Happy 71st birthday Bob Dylan!

Abraham Piper of 22 Words says: "To commemorate Bob Dylan’s 71st birthday, here’s a Peanuts strip from this day in 1971."

• [adjam]

  You Sir, have just broken my brain

• [penguinchris]

  I was an angry, brooding teenager and was obsessed with Bob Dylan (I didn’t discover The Smiths until later). I saw him in concert three times, when I was in high school and college (first in 2003, last in 2007, another time somewhere in between).

  He is partly unintelligible a lot of the time, but he still absolutely kills it in concert. Even if you’re not really into Dylan I recommend going to a concert if you have the chance (though I think he’s finally slowed down his touring schedule). You may leave the concert bewildered and having not understood anything that came out of his mouth, but it’s something that will stick with you.

  I wish I could have seen him in the 60′s or 70′s, of course, but he’s still worth seeing now and is always changing.

  Also, not sure if he still does it but he did a satellite radio show where he played obscure songs revolving around a single theme (Theme Time Radio Hour) and he’d have rambling and joking introductions and interludes. It was incredibly well researched, written, and performed, and his song selections were incredible. So much amazing stuff I’d never heard. You get real insight into his mind from that show – much more than from his autobiography – although I suspect most of it is subterfuge, which is his way. 

  I haven’t listened to it in a few years but there were at least 100 hour-long episodes at that point so even if he isn’t doing it anymore there’s lots in the archives to listen through. Highly recommended. Lots of older music which has been featured on BoingBoing gets played, as well as even more obscure stuff.

• [totally80s]

  I always figured Charlie Brown would be more of a Phil Ochs fan.
  Does anybody know what Bob does all day? Does he watch “The Price Is Right” and then go play music? I don’t keep up with his life enough to know how he spends his off time, but I’d be interested to know.

• [mhsenkow]

  Am I stupid for not understanding why carlie brown would be depressed? Is it because at 30 he was successful?….should I be depressed every time Lady Gaga has a B-day? (She’s my age…)

  • [Jonathan Badger]

    No — it’s more that Dylan had gotten *old*. Remember that was in the “don’t trust anyone over thirty/Hope I die before I get old” era of youth culture (although Dylan himself wasn’t really a subscriber of that philosophy)

  • [GeeAyeJoe]

    Because back in the 60′s when you hit 30 yrs old,  life was over for you!

• [Greg Gattuso]

  Happy birthday Bob, may you stay forever young! Here’s an old podcast I did containing some of my favorite celebrity Dylan covers: https://www.box.com/files/0/f/88034672/1/f_2296605325#/files/0/f/88034672/1/f_2296605325

• [BG, ribbons in my hair]

  You can’t trust anyone over 70! :-)

• [Sam Himmelstein]

  He is awful live now; he sings in a mucous filled gravelly voice amd mangles his own songs.  The last time i saqw him i wanted my money back.  he should be resting on his laurels.

  • [ewoksoup]

    I’ve seen him the last 4 or 5 times he’s come near detroit, all but one of them were amazing. If you don’t appreciate listening to a song you’ve heard a thousand times and not recognizing it till halfway thru you wont like it, but it sure keeps all those old hippies from singing along.

• [Nick Mailer]

  Is this the same Bob Dylan whose testimony helped bring about the Mickey Mouse Protection Copyright Act? A man who based his whole persona on folk culture stabbing it in the back. Why, yes, it is!