I Wasn't Born to Lose You

On the occasion of his scheduled appearance for the first time at our beloved long-running Labor Day festival by the name of Bumbershoot, I was quite delighted to be serenaded this AM by radio play of Dylan's "I Want You."  For me, musically, this guy is, if not Polaris, certainly one of the brightest lights. We don't get to hear him very often on the adult semi-contemporary station we favor.  Not that I get in much radio either, being a mass-transit sort of guy - instead I get him on my iPod.  Confession: I have never attended the 'Shoot.  Too many people, for one thing.

But, given the at-least-hundreds of times I have savored this tune, it's remarkable how viscerally I still respond - especially when it comes up somewhat unexpectedly.  As some of you no doubt remember, it was one of the features of that incredible album Blonde on Blonde.

In the meantime, I picked up the Seattle Weekly's 'Shoot Guide while slaloming through the vendors frantically setting up their stands today on the Seattle Center grounds and picked up on article "Myth 61 Revisited," by John Roderick:

No one played me Bob Dylan's music growing up, thank God.  My parents were a little older and definitely not into nasal caterwauling and country warbling.  That was a part of the '60's they hated, along with Southern cops and the war on Vietnam.  So the first time I really heard Bob Dylan was high school, late '80's, after I was already marinated in music, opinionated, informed.

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I didn't get his music right off the bat - I was married to big, hooky choruses and long, indulgent guitar solos - so I had to struggle a little.  I struggled at first even to stand it, mostly because I couldn't stand the kids in wool caps and army jackets who misused their big vocabulary words and swore that Dylan would change my life.  I was pretty sure that if my life was going to change, it wasn't going to happen from looking down the barrel of some out-of-tune hillbilly music.  But enough of my college friends insisted that Dylan was great that I kept trying.  Despite the undeniable truth that some of Dylan's songs were untouchably great, I wasn't hip to what the big deal was.  THIS guy?  This is the famous Bob Dylan?  This monotone sneering over the same endlessly repeating three chords, interminable verses, nonsensical words?  Why is this guy such a legend?

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So not knowing Dylan before I was 20, not being told that he was the savior until I could judge for myself, saved me a lot of heartbreak later on.

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And, to his everlasting credit, Dylan never believed what people said about him.  He kept doing his thing, caterwauling, kept doing things for the hell of it, the fun of it.  That's why I like him, and I discovered it for myself.

[NB Eric and Mara:  please reassure me that I did not ruin Dylan for you by overbearing enthusiasm!]

Perusing an account of the genesis of the seminal Stones album Beggar's Banquet the other day, I enjoyed reminder that both the Stones and the Beatles were quite in awe of Bob, attending his concerts (e.g., Royal Albert Hall, the famous one when he morphed to hard rock a la Newport) and wanting to run their numbers by him.

"Keys to the Rain" has it this way:

Dylan's most traditional pop song deftly balances some of his most romantic if muddled images and his most personal plea.  The last song cut for ... Blonde on Blonde ... was finished in the Nashville hotel room where Dylan stayed while making the record.  Dylan had taught Al Kooper the piano part, and Kooper played it over and over while the author worked out the final lyric.  As an A-side single, "I Want You" hit No. 20 on the Billboard chart - not bad for a bit of chaotic pop surrealism portraying the happy, intoxicating infatuation of newfound love and including a cast of characters that could have jumped right off a Dali canvas: a guilty undertaker, a weeping mother, the Queen of Spades, a chambermaid, a dancing child with his Chinese suit, a lonesome organ grinder, and a drunken politician.

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The guilty undertaker sighs

The lonesome organ grinder cries

The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.

The cracked bells and washed-out horns

Blow into my face with scorn

But it's not that way

I wasn't born to lose you.

I want you, I want you

I want you so bad

Honey, I want you.

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For the record, umbrellas may be needed for the whimpy at Bumbershoot - showers are forecast!