Bob & the baby

A short comic about... Bob Dylan, of course

I’m pretty tired this week, so this will be a short one. I think I’ve almost reached the end of the Bob Dylan comics I wrote before I had kids, back when I was a freewheeling adventurer. (There are still just a few more.) Today, here’s one about a show I saw in 2008, when I was pregnant for the first time (although the comic was written in 2012).

In 2008, Bob Dylan played some Alberta shows, and I went to see him in Calgary (just a short walk from my house) and in Lethbridge (a few hours’ drive away). I associate both of those shows with some memorable and scary experiences. On my way back from Lethbridge, my car’s headlights malfunctioned and briefly went off - so, for a couple of seconds, I was driving in complete blackness. That was kind of scary. But luckily, I figured out how to get them on again, so it was ok.

And on the way to the Calgary show…

Now my kids are big, and they good-naturedly tolerate my Bob Dylan mania. Just yesterday, my younger son said something about climbing through a window, so of course I said, “Did you know Bob Dylan has a song called Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” (And then I played the song for him, of course.) Afterwards, he said: “Of course Bob Dylan has a zany song about every single subject I could ever come up with.” And, yes, that’s true.

By the way, in Lethbridge in 2008, I remember that Bob played Chimes of Freedom, a song he hasn’t played that often! Here’s a recording of the same song from a couple of nights earlier on the same tour. And here’s the official 1964 version (much better quality).