Listen to “Make Space 19” on Spotify
I didn’t fully understand Bob Dylan until the summer of 2020—or maybe I didn’t fully feel him. I dunno. I’ve been listening to Dylan (passively) since middle school. I even saw him play on a double bill with Phil & Friends when I was 16. It was OK. I’m still not sure what clicked two summers ago. Maybe it was the pandemic, the doom, the need for clarity. Maybe it was the release of Rough and Rowdy Ways, his masterful 39th(!) studio album. Maybe it was Scorsese’s meta-trickster take on the concert film, Rolling Thunder Revue. Maybe it was the weekend camping trips on Guannela Pass, the rust-colored creek cutting through the valley like a serpent, the girls skittering through the shadows of aspens, hail storms and searing midday sun, Square Top Mountain crowned with snow, the sitting and looking and listening and being.
It’s grotesque. The whole world closed up shop. Hundreds of thousands of people died. But hey, I finally slowed down enough to actually hear Bob Dylan.
I started a playlist that summer, “Dylan Not Dylan.” At first it was just Dylan tunes, Dylan collaborators, Dylan covers. But then it grew broader and deeper. It went hunting for vibes and influences and techniques. This week’s playlist draws from that bank. It includes a few of my all-time favorites (“Jack-a-Roe,” from Fallout from the Phil Zone, which I first heard at summer camp in 8th grade; “Isis,” my contender for the perfect Dylan song), a few new discoveries (Jake Xerxes Fussell’s “Michael Was Hearty,” Neko’s cover of “Buckets of Rain”), and one song—"All the Tired Horses”—that we’ve been singing to the girls at bedtime since they were infants, swaddled tight, looking and listening, bathed in sound.
Thanks for listening.
Your bud,
Ross