Humble Pie: Brother From Another Planet

In the days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, most of my friends and I huddled around the TV, and I distinctly remember seeing a scruffy guy in a blue jean jacket and denim pants, introduced as a "new and exciting voice of his generation," as if to say the nation would move on, as the youth of today will carry us past this tragedy, and on comes this oddball, singing some song with a guitar and a harmonica strung below his jaw.  

I said, "Who is this creep? And why is he on TV?" 

It seemed like just another disorienting dislocation and this was wrought by one of the three national channels.

It was Bob Dylan, of course, and I don't remember the song-- "Blowing in the Wind" maybe. All I remember was the sense that this was just another manifestation of the world having gone berserk.

He was just so different, nothing like anyone I knew, or had even seen on TV or in the movies.

The next Spring, at a place I was not, Pete Seeger introduced Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, and the crowd sitting on the lawn listening to him looked a lot like me and my friends, cotton collared shirts, some madras, and khakis, white socks and they looked at Dylan uncomprehendingly, or maybe enraptured--hard to tell. 

Clearly, Seeger knew the quality of what he had on stage with him, but I wonder how many of those listening had any idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ

He really was a brother from another planet, playing his harmonica--how did he do that and hit all the notes? And playing his guitar and singing those fantastically complicated, lyrical, evocative words of "Mr. Tambourine Man," and once again, it was light years away from the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, the Beatles, Pat Boone. It was simply a different universe, disorienting, thrilling, disturbing.

But now, looking at that tape, I am astonished that America could appreciate him at all, much less produce this unique brain, voice, phenomenon.

Occasionally, in some fever dream, I might imagine myself as being successful, worthy, special, and then I look at Dylan and I am brought back down to earth: This is a man who is so far above the rest of us and we are all just standing here on earth, looking up.