6. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone

If family mythology is to be believed, my Dad quite liked Bob Dylan when he was in his teens.  And then I came along before he turned 20 and popular music paled into insignificance.  Dad's indifference became borderline contemptuous over time.  But he didn't throw away his tape of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits and I found it in a cupboard in the dining room when I was 15.

Like anyone in the 80s with a school music teacher who affected coolness, I sang (ok, mimed) along to Blowin' in the Wind and was told about Bob Dylan at an early age.  Nothing is more guaranteed to put you off any particular music than having an adult wet their knickers over it while attempting to inflict it on you.

So, when the tape started, I thought, oh yeah I know this, folk protest songs for bearded saddos (our music teacher was a bearded saddo).  Blowin' in the Wind, The Times they are a-changin' and then another school music lesson staple, Mr Tambourine Man.

And then...

Much is written about the social-musicological impact of Like a Rolling Stone.  The number of musicians and artists heavily influenced by Dylan, who trace their Damascus moment to their first exposure to Like a Rolling Stone is notable.  And I can see it. Because somewhere on side 2 after all the folky stuff, a snap of snare drum prompts a slamming on Al Kooper's Hammond organ and Mike Bloomfield's guitar accompanies this to create a wave of OH FUCK that resonated from 1965 down through history to everyone who hears this for the first time.  It is THE BEST SONG OF ALL TIME.

I won't try and wax lyrical any further about the song's musical attributes or I'll end up disappearing up my own arse and - like every competent music writer, which I am not - failing dismally to do any justice in words to something that can only be appreciated aurally.

What it did for me, was to make my taste in music GROWN UP.  I became middle-aged when I heard that song (or possibly I was so like a middle-aged man at 15 that Bob Dylan was bound to appeal to me - chicken or egg, who knows?)

I went to see him in concert, alone, in about 1987 and he was backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  I was sat next to the exit nearest the stage at Wembley Arena and at one point during Petty's supporting set, I looked down and there, within a hand's reach, was Bob.  He was stood watching his backing band, dressed in a hooded top, for some reason keen to see the view from the audience's aspect.  I should have ruffled the bit of iconic curly hair that stuck out from beneath the hood, but instead I pathetically (not that ruffling his hair would have been any less pathetic) borrowed a pen from someone next to me and scrambled out of my seat to try and get him to sign my programme.  (Yep, early days of gig-going, when buying a programme feels like the right thing to do, as opposed to what it is, a fucking pointless waste of money.)  Sadly and inevitably, Bob had been recognised by someone else, word had spread and he scarpered backstage before I could accost him.

And thus started something that sits a level just slightly below obsession.  I own every studio and live album.  I have tried to collect in some form every song not on an album.  I have read books and seen him several times more in concert (not a lot, as he is unfortunately and enigmatically hit or miss, and much more miss the 2nd time I saw him, when I persuaded my wife within weeks of first going out with her to come with me to see him in what several writers have since acknowledged as his worst series of performances in the 56 year period in which he has regularly toured.)

I understand people disliking Bob, or even hating him, mainly for his voice, while unanimously admiring his song-writing ability as being right up there.  It's a personal thing.  To me, Bob's voice contains a warm and nostalgic familiarity, something unique and imperfect.  Something you love a bit like your Dad.  You notice the flaws, but you know only an outsider would be put off by them.  As far as you're concerned, there is an indescribable affection that you retain throughout life and an awe every time he does something to remind you of why you think he is ONE OF A KIND and INCOMPARABLY WONDERFUL.