Mr Tambourine Man

Today driving to work (something I haven't done much of lately, but more on that later) I discovered that after the approximately a million or so years since I first heard & revered it, I STILL know all the words to that Bob Dylan oldie.

"To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
silhouetted by the sea. . . yadda yadda yadda"

To my ear now it's such a (young!) paean to - what? teenage angst? frustrated intellectual pretensions? Drug use?

Still, so many nicely turned phrases; apt, slick and singable. Dear Zimmerman.

When I was thirteen or so, in the period when my boyfriend John A and his sister Linnea were the important people in my emotional universe - Bobby Z and his lyrics were the final word on everything for the three of us. . I remember Linnea saying once, as we waited for her brother who was supposed to be taking me to the movies at some point,

"I learn more by listening to a single Dylan song for the fortieth time than by sitting in any class." L was in eighth grade at the time and I was much in awe of her sophistication. . .

I was older than L but much less confidant of my views. I went to all my classes and took notes - but I couldn't help wondering how one acquired L's confidence or the mysterious ability to DECIDE that a Dylan lyric was somehow more important, interesting or relevant.

In his senior year (a short year after I had decamped to a local liberal arts college, not (I hasten to assure you) exactly breaking his heart) John got a scholarship to an engineering school. After he graduated brilliantly, I heard he got a fellowship to a prestigious program at Yale. His ability to fix ,build and repair cars (he built from spare parts the car he took my on my first date to the movies) turnedout to be his way out of the rural backwater he, his sister and I found ourselves trying to grow up in, those lazy summers we spent listening to Dylan songs.

I hear about John A sometimes from long-ago friends and connections, but I have no idea what Linnea did after high school. I so wish I did.


(by Sally)