When I first went to America (1981) for the summer to get to know my dad, I was staying in the basement and frankly found the room rather scary (particularly after watching Friday the 13th on cable one night) and I purloined his copy of Bob Dylan's More Greatest Hits for the duration of my stay and used it to send me to sleep.
A couple of years later in Seattle I was getting progressively more pissed and stoned with my dad and Dylan was singing;
"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." and my dad said how it had taken him his whole life up to that point to properly understand that lyric, and that I could scorn all I like but I was too young to get it (even though Dylan must have been about my age when he wrote it).
Then we fought about god knows what, a fortnight later I flew home, and two years later he was dead.
Last night I was singing along to the same soundtrack, in that self-indulgent drunken way I often do when Anne's away, (though since I gave up the brandy at least I've stopped moving on to Neil Diamond), and the same song came on, and it was as though I was hearing it for the first time and I realised not only that my dad had been right, but that I'm the same age now as he was then.
On the other hand I also discovered Bobby hates Dylan even more than Anne does, especially when I whistle...
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