The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan | Bob Dylan | 1962 | Columbia | #306
Faaakin ell.
This is my first time properly listening to this. I mean I’ve listened to Bob Dylan before. Like, I know all these songs. But I’ve never sat down and properly listened to a Bob Dylan album. I’m 36 years old. That’s fine; I never intended on being any younger than this anyway.
When I was younger I assumed life went on forever and there’s all the time in the world to do things like listen to Bob Dylan or watch Citizen Kane or read Shakespeare. These colossi of culture and art that I’ll eventually get round to consuming. Have you seen how old some people are? That’s how much time I have to read Hemingway or take the time to understand whatever the fuck Aristotle was banging on about. There’s an overwhelming amount of shit I really ought to be paying attention to, but there’s so much time to consume it all.
There’s really so little time. And I wanna consume this stuff while it matters. Desperation is starting to set in. This might be all I ever want to do. There’s an inflection point of urgency as you approach middle age with regards to experiencing and understanding things which might turn out to have a significant impact on how you view shit. That’s exciting init.
Sometimes I really resent that I came out of childhood – out of formal education – without understanding that it’s not enough to just consume things as if they exist in a vacuum. It’s astonishing that I know people who are fans of and celebrate Bob Dylan without batting an eye at the systematic exploitation of people happening around us. How can you enjoy listening to Blowin’ in the Wind and simultaneously not care, on a profound and deep level, about what is happening to the people of Palestine, for example?
He was 21 years old. This is really, very good.