Posts tagged ‘Bob Dylan’

The Bells of Rhymney

For a quick trip to radio heaven, listen to Cerys Matthews’ show from 9 June 2019. Jeff Towns of Dylan’s Mobile Bookstore joins Cerys to discuss Idris Davies’ poem ‘The Bells of Rhymney’, which may be the most influential poem you’ve never heard. Documenting life in the South Wales mining villages of the 1920s, and based on Davies’ own experiences of following his father down the pits aged 14, the poem clearly influenced Dylan Thomas’ ‘Under Milkwood’ (just listen to the start), inspired Woody Guthrie’s ‘Talking Centralia’ (or ‘Talking Miner’), and was put to music by Pete Seeger, only to be covered first by Bob Dylan and then The Byrds.

Waiting for Bob Dylan

This isn’t really a blog, more of a link to Bill Drummond’s hilarious new work ‘Another Side of Bob Dylan – Part Two’, courtesy of the ever-wonderful Caught By The River website. I don’t want to spoil a word, but it involves a former Timelord explaining why he has been waiting for Bob Dylan for thirty-five years, with the proposition that “he should quit his Great American Song Book shit that he has been doing, and hit the road with me, and that we should – over a period of time – go to all the places in the British Isles where nine different languages were spoken 200 years ago, and find a song from each of those places, and then he should record them and I will produce it.” It’s pure genius and has enlivened what should have been a dull three hour stop-over in Joburg airport. Follow the link and enjoy!