I switch on the old TEAC reel-to-reel, thread the tape spools, sit back and listen to a 24-year-old Bob Dylan conjure up a dystopian mindscape he imagined midway through the â60s: âTheyâre selling postcards of the hanging, theyâre painting the passports brown.â
Here in the lee of the pandemic, these words appear prophetic, as alive today as when they were written. But not only is my equipment old, and I shall wear my trousers rolled, but the Bard of Hibbing turns 80 this month, still on the road, the darkest part, croaking rather than what passed for singing.
A new chapter