Dylan & Us: Beyond America: 2. Anything but idolatry – part 1

Dylan and us: beyond America:  2. Anything but idolatry – part 1

by Wouter van Oorschot

Translated by Brent Annable

Previously in this series…

And anyone can fill his life up with things he can see but he just cannot touch.

(‘Dear Landlord’ – 1968)

The Beatles made their debut in the same year as Dylan, 1962, and in the process unintentionally unleashed a global wave of mass-hysteria known as ‘Beatlemania’. The vast majority of Beatles fans were teenage girls who lost their minds at the very sight of them. It was the epitome of idolatry, of course, to an extent hitherto unseen, probably because the Christian god in the 1960s was due for a strategic retreat, and the ‘folks at home’ still needed some kind of faith to profess. And the Beatles had sex appeal, it cannot be denied. But more about them later.

Bob Dylan has never had to deal with any form of comparable hysteria as far as I am aware, though ‘Dylanmania’ certainly existed, and emerged equally as rapidly after his own debut. Despite his own good looks, however, there was hardly a tinge of eroticism, while Beatlemania barely rose above it. So there was plenty to separate the two camps of idolisers. The biggest difference took shape gradually, as after eight years, The Beatles called it a day and the members went their separate ways. Dylan did not have the option to split himself up, so the infatuation surrounding him never dissipated. And how differently it took shape!

Scattered throughout the groups mentioned above, but also beyond, are many thousands, if not tens of thousands of people across the globe (but most, I fear, still in the westernised world) who currently find themselves in various stages of Dylanmania. We must be strict with our definitions, so let us say that ‘mania’ commences beyond the point where a person wishes to own one copy of the complete works that were issued deliberately by the artist over the years. In Dylan’s case, one set excluding the Bootleg Series would come to around thirty albums or ‘editions’, to use the literary term, of original work. But let us be charitable, and allow for the fact that mere mortals would willingly forgive having one set to put on display, and another for study purposes or for in the garden shed. But this scenario is a different matter entirely from the most complete collections in the world, of which I have heard there are three in existence, including at least one in the Netherlands. These can no longer be described as mere ‘collections’ – more like cultural heritage sites. We can only hope that no oligarch or sheik ever has the chance to make off with them at an estate auction.

But it gets worse. Couples have divorced because one of the members refused to choose between their spouse and their Dylan collection. A less dire example, but one no less extreme, was the case of the couple who purchased the apartment next door when the opportunity presented, because when faced with the familiar ultimatum of ‘Either he goes, or I go!’ the husband saw a means to compromise and appease his other half.

There are also thousands of people worldwide who send one another recordings of every possible Dylan concert they can lay their hands on. Since all the performances within a single tour are virtually the same, in practical terms a single recording from the tour would suffice in order to make comparisons with other tours. However, let us be charitable once again, and permit comparisons of the scarce minor differences that occur within a single tour. But no: these are people who feel compelled to add every single concert ever given by Dylan to their collection. ‘Just because’, they have fallen prey to the childish desire to possess everything, to have heard everything at least once. Let us hope that they indeed limit themselves to just one hearing, for you never know whether one rendition of a song may be better than another, or whether the master might unexpectedly have sung a few divergent lyrics. These will of course require in-depth study, which is then conducted in dedicated journals and on website forums. But how does one determine exactly which of the over two thousand live performances of ‘All along the watchtower’ is the superior one? It is a fool’s errand.

But the sorriest bunch is the army of people known as ‘Bobcats’ or ‘Dylanheads’, who welcome every word from Dylan as a soothing balm that nurtures and deepens their spirituality. There are those among them who have reorganised their entire lives in order to be as close to the object of their admiration as possible, and where that is not possible, at least to attend each of his concerts, and where that is not an option, at least to obtain an audio recording of it. This in itself is no mean feat: the famous funk singer James Brown (1933–2006) may have claimed that he was ‘the hardest-working man in show business’ – which, at least in terms of his most famous exhortation ‘Stay on the scene like a sex machine!’, was certainly true – his record pales somewhat in comparison to the ninety or so concerts given by Dylan every year between June 1988 and December 2019.

Indeed: for Dylan, 1988 marked the beginning of a string of performances that was only interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and which continued as though nothing had happened once the restrictions were lifted. The website www.expectingrain.com has meticulously documented the 3201 concerts given between June 1988 and December 2023, along with exactly which songs were presented on each occasion. Dylan is also directly addressed by the attendees with comments such as: ‘‘Night 1 in Boston is in the books and what a show it was. Bob again has stolen my words and my face. […] Bob – thanks for a great show. Walking out on the street after the show, we struck up with two young girls who were spellbound by the show and at a loss for words. Hope is restored… he’s still got it. Thanks Bob for a great show. See you tomorrow, and again after that…’

To summarise, Dylan-fever is a neurosis that would not seem entirely out of place even if included in the World Mental Health Survey conducted by the renowned Harvard University. The concerts themselves have been dubbed the ‘never-ending tour’ by audacious admirers. I will return to Dylan’s curious workaholism later. But when illness or death are the only forces that can successfully prevent these Bobcats and Dylanheads from attending even one or two of the 3201 concerts held between 1988 and 2019, insanity itself cannot be very far away.

And to imagine their regret at the eight hundred or so concerts held prior to 1988 that they never had the chance to attend! But so it goes: once a Dylanhead or Bobcat, always a Dylanhead or Bobcat. These are people who never fully understood the phase coined by Dylan in the spring of 1965 on his first 45, ‘Subterranean homesick blues’: ‘Don’t follow leaders’, by which he of course also meant himself. By then he was fully aware that he had become the subject of idolatry: of adoration, blind reverence, worship, nothing less. Dylan rejected these attentions and had more than one reason for doing so, which I will present in due course. But to no avail. As I see it, the adulation gradually led to a dormant neurosis that frustrated his artistry for some time, and that was partly responsible for his religious leanings from 1979–1981.

continued: Dylan & Us: Beyond America: 2. Anything but idolatry – part 2

Wouter’s book is only available in Dutch for now:

Dylan en wij zonder Amerika, Wouter van Oorschot | 9789044655179 | Boeken | bol

Previously, we published:

 

We will publish more chapters from it in English on Untold Dylan in the coming weeks

 

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