Listening to Bob Dylan Vol. 1.

Chronicles vol. 1.

Bob Dylan is my favourite artist. He has been, ever since I was twenty. While I would say Bowie is the most influential artist and lauded artist of our generation, this is because of, contrarily, his shifting identity. Dylan, too, had shifting identities but not the same as Bowie. Dylan, though -- listening to him was not like reading a diary but like writing your own diary. The appeal of Springsteen, whom I am a fan, to people who see him as chronicling their lives; I see that too with Dylan but in a more individualistic and complex way. Dylan isn't the hero like Springsteen is. He's not the villain, either (like Eminem). He is just the protagonist. A real person.

Lately, I've been re-listening to Dylan. I see that period of my life, twenty to twenty-three, as being on an adventure. This ended in 2021. For better or for worse. I still maintain a strong affection for Dylan; he is more influential to me than God. But I do refrain from revisiting than intense period of my life; it really is like delving into an old wound now. That wound we call nostalgia (which can be good sometimes). When I re-listen to Dylan, it was going on that adventure again. My thoughts are so wild and wide-ranging: listening to Dylan is like writing the Great American Novel. What really struck me this time was that Time Out of Mind must be the best Dylan album. You've got your Mount Rushmore albums, Highway 61, Bringing it all Back, Blonde on Blonde, which are so lauded and esteemed that their quality is taken for granted. Time Out of Mind, though, transcends. It feels like an album about the Twenty-First century before the 9/11; that Twenty-First century we could have had. A different Great American Novel.