The Citizen On Mars

Just when I thought that the international music scene was deader than a log, an old man and his red guitar came galloping like a mighty comet. And maybe, he had just saved music from enduring a slow but mortal death.

At the late age of 65, Bob Dylan is back on track once more and his latest album titled “Modern Times” came out No. 1 in the U.S. album charts in its first week of release as well as in other countries like Australia and Canada. In a music scene where gyrating girls barely out of their teens dominates airplay over the radio and one-hit wonder rock bands lording over album sales, a resurrection of an old legend like Bob Dylan may be simply a ridiculous proposition, a gassy idea. But what had happened was sort of a minor miracle. They still loved the old guy over there in America, the guy with a cowboy hat who had crooned his way to the heart of music lovers throughout the whole world with wonderful melodies and sharp lyrics, with songs that had always marked the era it became popular, and on every milestone on many lives—including mine. When I was young, I had learned to play the guitar by singing “Blowing In The Wind” over and over again. There was I with my cousins so many years ago, over bottles of soda and saucers of roasted peanuts trying to refined the way we sang “the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind” to the perfect accompaniment of our strumming and despite that my cousins were always better guitar players than myself, I had been the most that got stuck with the song that was so melodious and whose wordings seemed to have yearned for something that must have been a very deep thought; perhaps of something that is out of time. At that time, I had no clear idea who Bob Dylan was but I knew the song was something that I had learned to love by heart during my childhood days, like a long lost friend.

Years after in my early college years, I would rediscover the magic of Bob Dylan’s music in a slow and gradual way and in a very complete manner—or almost entirely it seems. When Axl Rose made a screeching version of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” I had decided then that I had to know more of the guy whose song gets played and sang over and over again, even by very famous bands like the Guns N’ Roses and U2. I then almost made it my personal mission to grab every Bob Dylan record that was available on the shelf, even when I had to travel all the way to Manila back then just to score some rare collections of his works.

And I wasn’t disappointed upon entering the world of Bob Dylan’s music. From where I stood then—patronizing more popular and more modern groups like U2, Led Zeppelin, The Cure, REM and the likes—it was completely like being taken into a whole new realm of existence, like it was like suddenly traipsing into a doorway in a most unexpected of manner and being blown away by the sight of unique characteristics and of a whole new set of realities, of order and of arrangements.

I couldn’t count the many gems Bob Dylan had produced, even those that have become my personal favorites. I felt like he was more prolific than the Beatles or even doubly productive sometimes. I could hear “Hurricane” a countless times over my car stereo and not get tired of it. I could go on listening to “Hard Rain” and stay glued to it for hours while playing a wargame on my computer (I actually tried this once before by playing the song “Stuck In A Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” as a soundtrack to a long-running game of Command & Conquer some years ago).

There are just so many good things about Bod Dylan’s music that honestly, I couldn’t count the ways. His gangly music strumming for example is just magical; the very rustic way his voice played out the messages and emotions of his songs reaches more the heart of the listener more than anything; and the casualness of his demeanor is an affirmation that life is more than what we could make it. Like he could have sat on a street with a guitar in his hand and I wouldn’t even recognize him if I had passed nearby—I would have even threw a coin or two. He was that ordinary looking. He became part of the everyday life he sang about, seamlessly and effortlessly like a butterfly; and his songs are truly the passion of the masses, the voice of the ordinary people living ordinary lives, and yet his songs make the ordinary sublime, the common unique, and the pedantic into something that is sophisticated.

There is just nobody like him out there. Not in the past. Not now. And maybe not in the future.

For more info on Bob Dylan, check out the Wiki take on his life, it’s very informative and I had enjoyed reading it a lot. He also has an official website.