my life as a artist
she makes lunch just like a woman
Thursday 17th May 2007 11:33 PM
Last night I performed at a Bob Dylan tribute gig, in celebration of his sixty-sixth birthday.
'I came to a low place of darkness and swamp
The bendy-bus ran through the centre of town
I locked up my bike to a post on the rise
Went into the Welly just to wash my throat down
A man called Chris approached me for a gig
I knew right away he was not ordinary
He said we're looking for someone to sing Mister Big
I said 'I aint got no talent', he said 'It aint necessary'
We set off that night for the Post Office club
I gave him my bike-clips and he gave me his word
I said ' Will you pay my bus fare?' he said 'Yes, and a pint!'
I said 'That's the best news that I've ever heard!'
I remember doing one for his fiftieth. That night there was a quiz, won by a table of bobologists from Halifax, who scored twenty-eight out of thirty, considerably more, in my opinion, than Bob himself would have scored.
Those bobologists from Halifax, in their bobniscience, would be among the first to agree that Bob's sixty-sixth birthday has far more significance than his sixty-fifth. As the age for retirement, and a free bus-pass, sixty-five has some significance in the mundane, sublunary world of work and finance, but sixty-six is heavy with a cosmic meaning, especially for those that know. Those blokes from Halifax probably know. I don't.
I do know that sixty-six is two times thirty-three, which is the number of years of Christ's life and the highest degree in freemasonry. If you add Highway 51 to thirty three, you get eighty four, then take away five believers, obviously, and that leaves you seventy nine, which is the number of verses in Gates of Eden.
One of the most interesting times in Dylan's career was when he went electric. Up unto that point he had been iconic as 'man with guitar', a shamanic bard, a mystical troubadour. His duty was to hurl mighty words of white light and wisdom, against the demon controlled structures of the planet, and play a bit of dodgy harmonica.
Dylan's wholesome curly-haired-folk-singer image changed dramatically when he released Electric Lay Lady Layland. The first time he performed the new electric stuff was at the Newport folk festival, and they couldn't take it. If it had been in Newport, Gwent, he might have got away with it, but it was in Newport, Pembrokeshire, and at that time the folk festival was nearer to an Eisteddfod. After listening to a few harp recitals and some choral stuff, mainly in Welsh, the audience of local farmers couldn't really cope with 'Leopard skin pill box hat', turned up to eleven. On the live recording of the gig there's a bit between numbers where someone from the audience shouts out, in a strong Welsh accent, 'Could you turn it down a bit, please, Bob? It's a bit loud isn't it?'
Quick as a flash, Bob replies. 'I don't believe you! You're a liar'
During his time in Wales he wrote Rainy Day Women, Buckets of Rain, Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, Before the Flood, Shelter from the Storm, Idiot Wind and Hurricane. (and of course, Llanrhaedr-am-mochnant Woman on my Mind)
His bravery and inventiveness are really impressive. I was watching 'Don't Look Back', a film about the 1965 tour of the UK, and at one point, he's in a room, and Alan Price is playing a George Formby number on the piano. I think it was 'Leaning on a Lamppost'. You could see Dylan's hawk-like eyes taking it all in, and less than one month later, he wrote 'Its all right ma, turned out nice again'
He's looking well for his age. I think it's because he's made of really high quality leather. The same leather that Mother Theresa was made of, and Keith Richards. They say he's one of the hardest wearing guys in showbusiness.
When I was about ten, my dad used to make us smoke dope and listen to Dylan. Cannabis was really cheap in the West Riding in the mid-sixties, and the coalman used to deliver ours. We'd get two sacks a week, one of Afghani and one of Nepalese temple balls, which I suppose would be the equivalent of ovals.
Every evening, 'after us teas', he go up to the stereogram, which was made of half an acre of teak forest and the size of a small saloon car, and line up Dylan's first five albums on the autochanger. Then he'd go down to the cellar and come back with a coal-scuttle full of sticky, black lumps of hash, and he'd thump it down onto the carpet and say, 'I'm off to t'pub… and ah want to see that smoked afore ah get 'ome!'… and by God, we had to!
Now I'm older, I'm grateful to my dad for his firm and unusual guidance, although at the time, it played havoc with my eleven-plus. It's forty years later, and sadly, my dad's gone, and so has the stereogram, and sadly, so has the coal-scuttle, but I'm still here, and so is Bob, who's birthday is next week . I don't think I'll bother getting him anything. After all, he's got everything he needs, he's an artist, he don't look back.
l
Comments
I've had a shit day and you've just made me laugh. Thankyou!!!
Posted by Les Miserable , on Wednesday 23rd May 2007, 10:53 PM
splendid. your poetic usings soften the hard rains that fall
Posted by nomad , on Wednesday 23rd May 2007, 2:43 PM
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