Christmas in the heart … how Bob stopped shining those lights after the horror of 2018

In Christmases past it was a joy to write about the festive lights at Bob Dylan’s magical Malibu mansion.

They were just a string of shining baubles attached to some brushy branches along a fence at Point Dume.

It opened up a lot of good-natured banter, like Did You Prefer it Before Bob’s Lights Went Electric, or Bob’s Christmas Wishes Blowing in the Wind…

Then the joke wasn’t funny any more. Hell’s fire killed at least three people and burned down hundreds of homes and businesses.

And Bob’s lights vanished. Whether they were taken down or disappeared in the flames that licked against the edges of his onion-topped compound of eccentric dreams and design indulgences, doesn’t really matter.

One way the string bean of electric humour never came back. A blow-up nativity scene did appear behind a chicken-wire fence for a short time. But that too was removed very quickly.

Bob was lucky and it might have been a little inappropriate to continue the grand joke of his strange lights.

Many of his neighbours weren’t, their homes were badly damaged, satellite pictures still reveal the scars of the devastation.

However, now, three years on, we are re-running the story below, we believe it is still an amusing story of the eccentricity of the world’s greatest songwriter … But we publish it with respect to those who suffered awful loss in the fire.

Please enjoy it for what it is … a colourful bit of Bob’s past.

Well, what do you think? Do you prefer Bob’s colourful baubles before they went electric?

We wrote: The geriatric, but still wayward star, has had the Christmas lights at his £100million Point Dume compound scoffed at for years – and not without reason!

When, nine years ago, he first paid his skewwhiff homage to tradition on the massive hedge which hides his home from the world, it was just an untidy rope of bulbs – some looking broken.

That’s when Merrill Markoe,  known for her work on The David Letterman Show, spotted them as she drove home, one dark and chilly night,  and decided to photograph them.

Her chronicling of the lights over the years became an hilarious series of articles insinuating Bob is using them to send secret messages to the world.

She said: “I wasn’t planning to write about Bob and his lights this year, but the events of 2016 left me little choice. In a year that took both David Bowie and Leonard Cohen and left Donald Trump in their place, it was impossible to ignore the fact that the world was in desperate need of timely reflections from Dylan, this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.”

Sure enough, the messages in the display could be his most complex Christmas message ‘since god rest me merry gentlemen’ on his 2009 festive album.

But there is no doubt somebody at the Point Dume complex –  a bit of a scrapyard actually, for the old vehicles Bob uses in his wrought iron gates sideline  –  has put a bit more effort in to it all this year and there are more bulbs and certainly a bit more colour.

And Merrill says there appears to be the letter N hidden in the hodgepodge of lights which could be an allusion to Bob’s Nobel Prize debacle – the old curmudgeon sent his old amour Patti Smith to collect it instead. She gave a rendition of Hard Rain for the gathered academics and literati and unfortunately forgot the words.

About his Royal Bobness’s house … it’s an eccentric mix of Santa Fe, Spanish, Moorish and, unexpectedly, Russian styles – including a tower crowned with a copper dome – and a lounge big enough to ride a horse through.

Good on ya Bob!

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