Birthday Countdown, or Nobody Wants To Hear Your Fish Stories

Years ago, I knew a fellow photographer in Los Angeles who tediously droned on and on about the perfect photograph he had just missed, the opportunity for greatness, ad nauseam.  

Like fish stories about the one that got away, it counts for nothing. The instructive for me was to carry my camera with me at all times. 

My fish story today has to do with Bob Dylan. The genesis came a few years ago, but I didn’t start seriously thinking about it until after I retired. Of course, by then, it was too late. The idea was that I would create a one-year website in which I would make a daily post around a particular Bob Dylan song, carrying this on for one year, to culminate with the 365th entry on his 75th birthday, now fast approaching in one day. My plan was to present the lyrics of the song, along with a YouTube or whatever video of a performance, or to render a digital online recording from content in my own library, and to add a note or two of commentary.  Every day for one year. A simple thought experiment demonstrated the enormity of such an undertaking: a daily commitment, time to research and gather selections, etc.   I’m not sure that I could have done it to the quality and level I wanted with much less than five years of advance staging, or without a staff of people to research and assist.   Or at least without engaging as a full-time project to the exclusion of all else.

But, yes, there are easily 365 Bob Dylan songs worthy of hearing and discussing. So on the eve of the anniversary, following on with my entry from yesterday, I have to almost randomly select something for consideration today. I would have liked to select some gem that is rarely heard, but what first pops into mind is one of my recurring favorites, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues“, from the 1965 Highway 61 Revisited album, with its “… your gravity fails and negativity don’t pull you through …” line and more, so we’ll go with that:

But we can’t stop there.  One of my personal anthems for years has been “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” from the 1966 Blonde on Blonde album, with its “…  Waiting to find out what price/You have to pay to get out of/
Going through all these things twice …”.

That’s it.  Gotta move on.