the sound of the record

"The sound of the record made me feel like I was somebody else."

Bob Dylan says this at the beginning of "No Direction Home," a documentary made by Martin Scorsese.

Dylan is describing this experience -- sort of, discovering music, when he was a child. His dad had bought this house, in Hibbing, Minnesota, and in the house there was a big "mahogany radio" someone had left. When you opened the top of the radio there was a 78 turntable. And there was a record -- a song called "Drifting too Far from the Shore."

And the kid (Robert Zimmerman) played it; and --

"The sound of the record

made me feel like I was

somebody else."

Hearing Bob Dylan say that made me remember when I was introduced to his music.

When I was in fourth grade in public school, in Rootstown, Ohio,

our whole class had to go to Mrs. Creswell's room (once a week, I think) for Music.

(Mrs. Creswell had dark hair which flipped up at her shoulders, like Marlo Thomas's hair in "That Girl.")

Mrs. Creswell had words written out (in chalk) on the blackboard --

How many roads must a man walk down,

Before you call him a man?

How many seas must the white dove sail,

Before she sleeps in the sand?

...etc.

She told us she was going to teach us a song -- it was written by this guy, Bob Dylan, who, Mrs. Creswell said in a certain tone, "is kind of a -- hippie."

Her voice had a sort of promise and warning and tentativeness, all mixed together, when she said that.

I did not have all the words to describe it at the time, but I remember the feeling very clearly -- it resonated with me -- it was like, she was going to teach us a song by a hippie and that might possibly be questioned or disapproved of by -- (who? other teachers? principal? superintendent? school board? our parents? the police...?) --whatever, there was a sense that we might be "coloring outside the lines" a bit.

I had very little experience with going outside the lines.

And I could not wait to

LEARN - THAT - SONG - !

(Did Mrs. Creswell KNOW how to motivate ten-year-olds?? What an expert! LOL)

My next encounter with Dylan's music did not come until eight years later, during the summer after high school graduation. I waitressed at a summer resort and lived in a cabin with other waitresses. There was stereo in the kitchen; everyone brought record albums -- they were lined up in a row, like books on a shelf. Someone had brought "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, volume 1."

I wasn't starting college until September, but my Higher Education began in May when I listened to that album for the first time!

("The sound of the record made me feel like I was somebody else.")

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