Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan)

It was just before the wake of my teens when I mightily decided that the choice of my music was going to dictate my personality. I would spend my everyday computer quota looking for music and then deciding whether or not I liked it. On one such afternoon, I found Mr. Tambourine Man on a Youtube that wasn't what it is today. Needless to say, it lasted me many wonderful afternoons until it became one of the gems in the back of my collection that I eventually lost. 

Flash forward to about three years later when I found a tiny article on Bob Dylan in the music section of Deccan Chronicle. The name didn't ring any bells but I gave him a shot, this time starting from Blowin' in the Wind at the very top. I remember it was midnight and I was pretending to do Math for an approaching test series, when Mr. Tambourine Man started playing. I was delirious with excitement and it felt like a best friend I never met decided to surprise me. I promptly cut his tiny picture out of the papers and put it up on my wall. The song lasted me more than a few midnights when I studied or secretly talked on our landline phone.

Flash forward to a fall evening in Boston, when I was listening to Miles Davis and reading Kafka on the Shore. "Lay Lady Lay" was not only on auto-playlist but also on auto-smile. Naturally, I devoured music as I knew it, from the one who I know did it best. And this time I wasn't letting him go. I read the many words that were spent on him, interviews and biographies, lyrics and more lyrics, notes and chords and this was when I came to know of Dylan - as persona, as ideas, as revolution, as celebrity and as art. Bob Dylan was like my secret, a constant presence as backdrop to many instances of  my life and not meant for frivolous conversation. I would seek him out and he was always there for me, and if you were special I would share him with you too.

When I arrived in Saarbrucken the following summer, I was greeted into town with posters of Dylan for an upcoming concert. As luck would have it, I had to leave just before it happened. I didn't get to meet Bob Dylan, but I carried Mr. Tambourine Man - everywhere I went. Especially when I took my ukulele with me. She now has the very iconic Woodie Guthrie-esque scrawl down her side too, implicitly leading back to Dylan.

The song, Mr. Tambourine Man has been the Mr. Tambourine Man that the song represents, for me. (I had to read that sentence twice.) I mean, this song - including it's controversial themes and meanings - has been to me what Mr. Tambourine Man had been to Dylan. Sure, he is way beyond what my imagination conjured about a decade ago, when I didn't know Dylan was Dylan. And I guess that's what makes him special. What better time to celebrate the singer of that obscure song from an inconsequential afternoon that ended up being my favorite! Maybe not as my secret anymore - but Mr. Tambourine Man won.     

1964 yearbook of St. Lawrence University - Wikipedia Public Domain