Advertisement
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
(from Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”)
BANGOR, Wis. — Dewey Bjorkman remembers the first time he heard Bob Dylan sing those words. It was 1965, and 16-year-old Dewey was driving his dad’s car down Hwy. 16 when “Like a Rolling Stone” came on the radio.
“I literally pulled off the road I was so blown away.”
Bjorkman is still pulling off the road for Dylan.
Since 1986, he has seen Dylan live between 35 and 40 times, traveling as far as Texas and as close to home as the La Crosse Center. And, yes, he already has his ticket to the Wednesday Dylan concert here — Row 11, because that’s as close as he could get.
“I’m taking my binoculars because I have to see the sweat drip off his nose.”
Would you expect less from a man who has all of Dylan’s studio recordings and 150 of his bootleg concerts?
And like a good Bobhead, he knows all the words to all the songs so he knows when Dylan strays from the original lyrics.
“That’s the first rule, learn the lyrics.”
How does it feel, How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
If Dylan does substitute a word in a song, Bobheads light up the online chat rooms, happy to have new Bobisms to discuss. Bjorkman can only hope and pray that Dylan will pull a fast one with the lyrics while performing at the La Crosse Center.
But it isn’t just the old, familiar tunes like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” or “My Back Pages” that Bobheads want to hear. They are eager to hear anything new from Dylan. For Bjorkman and other Bobheads, what Dylan did yesterday is great, but it doesn’t and shouldn’t define him.
“Bobheads are about now — what is Bob doing now and what will he do next.”
It’s not that Bjorkman is living in a universe where only Dylan exists. “I think there are only two kinds of music I dislike — calypso and bagpipes.” It is more that once you have experienced the poetry of Dylan, nothing else will do.
“His way with words was so agile and so expressive,” Bjorkman said, even when Dylan was a young man. And Bjorkman said Dylan has never lost that agility with words.
“I don’t have any passion left over for other bands. I go deep and long with Dylan,” he said with a laugh, “but I’m aware of other music.”
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
In 1965 when Bjorkman first heard those words, the song was too long to fit into the conventional music formats. But then, Dylan wasn’t conventional.
“Back then, the record came out on a little 45. Half of the song was on the first side and the other half was on the other side. I don’t have that 45 anymore,” he said with a sigh, but he’s got plenty of bootleg recordings that he has traded back and forth with other Bobheads.
For Bjorkman, everything in his life seems to be defined by Bob Dylan’s lyrics.
“I’m 59 years old so I’m eight years younger than Dylan,” he said, and he identifies with the truths in Dylan’s songs. “The Bobheads who get it, go really deep into this. I’m thankful that not more people get it so there’s tickets leftover for us.”
And yes, tickets remain for the concert in the La Crosse Center on Wednesday. Nov. 5. They are $46.50 and are available at the La Crosse Center box office.
If you buy a ticket, maybe you’ll hear these lyrics from “Like a Rolling Stone”:
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll hear something entirely different.
“In 1986, he was touring in Colorado with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and I saw him at Red Rocks, probably the best venue to hear a concert in the United States. Dylan was stoned out of his mind,” Bjorkman said, but he did a version of Rick Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” that still still sends shivers down Bjorkman’s spine.
As he prepares for yet another Dylan concert, he answers the question no Bobhead wants to answer: What will you do when there is no more Bob Dylan?
“I dread the day. I hope I die before he does.”
