在Bob Dylan与2017年获得诺贝尔文学奖时，便在当当上逛Dylan的书籍，因为那时候在促销。购买了人生第一本原文书《CHRONICLES》，翻译过来就是“编年史”。较之前书籍版本就是封面上多了一个标签：WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE。来了后，就被我搁在书架上，成为了“准读作品”之一。直到2018年准备参加Bob Dylan在8月4号在香港的演唱会，于是决定在此之前，能读完这本书。于是便有了此篇文章。
书籍的首与尾都是关于Dylan与哥伦比亚唱片公司的John Hammond签约之事。随后讲到他之所以签约，之所以来到纽约，之所以唱歌等等。整个故事时序仿佛一座山，山顶是儿时，山脚是现在，读完这本书，就是上山然后下山的一段旅程。
与Dave Van Ronk的相遇
Van Ronk looked at me curiously, was snippy and surly, asked if I did janitor work.
I told him, no, I didn’t and he could perish the thought, but could I play something for him? He said, “Sure.”
I played him “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” Dave liked what he heard and asked me who I was and how long I’d been in town, then said I could come down about eight or nine in the evening and play a couple of songs in his set. That was how I met Dave Van Ronk.
Dave Van Ronk是Dylan的贵人之一。可以观看电影醉乡民谣来了解这位伟大的民谣乐手。其中歌曲“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”，让我想起了John Lennon的版本，再搜索后得到一个更老的歌曲，Dylan应该唱的比较老歌，该版本一个来自Bessie Smith，一个来自Eric Clapton。
- Bessie Smith， 《Respect: A Century of Women in Music》
- Eric Clapton， 《Unplugged》
- John Lennon, 《Wonsaponatime》
Dylan锻炼自己读更长更深的诗
I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems to see if I could remember anything I read about in the begining. I trained my mind to do this, had cast off gloomy habits and learned to settle myself down. I read all of Lord Byron’ Don Juan, and concentrated fully from start to finish. Also, Coleridge’s kubla Khan. I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I’d been pulling an empty wagon for a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture. I was changing in other way, too. Things that used to affect me, didn’t affect me anymore. I wasn’t too concerned about people, their motives. I didn’t feel the need to examine every stanger that approached.
Dylan开始放弃自己思索短篇歌词的习惯，并不断锻炼自己阅读更长，更深邃的诗集。在此阶段中，他感到自己正在变化，曾经影响他的，不再会影响。他不在关注人们的动机，不再感受到任何走近的陌生人。仿佛一辆马车，已经很长时间都是空载着，但今后它将被填满货物，而且会越装越多。
关于变化
Sometimes you know things have to change, are going to change, but you can onle feel it—like in that song of Sam Cooke’s, “Change Is Gonna Come”—but you don’t know it in a puerposeful way. Little things foreshadow what’s coming, but you may not recognize them. But then something immediate happens and you’re in another world, you jump into the unknown, have an instinctive understanding of it—you’re set free. You don’t need to ask questions and you already know the score.
…
America was changing. I had a feeling of destiny and I was riding the changes. New York was as good a place to be as any. My consciousness was beginning to change, too, change and stretch. One thing for sure, if I wanted to composet folk songs I would need some kind of new template, some philosophical identity that wouldn’t burn out. I would have to come on its own from the outside. Without knowing it in so many words, it was beginning to happen.
其实关于Dylan对于变化是很非常看重的。从整本故事内，或者说Dylan本人的人生中，有很多明显的不同阶段，而阶段之间便是转折点。Dylan能感受到这些变化，并以最佳的状态进入到新的环境中，仿佛一名优秀的冲浪者，熟悉每一条即将到来的海浪与线路。在记录片No Direction Home: Bob Dylan中，John Cohen讲到，“Now, Bob was also a terrific opportunist, so if someone gave him an opportunity to do something, he could use it.”，随后Dylan初恋Suze便讲，”I think he just knew what he wanted and he could focus. He was very astute. He could pick out somebody who was important. I mean, any musician would, but he was really good at it.”
在Dylan的歌曲中，有以下两首可以感受：
- Things Have Changed
- Ballad of a Thin Man
与父亲
When I left home. I was like Columbus going off into the desolate Atlantic. I’d done that and I’d been to the ends of the earth—to the water’s edge—and now I was back in Spain, back where it all started, in the court of the Queen with a half-galzed expression on my face, with even the wisp of a beard. “What’s with the decoration?” one of the neighbors who had come to pay their respects said pointing to my face. In the short time I was there, it all came back to me, all the filmflam the older order of things, the Simple Simons—but something else did, too—that my father was the best man in the world and probably worth a hundred of me, but he didn’t understand me. To town he lived in and the town I lived in were not the same. All that aside, we had more in common now than ever—I, too, was a father three times over—there was a lot that I wanted to share, to tell hime and also now I was in a position to do a lot of things for him.
可以看出Dylan与其父亲关系并不融洽，主要在于生活环境不同而导致的思想不同。但是在父亲的葬礼上，Dylan如同其他人一样，成长了。此时此刻，父子关系更为和谐，因为共同点：Dylan也是个父亲，能为父亲做更多的事。
“Postively 4th Street”翻唱
Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite. It was obvious that we were from the same side of town, had been read the same citaions, came from the same musical family and were cut from the same cloth. When I listened to Johnny’ version of “Postively 4th Street,” I liked his version than mine. I listened to it over and over again. Most of the cover versions of my songs seemed to take them out into left filed somewhere, but Rivers’s version had the mandate down—the attitude and melodic sense to complete and surpass even the feeling that I had put into it.
相比两个版本，Dylan原唱与Johnny Rivers翻唱，确实Rivers唱的更好：
- Bob Dylan, 《Postively 4th Street》
- Johnny Rivers, 《Postively 4th Street》
Dylan与Woody Guthrie
That day I listened all afternoon to Guthrie as if in a trance and I felt like I had discovered some essence of self-command, that I was in the internal pocket of the system feeling more like myself than ever before. A voice in my head said, “So this is the game.” I could sing all these songs, every single one of them and they were all that I wanted to sing. It was like I had been in the dark and someone had turned on the main switch of a lighting conductor.
Woody Guthrie是Dylan的早期导师之一，对Dylan影响深远。在Greenwich村中，介绍Dylan，都会说道，“这是个Woody男孩”。Dylan读过Woody的书《Bound for Glory》,去过Woody居住的神经病院，亲自为Woody歌唱。甚至但Dylan听到一个叫Jack Elliott的歌手，早在他之前就学习Woody，能力远超于自己而悲伤。他写道：
I sheepishly left the apartment and went back out into the cold street, aimlessly walked around. I felt like I had nowhere to go, felt like one of the dead men walking through catacombas. It would be hard not to be influenced by the guy I just heard. I’d have to block it out of my mind, though, forget this thing, tell myself I hadn’t heard him and he didn’t exist. He was overseas in Europe, anyway, in a self-imposed exile. The U.S. hadn’t been ready for him. Good. I was hoping he’d gone, and I kept hunting for Guthrie songs.
Dylan在后续的成长中，很快脱离了Woody的影响，甚至如Dylan本人所说，“他再也不愿意回到那座灰墙（Woody所在的神经病院）之中”。但并不是说Dylan背叛了Woody，只是在继承了Woody的精神后再一次成长了，所以Dylan为Woody写了首歌，表达自己对Woody的尊敬与感激：
- Bob Dylan, 《Song to Woody》
与Suze相遇
Carla introduced me to her sister. Her sisters’ name was Susie but she spelled it Suze. Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my heas started to spin. Cupid’s arrow had whistled by my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard. … Meeting her was like stepping into the tales of 1001 Arabian nights. She had a smile that could light up a street full of people and was extremely lively, had a particular type of voluptuousness—a Rodin sculpure come to life. She reminded me of a libertine heroine. She was just my type.
For the next week or so I thought of her a lot—couldn’t shut her out of my mind, was hoping I’d run into her. I felt like I was in love for the first time in my life, could fell her vibe thirty miles away—wanted her body next to mine.
Dylan就是如此爱上了Suze，并且两人很快在一起了。即使Suze老妈瞧不起Dylan(但还好Dylan未给她生活中带来麻烦)，因为他过着毫无意义的生活，以及无法承担起两人的生活，就此Dylan解释道，“我只是处在一个不好的时期。”
“How much did that guitar cost?” she(Suze’s mom) asked me once.
“Not much.”
“I know, not much, but still something.”
“Almost nothing,” I said.
She glared at me, cigarette in her mouth.
相恋后，Dylan租了间单独的房间，从此和女友有了私密的二人世界。随后，Dylan开始探索Suze的世界，写了很多情歌，读了很多诗集与书。可以说Suze对Dylan早期的作品中影响很大。专辑《The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan》的封面便是Dylan挽着女友Suze，而其中的歌曲“Blowing’ In the Wind”被称为是圣歌。
- Blowing’ In the Wind, 《The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan》
Robert Johnson，Woody Guthrie&“Pirate Jenny”
I’d think about this later in my dumpy apartment. I hadn’t done anything yet, wasn’t any kind of songwriter but I’d become rightly impressed by the physical and ideological possibities within the confines of the lyric and melody. I could see that the type of songs I was leaning towards singing didn’t exist and I began playing with the form, trying to grasp it—trying to make a song that transcended the information in it, the character and plot.
- Pirate Jenny》
“Pirate Jenny”是一首述事歌曲，里面含有各种故事场景与人物，魔幻般的人物给歌曲带来神秘感，同时歌曲彷佛是一场歌剧一般。其歌词与旋律的结合带给人们在身体上与精神上一种冲击。而这些正是歌曲里面没有的。随后Dylan尝试了一些题材，例如将故事“Police Gazette”改编为歌曲等等。虽然这是个不错的想法，但总缺点什么。
Over the next few weeks I listened to it repeatedly, cut after cut, one song after another, sitting staring at the record player. Whenever I did, it felt like a ghost had come into the room, a fearsome apparition.
在与John Hammond所在的哥伦比亚唱片公司签约后，John给了Dylan一些未公之于众的唱片，其中便有Robert Johnson的专辑。Johnson对Dylan产生进一步的影响，仿佛Johnson的魔鬼灵魂获得了传承，Dylan日日夜夜分析Johnson歌曲中的歌词。
- Sweet Home Chicago, 《The Complete Recordings》
It went right along with Johnson’s dark night of the soul and Woody’s hopped-up union meeting sermons and the “Pirate Jenny” framework. Everthing was in transition and I was standing in the gateway. Soon I’d stop in heavy loaded, fully alive and revved up.
Robert Johnson，Woody Guthrie和“Pirate Jenny”，彷佛Dylan的三大法宝，但可以看出这些均来自很久远的时代，所有有人评论Dylan的歌曲，彷佛是“在篝火旁看到了古老的祖先在歌唱和舞蹈”。
本作品由陈健采用知识共享署名-非商业性使用-相同方式共享 4.0 国际许可协议进行许可。
