Mick Hartley

With the Beeb’s Dylan fest coming up, they’re asking for “your memories of Bob”, and getting some interesting responses. This, for instance, from Julian Lloyd:

Newcastle Odeon on a late winter night in ’66. Bob was thin as a whip and stung twice as hard. He wore a black mohair suit, buttoned up, a tab-collar shirt, buttoned up to the top, and black Cuban-heeled boots. The sharp, hollow-cheeked, amphetamine glory of his stage presence just underlined the aura of reckless defiance, that almost menacing mood you can sometimes also catch in early photos of Jerry Lee Lewis. The first, acoustic, half was great. The second half, with The Band, was life-changing. When the curtains opened there was a bit of silly shouting from the sort of people who gave Folk Music a bad name. Apparently spurred on, Dylan and The Band broke new ground in a way that no r ‘n’ b or rock ‘n’ roll outfit had either ever done or even thought of doing. This was a redefinition not just of music but of how men should behave. The beauty, grace, intelligence and courage of the performance was impeccable. One thing stood out then, and remains a vivid memory. Dylan sang ‘Just like a Woman’ as ‘He makes love just like a woman’ and kept the subject of the song in the masculine gender throughout. I read a long time later that this song had been written after an alleged period of intimacy that Bob had shared with Allen Ginsberg. Whatever the truth, the lyrics do make much more sense sung this way. What would be so surprising about a woman making love just like a woman?

Just like a Woman was never one of my favourites (nor Michael Gray’s – “The chorus is trite and coy and the verses aren’t strong enough to compensate“), but that’s an angle I hadn’t come across before. Allen Ginsberg in ribbons and bows….Jeez.