Bob Dylan Song #21: Bob Dylan's Dream

"Bob Dylan's Dream", I would guess, is meant to act as the companion piece to "Bob Dylan's Blues", both in the titles and in the sense of intimacy that comes (in theory) with a song named after yourself. Well, all right, "Bob Dylan's Blues" is far more goofy than intimate, but "Bob Dylan's Dream" fits that description to a T; in its own way, it feels as personal to Bob as "Don't Think Twice" or "Girl of the North Country"; it's certainly more personal than the omniscience of "Hard Rain" or the philosophy of "Blowin' In the Wind". The funny thing is that the titles actually seem misplaced on the "Bob Dylan" songs - "Blues" has the funnier, more abstract stream-of-consciousness lyrics one might associate with dreaming, while "Dream" is darker and earthier, more like a blues song. I know that Dylan framed the song's story in terms of a dream he had, but the dream seems more grounded in reality than the off-the-wall free association of "Blues".

"Bob Dylan's Dream", actually, has closer ties to a song off the debut, "Talkin' New York", than anything on Freewheelin'. Like "Talkin'", "Dream" relates a tale of Dylan's early days in New York, and manages to couch things in a gauzier, less specific tale of hardship and determination to succeed. However, unlike "Talkin'", "Dream" has the distinction of a) actually being a good song, and b) having lyrics that use that vagueness to sound timeless, rather than simply cliched. "Dream" achieves a level of wistfulness and gentle nostalgia that few songs on the debut, let alone "Talkin' New York", can begin to touch - yet another example of the quantum leap in songwriting quality that Bob achieved in such a short amount of time.

What's more extraordinary about "Dream" isn't that it tells a Dylan origin story better than "Talkin' New York" does, but that it actually makes you feel like the nostalgia is warranted, as though he's reminiscing about decades long gone instead of the 2-odd years since Dylan first arrived in the Village. In fact, if you didn't already know the song was about Bob in New York, you could easily believe it was about his early days in Hibbing - or, I guess, whatever city Dylan told people he was from in those days. Starting with a typical hard-road cliche ("while riding on a train goin' west"), Dylan spins a yarn about having few friends, living a simple life of poverty, and yet overcoming hardship with the help of his companions. Even if it was all made up, it sounds all too real, and very easy to relate to. How many of us haven't had to lean on our friends in hard times to bring us happiness?

And, lest we forget who Dylan's great mentor was, the final verse brings home the real message of the song. Dylan says he'd "give (ten thousand dollars) gladly if our lives could be like that"; i.e., riches, fame, and success means nothing compared to simply being with good friends and laughing the night away. Lest we forget how powerful the pull of nostalgia is, there's Bob's reminder - and, by extension, an affirmation that the simple life is what really means the most, when you get down to it. You'll have to excuse the fact that I'm using cliches here; Dylan's a bit more poetic in his nostalgia, as you would expect.

But it's that declaration that no amount of money is worth those good times, the ones that have burrowed deepest into his heart and brain, that keeps Dylan tied in to the old folk music movement, where most musicians didn't have much more than a few dollars in their pocket, but still had their friends and their music. That idea, sadly, isn't always true - the good times were never as good as we think they were, and there's a certain point where money and success can buy away a lot of nostalgia and memories. We like to pretend that's not true, and yet we know deep down that it is. It's damn hard to be successful and not turn into an asshole, or turn your back on your less successful past, and the few celebrities that manage to hold on to their past deserve a mountain of praise for doing so. They say you never leave behind where you came from, and more often than not it's not for lack of trying. Maybe that's what Dylan meant when he named the song the way he did: the real dream is that our past was nothing but good times, where the future only exists in an abstract sense, where the nights of song and laughs never end, and where the world we live in is confined to a single room, free of responsibility, debt, and sorrow.