Bob Dylan has made a rare public pronouncement, on the subject all of us will eventually know a lot about (if we’re lucky, that is): old age.
He was writing in the New York Times as part of a larger op-ed about ageing, timed to coincide with President Trump’s 80th birthday yesterday.
So what are Dylan’s thoughts on the subject? Well, he wrote: "The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. It sounds like a luxury but it’s not, and also you’ve run out of illusions.”
"The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you’ve got an understanding of something that might have altered everything in the past, had it come at a time when something could still be altered.”
"When you’re young you think that time moves forward,” he added. “At 80 you know that it doesn’t, it stands still. We’re the ones that move.”
He ended his piece with some beautiful Dylan-esque phrasing about how he felt about reaching 80 a few years back: “The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you. It’s freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don’t chase the parade anymore.”
"You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to programme.”
Now 85, that old king is currently doing much the same as he’s been doing for the past 30 years: he’s on tour. Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways tour continues this month and next in the US. More information can be found at bobdylan.com.
It’s been six years now since that most recent Dylan album. He and his band spent two days recording at White Lake Studios in Albany last summer, but there has been no further details about when (or even whether) the results of those sessions will be released.
