Bob Dylan Turns 80

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Mon May 24, 2021 at 08:49:51 PM EST
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Wow. Just wow. Bob Dylan is 80 years old.

Happy birthday Bob Dylan. I know all the readers here will join me in wishing him many, many more.

His work is too extensive for me to pick a favorite. But I'll go with the one that has been the tagline for Talkleft's front page (bottom middle right column)for 19 years: Subterranean Homesick Blues.

The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles

More...

There are so many great lines in it:

Johnny’s in the basement Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government

and

Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters
....20 Years of schooling and they put you on the day shift

and of course,

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

Second, third and fourth favorites: Positively 4th Street, Shelter from the Storm and Hurricane. Idiot Wind is right up there too. My favorite album: Blood on the Tracks.

Mick Jagger says his favorite Dylan song is "Desolation Row". I like that too.

What's yours?

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Bob Dylan Turns 80 | 7 comments (7 topical)

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Our Nobel Laureate (5.00 / 2) (#6)
by christinep on Sun May 30, 2021 at 06:28:00 PM EST

All those years ago ... in the later 1970s, when sister & I & her best friend spent hours sitting in the rain in northern Colorado for a rain-soaked Bob Dylan concert ... who'd a thought that Dylan would never really leave. From that time sitting in Hefty trash bags against the rain and soaking in his MidEast-inspired phase (complete with a Joan Baez appearance) on an earlier May 24th B'Day that became known as the Hard Rain's Gonna Fall concert and the many other Denver area performances over the years, there has always been Bob Dylan. Thank goodness for the Poet.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit... (none / 0) (#1)
by desertswine on Tue May 25, 2021 at 12:18:45 AM EST

"Love Minus Zero / No Limit"

My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire

Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all

One of my all-time Dylan favorites.

: Good choice (none / 0) (#4)
by Peter G on Tue May 25, 2021 at 09:27:03 AM EST

Also, all of what Jeralyn mentioned (although I am intrigued she likes the angry and spiteful ones so much). And I would add "Visions of Johanna," "When the Ship Comes In," "Ballad of a Thin Man," as well as anything ("Hurricane" included) with Scarlett Rivera on electric violin.

Bob Dylan wrote the musical score ... (none / 0) (#2)
by Donald from Hawaii on Tue May 25, 2021 at 04:14:01 AM EST

... for one of my favorite westerns of all time, director Sam Peckinpah's 1973 classic "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." The song "Knocking on Heaven's Door" perfectly blends with what I think is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in '70s cinema between Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado. Not a word is exchanged between them; their eyes and faces say it all.

80 is the new 60 (none / 0) (#3)
by CaptHowdy on Tue May 25, 2021 at 07:49:58 AM EST

Which makes me middle aged

See also comments (none / 0) (#5)
by Peter G on Tue May 25, 2021 at 09:30:53 AM EST

on the previous "Open Thread" that I began here.

Master Poet (none / 0) (#7)
by HSP on Thu Jun 17, 2021 at 02:46:12 PM EST

Obvious choice but I have to go with Like a Rolling Stone as my fave. Musically I love the tune of it. Never gets old (like me, hopefully)