Surprised By Bob Dylan

My friend Greg has been a Bob Dylan fan for a long time. I'm pretty sure he has every single album Dylan ever made. I remember about 8 years ago borrowing a CD from him, cuz I don't think I'd ever listened to Dylan before in my life.

I took the CD home. Listened to about 4 songs. Hated it....brought it back. Boring music. Annoying voice. Harsh harmonica sounds. Hated it.

For the last several months, I've been listening almost exclusively to either worship music or talk radio when driving. That's pretty much it. There's really been no music otherwise that has really pulled me in or interested me in any way. I find that sad, so I've been considering trying listening to some "classic" type stuff....Lynard Skynard, Beatles, Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, The Who, Pink Floyd, Eagles, Paula Abdul, you get the point....just to see what I maybe have been missing out on my whole life.

Well, yesterday my family and I were at McKay's - the greatest used book/dvd/cd store probably in existence - and I decided for some reason to buy a scratched Bob Dylan greatest hits CD for about $5.00. Listened to the whole thing yesterday in my car.....and absolutely loved it. I can't explain it. Makes no sense. I can hardly understand a lot of what he's singing. The harmonica sounds out of tune. Some songs are nothing more than guitar and a tamborine. But it's raw, real, emotional, and the lyrics I can decipher have deep meaning and texture to them. I loved it. Listened to it almost all the way through again on my way to work today.

So, if anyone's actually reading my blog (all 3 of you?), maybe you can suggest to me some music that I should try. I can usually find things at McKay's pretty cheap, even if not on the first try. I'm definitely not looking for weird, enigmatic, new age type of stuff. It can be from the 60', 70's, 80's, 90's, this year....whatever. My cd's at home have been collecting dust, and I simply need a new outlook on music. It's either that, or I stick with talk radio.