The 1997 Foo Fighters classic that even Bob Dylan was envious of: “That’s a great song, man”
David Bowie wasn’t jealous of many people, but Bob Dylan was one of them.
“50 songs isn’t enough, I’ve realised,” Bowie mused in 1976. “I heard, and I was green with envy, Dylan’s got like 140 songs he chooses from.” Since then, the original vagabond has amassed an even more bountiful arsenal, but come the 2000s, he was still on the hunt for more.
As his never-ending tour roved onto its new chapter, he bumped into Pete Townshend. “I asked Bob Dylan why he does so many gigs. He told me, ‘I’m a folk singer,” The Who guitarist recalled. “A folk singer is only as good as his memory, and my memory is going.’ He’s doing it to keep his memory alive.”
A key part of keeping fresh, for Dylan, pertains to having an ear to the ground. So, he’s never lost sight of new music. When it comes to the modern greats, he says he’s made “special efforts” to see Jack White and Alex Turner. And in 2008, he was keen to have new blood open the show for him as he headed out on an arena tour.
Foo Fighters were the chosen group. Despite being a band that had steadily risen to rock giant status since their inception in 1994, and Dave Grohl already tasting iconic fame with Nirvana, the tour with Dylan was a uniquely nerve-shredding experience. There’s nothing worse than the phrase, ‘Can I have a word?’, so the mind boggles when it comes to how it must feel when it comes from perhaps the greatest artist in history.
As Grohl’s story goes, “A few shows in, we were at this hockey arena in Canada, and a production assistant came up and said, ‘Hey, Dave. Bob wants to talk to you. We’ll come and get you when he’s ready’. A few minutes later, someone comes in and says, ‘OK, Bob’s ready’. I started walking down this sterile, concrete hallway,” he told Uncut.
The Nirvana drummer paints a scene akin to something from Dewey Cox, all myth and shadows. “The guy said, ‘He’s right around that corner’,” he continued, summoning the image from Goodfellas where Robert De Niro appears to point Lorraine Bracco towards her potential demise. “There he was standing in this tunnel that led out into the arena.”
Grohl continues with the poeticism, “All I could see was his silhouette: he had a black, hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head, a black leather jacket, black jeans and black boots on.”
It was, after all, Dylan’s ‘hip’ era where he began dressing like a retired Pavement fan. “He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.”
What could the original vagabond want? Well, initially, it just seemed like he wanted to give his thanks. “Then he said, ‘Man, what’s that song you guys got? ‘The only thing I’ll ever ask of you is promise not to stop when I say when’? I said, ‘Oh, that’s ‘Everlong’.”
Evidently, Dylan had been impressed by the early 1997 anthem. It had been a huge crowd-pleaser throughout the tour. “He said, ‘That’s a great song, man. I should do that song’. I was like, ‘You know, I think you’ve got enough good songs to hold you over’. Honestly, it was one of the most incredible experiences of my entire life. It was fucking terrifying – but he couldn’t have been nicer.”
With the perfect mix of potent punchiness and subtle obfuscation, it’s easy to see why ‘Everlong’ appealed to a man who has made himself a hero by combining those two sacred tropes. But as Grohl explained (and Bowie before him), Dylan has more than enough songs for a lifetime – not that that’ll ever stop him looking. After all, it’s what keeps his memory sharp. And a “folk singer is only as good as his memory”.
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