Bob Dylan, Beer Drinker

I just finished reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One. It's pretty interesting stuff. For being so cryptic in interviews and song, he shoots straight in his life's tale.

Some of my favorite passages were in the final chapter, where he writes about being part of the New York City folk scene in the early sixties.

The song I wrote was inspired by the fallout shelter craze that had blossomed out of the Cold War. I suppose some considered it radical to come up with a song like that, but to me it wasn't radical at all. In Northern Minnesota fallout shelters didn't catch on, had no effect whatsoever on the Iron Range. As far as communists went, there wasn't any paranoia about them. People weren't scared of them, seemed to be a big to-do over nothing. Commies were symbolic of travelers from outer space. Mine owners were more to be feared, more of an enemy, anyway.

and

I was fortunate enough to have the regular gig at the Gaslight and wasn't on any wild goose chase to go anywhere. I could breathe. I was free. Didn't feel constrained. Between sets I mostly hung out, drank shooters of Wild Turkey and iced Schlitz at the Kettle of Fish Tavern next door and played cards upstairs at the Gaslight. Things were working out fine.