Bob's 70 years young this week. 70 years young. Forever young.
Happy Birthday, Bob.
2 words. Happy Birthday. They are woefully inadequate.
You know it's not so much that you wrote great songs.
And, it's not so much that you wrote a lot of great songs and wrote them over, what, a period of 50 years now?
Nor is it that your songs captured the spirit of the times in melodies and words only you could create and share.
Nor is it that you put all those songs and all your passion and love and creativity into your performances over the years individually, with The Band in Before The Flood tour, with the Rolling Thunder Revue, with Charlie Sexton, with Willie Nelson and your Minor League Baseball tour
What made you great, what banded us together, for all these years was how your songs became part of the collaborations we call 'our life'. I don't know how you did it. But you created works of art we were able to take (listen, sing to, modify, try to copy, make integral parts of our road trips and journeys and moments good and bad) and make our own. Your music spoke what we could not until we heard your music. And then we said yeah, that's it. That's what I'm trying to say, that's what I'm feeling, that's me. Your song is my life. And whatever that song was, for me most often these days it's Idiot Wind and your set on the Concert for Bangladesh, we owned it.
Maybe, that's why you're reluctant to give interviews. Or the one's you do give, like with CBS a few years ago are so....bang on, funny, insightful, true...you. Thank you.
Happy Birthday, Bob. Thanks for the memories, the tunes and giving us material to collaborate in creating what we called 'our life'. Thanks for riding part of the way with us. May you stay Forever Young.
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