Po’ Boy … how Bob’s clowning has kept him at top of Mr Jones’s agenda – (listen to Po’ Boy live, inside)
That the release of a song by anybody at all should make worldwide news during a global crisis is quite simply remarkable.
But who did it? Ariana Grande? Bruno Mars? Or that Justin Bleater?
No!
It was that irascible, eccentric, metal-working, modernist artist, Americana-gathering pensioner who so many people still scoff at, saying he is the world’s worst singer – Bob Dylan!
Oh yes! Long live the crock ‘n’ rollers!
Murder Most Foul is as eccentric as its creator, a dystopian song hung loosely on the bones of the murder of John F Kennedy, a cinematic sweep of American culture more than half a century ago … a laconic look at music heroes from Jerry and the Pacemakers, Wolfman Jack to, in my opinion, the vastly overrated Beatles.
And it is a 17 minute long, arid and dry rendition of a crumbling world performed in a voice rumbling with history.
So, why does the world’s only Picasso of vocalisation, command such a reaction from the jaundiced traditional and not-so traditional media?
Well, firstly he defies age, categorisation, genre and is still, after all these decades, controversial. He is an enigma … people quite simply don’t understand him.
Let’s take a look at some of the bizarre and funny ways His Royal Bobness of Dylan has kept himself at the top of the international news agendas…
Fare tip …
For instance, one way is to get in a decades long war with that goody-two-shoes Joni Mitchell – who appeared chastely naked on her first album cover in 1967.
She so despises him that she still goes around telling people that when she performed with Bob – naughty Joni! – in 1994, “On the third night they stuck Bob at the mic with me … and he never brushes his teeth, so his breath was like … right in my face.”
Joni – who might just need a bit of Big Yellow Taxi-dermy to shut her up … has popped at Dylan over the years, saying, among other things, “I like a lot of Bob Dylan’s songs, though musically he’s not very gifted.”
Service with a smile …
Michael Parkinson is one of the UK’s iconic chat show hosts and when he approached Dylan at a restaurant to tell him that he loved his music, Dylan replied: “Eggs over easy and coffee, please.”
Dumped… but a winner all the same
He once lived next door to Katharine Hepburn in Turtle Bay Manhattan. Victor Maymudes says Dylan let his Bullmastiff, Brutus, “shit in her flowerbed all the time.”
Doggone it ‘far out’ Brutus ...
Not sure if it was Brutus again but Bob’s dog ate Michael Douglas’s caviar! Douglas is quoted as saying: “George Harrison walks in with Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan has the biggest dog you’ve ever seen in your life.” Douglas orders some caviar for the trio, which Dylan’s dog ate in one lathery swoop. “Bob Dylan hadn’t said a word yet,” Douglas recalls, “then finally he looks over and goes ‘far out.’”
Knock, knock, knocking on publicity’s door …
Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics invited Dylan to visit his studio in London, Dave said: “He got my address wrong. He went up to this house, rang the doorbell and a woman came to the door. He said, ‘Is Dave here?’ and her husband was called Dave, so she said, ‘No, he’s at work’ and Bob was going, ‘He’s at work? That’s funny, I thought I was supposed to come around here.’… By the time he got round to my place he was really flustered … he’s a funny chap.”
Streets ahead!
In New Jersey, in 2009, Dylan, who was in town for a concert, decided to take a stroll. Police officers, responding to complaints about a “scruffy old man acting suspiciously” picked up the ID-less singer. He was taken back to his hotel, where the reception staff explained to the officers who, exactly, they’d picked up.
A lonesome hello …
Despite taking solitary walks, concert promoter Bill Graham in advance of a tour in the ’70s, he told the road crew to keep their distance. As he explained in his memoir Bill Graham Presents, the staff obeyed — too well: “In the third or fourth city in the middle of the night, someone knocked on the door of my hotel room. I opened the door and it was Bob. He came in. I could see he had a problem. I said, ‘Is everything okay, Bob? Something’s wrong?’ He said, ‘Bill, why isn’t anybody talking to me?’”
Body shot Bob…
Speaking about Guns n Roses version of Heaven’s Door, Bob said in 1992: “Guns N’ Roses is okay, Slash is okay, but there’s something about their version of the song that reminds me of the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”