Pure Dylan

I'm about halfway through Bob Dylan's recently released autobiography (of sorts), and I think I can say, without hyperbole, that EVERYONE ON EARTH SHOULD READ THIS BOOK.

I am a bit of a Dylan fanatic, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. But whatever your personal taste for the man's music, his profound influence can't be denied. Like in one of his great songs, "Chronicles, Vol 1." doesn't burden itself with chronology or other common narrative burdens. Instead, it follows a sort of emotional logic as he opens up first about his early creative development in New York, then the burden of being labeled the "voice of a generation."

For a man who, frankly, could get away with a pompous attitude, Dylan plays it honest. Sure, he admits to modeling his songwriting style after cultural heavyweight Hank Williams, but he also professes a fondness for the likes of Ricky Nelson and Bobby Vee. The most respected songwriter in Rock history doesn't even attribute that gift to some cosmic need to express himself. Rather, he casts his transformation from a traditional folk singer simply as a desire to turn "something that exists into something that didn't yet."

Dylan tells his story in vibrant scenes, often injected with fascinating, bizarro encounters. He talks of a time when he and Tiny Tim (yes, the guy with the ukulele) would hang out in the kitchen of a third-rate folk club hoping to get free cheeseburgers. He remembers meeting the wrestler Gorgeous George, or introducing himself to Thelonious Monk. When Bob said he sang folk songs, Monk replied "we all sing folk songs." Then Dylan paints an image of he and Woody Guthrie in the hallway of Guthrie's asylum-type hospital. Dylan would play Guthrie's songs for the man while patients wailed up and down the corridor.

What really gives moments like this such punch is the realization that such a significant cultural event as Bob Dylan performing with Woody Guthrie aroused the interest of no one at the time. Before he ever set foot in a recording studio and after he became a national icon, Bob never paints himself as an anointed figure outside or beyond the world the rest of us are in.