Bob Dylan in Swansea: Bringing it all back home

Desmond Clifford

“I got a weird feeling tonight. I never thought in a million years I’d get to Wales.”  So said Bob Dylan to journalist Michael Brown during his first visit to Cardiff in May 1966.

I wonder if that weird feeling will revisit next week when Bob plays three nights in Swansea?

Bob has played Cardiff 12 times since the first 1966 concert, most recently in October 2022, but the Swansea dates will be his first outside the capital.

Bob’s at a stage in life where he does what he wants. His tour is never-ending and he lives mostly on the road, suggesting that movement and performance are what motivates him.

The recordings keep pouring out.  Volume 18 of his “Bootleg” series has just been released.

During Covid he released “Rough and Rowdy Ways”, his most recent album of new material, and then “Shadow Kingdom”, a specially performed medley of some greatest hits.

Last year’s biopic “A Complete Unknown”, starring Timothee Chalamet, brought him to the attention of a new generation.  The dimensions of his work are vast and virtually without parallel.

Bob is one of few artists capable of playing both at soccer stadiums and more intimate venues. On this particular section of tour, he has chosen the latter. After Swansea, he goes on to play at a hotel in Killarney in the west of Ireland for two nights.

Popular biography has it that Bob, who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman, changed his name in honour of Dylan Thomas. The actual evidence is inconclusive.

Bob, a master of subterfuge and imprecision, has said different things at different times. His 2004 memoir, “Chronicles, vol.1”, confirms that he read Dylan Thomas’s work, which is a starting point.

When Bob arrived in New York in 1961, Dylan had been dead only a few years and his spirit was in the air culturally. Bob’s haunts overlapped with Dylan’s – both visited The White Horse pub – and Thomas’ poetry pre-figured the Beat scene and influenced the 1960s landscape in America.

Artistic name

One biographer, Howard Souness, in “Down the Highway: the Life of Bob Dylan”, has an eye-witness account placing a Dylan volume in Bob’s hands. If he did have Dylan in mind when he adopted his new artistic name, then he’s never acknowledged it – but that he read Dylan is beyond doubt.

What we know of their respective creative processes suggests some similarities too. Both plundered the Bible and literature for images and suggestions, and both crafted lines through multiple corrections to create the maximum impact.

Since Bob will be staying somewhere around Swansea for a few days, the thought inevitably arises, will he go check the Dylan Thomas haunts while he’s there?

I hope he does, and that he’s allowed to do so in peace. Bob has a long track record of exploring the towns where he’s playing, quietly and incognito (he once got lost – maybe in Toronto? – and had to be rescued by police to get on stage in time.

So if anyone sees an elderly man looking lost around Mumbles after 7.30pm, just check…).

The two Dylans and their purported relationship, real or confected, has fascinated Dylanologists – Bob’s community of uber-fans – for years.

Swansea bookseller, Jeff Towns, who is a serious expert on Dylan Thomas, wrote a whole book about it in 2022: “Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas” by KG Miles & Jeff Towns, with a foreword by Cerys Matthews.  It’s fun to read and highly recommended to anyone interested in the topic.

Swansea

Bob actually mentions Swansea on one of his recordings.  On “Bootleg 11:  The Basement Tapes Complete”, released in 2014, he includes a recording of “Bells of Rhymney”, with Idris Davies’ words put to music by Bob Seegar.  The recording was made with The Band during the Basement Tapes period in the early 70s while Bob was living in domestic seclusion in upstate New York.  It’s a rather obscure recording and I’ve found no record of Bob ever playing it live.  I wonder if it’ll come to mind as he plays Swansea?

I saw Bob’s last four performances in Cardiff, all great in my book.  Sadly, I won’t be in Swansea – I didn’t get organised with a ticket in time, silly me.

By all accounts, he’s on sparkling form. In Cologne on Monday (3 Nov) he came out for a second round of applause, which is almost unheard of.

Bob sits mostly at the piano these days but in Cologne he played the two opening songs (I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight and It Ain’t Me, Babe) on guitar. It sounds like he’s in energised form and, hopefully, he’ll be happy to be in Swansea.

Bob was 24 when he first performed in Cardiff and performs in Swansea aged 84. He was the voice of a generation above mine, although I feel we’ve come more into sync with advancing years.

Evolved

One of his claims to greatness is the way his music has evolved with age. Lots of ageing rockers become tribute bands to themselves. Bob has avoided this fate.

Although he still performs songs from his early output, he has reinterpreted them, sometimes adjusting the lyrics too. More importantly, he has built a body of work throughout the different stages of his life.

As an older man, he has written songs through the lens of an older man rather than clinging to a weird pastiche of youth which you sometimes see in lesser artists.

When I last saw Bob play Cardiff in 2022, I wondered, “can this really be the end?”  I’m delighted to be proven wrong and hope to be wrong again.  But if Swansea is his last performance in Wales, why not, and where better – the spirit of two Dylans so entwined.