What did Bob Dylan die of?

Clicking on that I was told…

The answer is blowin’ in the wind means we will find the answer. So it’s a matter of interpretation and, frankly, I think Bobby was probably right and legitimate in not giving a specific interpretation. Dylan’s own version of the song appeared on his second album, the ‘Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,’ released in May 1963

OK – although I am not sure that one should be so familiar with Mr Z to call him “Bobby”.  I think if I ever met him I’d never get beyond gaping with my mouth wide open while occasionally calling him “sir”.  But moving on…

“How many roads must a man walk down in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

That I found quite fascinating because Douglas Adams (who wrote the Hitchhiker series), and the man who primarily influenced him in this line of writing, PG Wodehouse, are two of my all time favourite authors, which you will probably know if you follow my personal column on Facebook (not the Untold Dylan group, but my equivalent of the one where people tell us where they are and what they are eating).

Both Adams and Wodehouse worked to undermine the whole concept of the novel (and also in Douglas Adams case, the radio series) and in my own small way I endeavour daily to undermine the essence of Facebook).

But what, I wondered, does Bob Dylan have to do with the Hitchhiker’s Guide?

At this point Google then told me that at “the end of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the mice needed to make up an Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer of 42. “How many roads must a man walk down?” was what they chose after a moment’s consideration.”

Of course they did.  I’d forgotten.  Silly me.  All this stuff about Bob being dead had rattled me.

So there was some sort of connectivity there, but none of this explains why presumably tens of thousands of people are endlessly asking “What did Bob Dylan die of?”   And we may note perhaps that no one is asking if Bob is dead or when he died, but simply “What did Bob Dylan die of?”

Thus we have it.  Google is, as I often thought, out of control.  But still, it is nice to know that for most Dylan songs this little site that you are currently reading is on the first page of Google results, after the gibberish about Bob being dead.  In fact sometimes we are even top of the list beating the official BobDylan.com site.  OK, Google often put a video clip above us, but still, we’re right up there.  Try searching for “Tell Ol Bill” for example.

But I wonder how one can change the answer to the “What did Bob Dylan die of” question to read, “Bob isn’t dead.  He lives forever.”  If you are a techno whiz perhaps you could do that – followed by a link to this site perhaps.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

4:   The Discussion Group    We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.