
ZE poet.
OIC … sorry. A bit tired.
The protagonist in the song, which is a story or set of stories, would probably not have heard of Dante.
Yes, I realize that I am out of the song narrative.
Hello Cymbeline … no, I am not a scholar but an admirer 🙂
Hello Marya. Having had the great pleasure of becoming acquainted with your sincere modesty and learning over the last few years now, I suspect that you are indeed a passably respectable Dante scholar, if not more.
Hello again, Cymbeline .. thank you for your most kind opinion but I’m embarrassed
by that perception of me .. I am indeed no scholar but a dileddante 🙂
Or even a dylandante, Marya. 🙂
Bravo, Brendan … that response wasn’t andante but allegro 🙂
None of the video clips work for me either. Never mind. I know the songs – was interested in the Goya illustration to ‘Jokerman’. Odd. Eh? Dante, and now Goya?
I like Dylan, dans l’ensemble. Music that has always been ‘there’, as I said for Marley. Young parents.
Never could bear the ‘lay lady lay’ dirge though. Deeply cringeworthy. Ma big brass bade.
The ‘Jokerman’ clip is unofficial … cobbled together by some fan.
Yes, your views on ‘Lay Lady Lay’ are a matter of public record. 🙂 Nice chord progression though.
Nothing like a bit of nice chord progression, must admit.
A, C#m, G, Bm. Elegant.
It was supposed to be in Midnight Cowboy … but you knew that.
Cough.
Another fine photograph of your son, with young lady companion here. Confidence, and care for others too. The world is his oyster, with no arrogance.
Looking at these photographs, I bet that many people wish that they were Sean O’Brien, the shooting star. Looks, youth, charm, talent, kindness, love.
Thanks, Cymbeline. Yes, Sean had all those things in abundance. The world was his oyster, as you say.
Susanna had a dream in which a train pulled up to her school. Sean got off and said ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m having a blast’, then he got back on the train and it pulled away.
Your daughter’s dream is healthy and wonderful. Your family is a living family. Living minds.
One other thing occurred to me about Sean and Dylan. Sean loved the way Dylan’s original version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ was used at a crucial point in the film American Beauty … he thought it was more effective than the better-known Hendrix version (which he loved) would have been.