Dylan On Dylan

iven the life that he’s led, the one question we’d love to ask Bob Dylan as he turns 80 today is, hey, how does it feel…?

Chances are, the the 1960s Bob would never have suspected that, 50 years later, he’d still be alive and kicking out acclaimed, chart-topping albums.

And last year’s Rough And Rowdy Ways deserved every accolade in town, being a strange and beautiful beast that embraced the traditional and yet breezily bent all the songwriting rules out of shape and time. Little doubt that the Summer Of Love Bob would have loved the 17-minute talking blues that is Murder Most Foul.

Still, we’re not here to wax lyrical about one of music’s greatest lyricists (‘He woke up, the room was bear/Told himself he didn’t care/Pushed the window open wide/Felt that emptiness inside…‘), as we did just that last year. With incredible wit and insight too, of course.

Instead, we thought we’d asked Greystones’ own budding rock icon Dylan Crampton to let us know his thoughts on the artist formerly known as Robert Zimmerman…

Bob Dylan is and has always been like a member of our family. We actually had a full on celebration for his 60th birthday with a cake and candles! We also had a German shepard called Zimmy, just to make sure that all visitors know who our musical hero is.

I just think he’s incredibly cool, and a large part of that is the mystery of the man, the fact that you can never be entirely sure what’s going on in his head. And it’s amazing that he’s still going and putting out great music. Hardly needs to be said, but the man’s a lyrical genius, and personally, I’ve always loved his sand-and-glue voice.

Being named after him was just a sweet twist of faith. Even though my mum and dad adored Dylan, I could have always grown up hating the guy.

But, I didn’t. They were right. And the man has inspired me to do what I do.

So, Sir Bob, may you stay forever young. Even if you are making old age looking pretty darn amazing…

Yep, happy birthday, old man. And here’s hoping the cake superfan Amanda Sweeney baked for you makes it through the post.

You can check out GG’s 80min Dylan mix here. In the meantime, over to the other Dylan, and his birthday take on 2000’s Things Have Changed…

And hey, can’t let the day go by without wishing Dylan’s fellow musical genius Willie Nelson a great big happy 88th on April 29th.