When I recently read someone complaining Dylan shouldn't tour anymore because he croaks, I thought: when did he ever anything else? The appeal of Bob Dylan was never his voice. Or the personality. It was the songwriting, at which he was stunning, and deserves all the accolades he ever got from critics and peers alike. So, in tribute of his Bobness' 70th birthday, first a few examples of how the man continues to inspire, people from other media even, and then a song not by but about him, by the glorious Joan Baez.

( Did you know Bob Dylan is a Cylon? )

The first part of the weekly SJA two parter was greeted with much squee by me and made me very happy, but you won't get a review until I've seen both parts, i.e. tomorrow. In the meantime, reading in various papers various people's reactions to the Keith Richards memoirs makes for an odd demonstration of how relaxing it can be not to be in a fandom. I mean, I like some of the Stones' songs, but I am not invested in them emotionally, neither in their overall music nor in them as people, and so I can just be amused and entertained by the latest round of Mick's-such-a-phony-and-mine's-bigger!/is not! instead of angsting as I might were they the other band.

Incidentally: Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Marianne Faithfull are on several Beatles songs, notably All You Need Is Love and Yellow Submarine, George Harrison was a guest chez Richards on that fateful drug raid day in 1967 (and later figured out the police must have waited for him and Pattie to leave first because they didn't want to arrest a Beatle), and of course the first Stones' breakout hit, I Wanna Be Your Man, is a Lennon/McCartney tune they gave the Stones upon request, finishing it in front of their eyes in a gesture that combined generosity and showing off; the press and fans made and partly still makes much of the Beatles/Stones rivalry, but in actual practice this was mainly a media event whereas the bands themselves were friends. Though Mick Jagger in his funny and affectionate induction speech for the Beatles at the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame memorably called them "the four-headed-monster" and admitted he was both jealous and inspired to start song writing himself back in ye early 60s.

Meanwhile, the fellow musicians the Beatles were inspired and challenged by in the 60s were, other than their old childhood heroes from the 50s, a) Bob Dylan and b) Brian Wilson. Of course Bob Dylan inspired pretty much every other song writer in the 60s (the two most obviously Dylan-esque Beatles songs are You've got to hide your love away and Norwegian Wood), but the other thing that he did for the Beatles was to introduce them to marijuana, which is one of those pop history anecdotes that never gets old. It's August 28th 1964, the Beatles are locked in a New York hotel room because going outside has become impossible, but they asked, via a journalist, whether they could meet Bob D. anyway since they're fans. He agrees to pay a visit and comes up from Woodstock to the Delmonico Hotel. Ever gracious and polite, Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, of course asks Dylan what he'd like to drink.

Bob D: Cheap Wine.

An embarrassed Brian admits they have only good wine there but sends out roadie Mal Evans to procur something suitably cheap. In the meantime, Bob Dylan suggests smoking some pot. Now very embarrassed, Brian and the boys admit they don't have pot, either, since they haven't smoked it before. (They were introduced to pills in Hamburg and took them a lot in order to stay awake and energetic during the seven-hours-marathon sessions, but other than that hadn't had anything more adventurous than Scotch and Coke.)

Bob D: But what about your song? *attempts Beatlesque headshake* I get high, I get high?

John: It's "I can't hide, I can't hide, actually.

This inspires Dylan to helpfully provide his own pot, roll a joint, and pass it to Ringo. Not knowing that pot smoking etiquette means you share the joint around, Ringo smokes the entire thing in the bathroom, returns to the main suite and announces the ceiling is coming down. At which point the rest, including Brian, want some as well, and the whole thing gets very giggly indeed. (With a sad note in as much as Brian, looking at himself in the mirror, pointed, said "Jew" and giggled, the first time he referred to himself as Jewish in company, which tells you something about Brian's issues and repression.) Paul was convinced he had discovered the meaning of life and told Mal Evans, who had returned with the Dylan-ordered cheap wine, to write down the wisdom revealed. When they checked the next morning, the only thing written on the paper was "there are seven levels", to everyone's amusement. Dylan departs, secure in the knowledge he changed their music for good. (And provided occasion for various headlines involving pot busts years later.)

There are various cinematic takes on this.

( Bob Dylan meets the Beatles in black and white and colour )