Exploring Bob Dylan’s unfortunate love for ‘Surfin’ Bird
Recently, Bob Dylan has been active on social media. Apropos of absolutely nothing, he’s posted a picture of a small viral hippo, shared clips from an Al Capone audiobook, and a host of other inexplicable offerings. I wish he wouldn’t—he’s steadily making a mockery of my claim that he is the greatest artist in human history by proving a suspicion long since held by many of his fans: Dylan is a daft lad.
How else can you explain why an auteur of modern culture would dedicate a novel to Dunkin’ Donuts? He claims this dedication was because “they were compassionate, supportive and they went the extra mile.” But as of yet, none of the deep-fried confectionery outlets have come forward to verify that he worked tirelessly on The Philosophy of Modern Song in their store.
That implies that either they are still extending their compassion to the songwriter by keeping the whereabouts of his writing desk confidential, or he decided to idly toss an irreverent joke into the mix of the most anticipated music book of the decade. Either way, it serves as further evidence that beneath the musical mastery is a ‘fan of prank phone calls’, so to speak.
Further evidence for this comes from his love for ‘Surfin’ Bird’ and The Trashmen, in general. He once referred to the ludicrous track as “a minor masterpiece” and told Rolling Stone that he often went out and watched the band play in their shared home state of Minnesota. It’s one thing to find joy in the novelty song, it is another thing entirely for the world’s greatest songwriter to be a devout fan.
The original vagabond barely heaps praise upon anyone, often keeping his thoughts to himself about his peers in order to retain an aura of mystery, but he is seemingly happy to abandon this in a bid to reveal himself to be a ‘bro’ when it comes to comical songs popularised by Family Guy. There is no way that an artist in a league with Michelangelo should share a favourite song with Peter Griffin.
According to the Trashmen’s very own Tony Andreason, he even asked them out on tour. “He came out and watched us play in the ’80s,” he recalled. We were doing a benefit in Minnetonka, and Dylan came and was there all night long. He sent a woman over to talk to us and wanted to know if we were available to go out on tour with him for any length of time, and we said we really weren’t. We weren’t interested, regardless of who it was. It wasn’t going to work.”
How can you remain sane and reconcile that The Trashmen once turned down Bob Dylan? How can the world make any sense when that happens? And how, once you learn this information, can you happily disregard it and get back to the mystical veneration without an asterisk that says, ‘Oh yeah, the guy behind ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ would’ve also likely made a load of bizarre Vines if he’d been born a few decades later’.
In Dylan’s case, this might be more of a comically oddity than any issue, but that’s because it just tags onto his esteem and legendary status as a peculiar footnote, but maybe the same can’t be said for stars of the future. It seems that the modern age routinely eats into the mystique of our heroes. Greater access to the passing thoughts of our stars humanises them to a crippling extent. Increasingly, eroding the stardust off the ‘next Bob Dylan’, if such a daft lad out there even exists.
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