Sign on the Window.

When I was, hang on……yeah, about 16……

I had to look that up on Wikipedia.

(It doesn’t actually say anything about me on wikipedia – you may remember that they deemed any mention of me to be “not notable” (see here) - so I think it is appropriate that I stop using a capital letter when I speak about them.

They are not notable.

Sour grapes?

No way).

I checked wikipedia because they DO have some information on the Bob Dylan album - New Morning.

Apparently it was his 11th studio album.

It was the first album of his that I bought.

Though actually I didn’t buy it, I got it.

I should explain.

Look I was 16, might even have been 15, I was irresponsible, stupid, influenced by others and my best friend had started collecting album covers and sticking them to his bedroom wall.

And he acquired them from the local stationary shop that, for some reason, had a rack of them alongside the pens, pencils and drawing paper.

Recently someone, well not just anyone, warned me that one can get careless in putting a blog together – “we risk making appalling life wrecking mistakes .... "selling our souls” were their exact words, though to be honest they were quoting from an article.

I can see it now, I am being interviewed for that dream job – sitting in a simple but beautiful cabin overlooking the sea to write a third novel - and the interviewer will say- “I’m sorry mate I see you are a shoplifter.”

Hey, we all make mistakes, and I never inhaled!

I have learnt a lot of things since then, values and choices for example - and I can almost articulate some of them, and I will probably reply with something pithy like; “let he (or she) who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Or “lemon.”

Lemon?

Pithy.

Ironically, though this is probably the wrong word, what we thought was petty theft of album covers escalated a notch when we got them home and found that some of them had records inside the sleeves.

New Morning, for example.

You may well be asking by now, if not before – “what has this got to do with rain?”

Rain, you may remember, (go here if you don’t) is the March theme here at Bitsndrops - the blog where it never rains but it pours.

Well, there was this guy a while back, I can’t remember his name, who made a nuisance of himself sifting through Dylan’s garbage looking for secrets among the banana skins.

He also had some pretty wacky theories about the real meaning of some of Bob’s lyrics that was given some credence by the alternative press at the time.

Talking of “alternative press at the time”; when I was 15 or 16 I started reading IT and there was a great piece in there about someone who was hanging around bouncing a ball on a street basketball court when Dylan wandered up and said – “fancy a game?”

I have never played basketball with Mr. Zimmerman but for a long time in my misspent youth I waited on street corners with a ball in case he turned up.

He never did, so eventually I bought a ticket to see him in concert.

It was in Canada in, hang on… 1986, cor – wikipedia is good, if not notable.

He was touring with Tom petty and the Heartbreakers – now that’s a coincidence as there are rumours that they will do so again this year.

Weird.

It wasn’t a great concert – functional would be the most one could say and as far as dates with a legend go it was disappointing.

I tried again in, hang on …1998 - when he shared a stage with Van Morison in Paris.

I hoped they would sing together.

They didn’t.

I was disappointed again – though the concert was much better, I think Bob had just been in hospital with a heart scare and he was playing like there was no tomorrow.

A new morning so to speak.

On the album New Morning there is a track – Sign on the Window. Well there are lots of tracks in fact, but this is among them, and the song made a big impression on the 15 or 16 year old me.

The cabin was in there for a start.

There is one part of the song that goes -

“Looks like a-nothing but rain . . .
Sure gonna be wet tonight on Main Street . . .
Hope that it don't sleet.”

Remember the guy who raked around in Dylan’s garbage, whose name we can’t remember?

Hang on…. A.J. Weberman.

Google this time!

His theory was that when Dylan sings rain, he means violence.

I must ask him.

Or we could ask this bloke.

The third time I saw Dylan was up the road from here in an outdoor concert in a small town, it was in…. hang on…..July 2004.

Yep, disappointing.

And it poured!

Like tonight.

(the editor can not confirm the authenticity of everything that is written here)

Sign on the window says, "Lonely"
Sign on the door said, "No company allowed"
Sign on the street says, "You don't own me"
Sign on a porch says, "Three's a crowd"
Sign on a porch says that three's a crowd.

Her and her boyfriend went to California
Her and her boyfriend done changed their tune
My best friend said, "Now didn't I warn you ?
Brightoon girls are like the moon
Brightoon girls are like the moon".

Looks like a-nothing but rain
Sure gonna be wet tonight on Main Street
Hope that it don't sleet.

Built me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch a rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me pa
That must be what it's all about
That must be what it's all about.