My Saturday evening
was made this week by hearing the great Mavis Staples interviewed by a
suitably respectful Clive Anderson on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends.
Among the stories Mavis told was one about the time Bob Dylan
proposed marriage to her, back in 1965. She talked about how cute Bob was, with his
curly hair and blue eyes, and how she rejected the proposal.
I mentioned this on
facebook (getting informed by the usual know-it-alls that the story of Bob's proposal was by now common knowledge, mea maxima culpa for missing that one) and I wrote that Mavis told Bob she was too young (she was 25 or 6), and didn’t
know how to cook. You won’t have to cook, Bob said. Then I noted
how that sounded like the lyrics to a Dylan song.
My friend Michael
Goldfarb said ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ and I said ‘you got that
right’, and proceeded to write a couple of verses for a revised
version. So here, if Bob (or Mavis) wants it, is a newer version of
the song:
Tangled Up In Blue (With Mavis
Mavis told Bob she
was too young, that she didn’t know how to cook
You won’t have to
cook at all said Bob, I just wanna sit and look
Up at you
Tangled Up In Blue
Mavis said Bobby
you’re awfully sweet, and she looked into his blue eyes,
Bobby said girl
please marry me, and I’ll win the Nobel Prize
Just for you
Tangled up in blue
Bobby oh Bobby you
gotta relax, ever try taking it slow?
You say that you
wanna just sit and look, but you know and I sure know
What you want to do
Tangled up in blue
Then they heard Pops
play a guitar riff, comin’ out of studio two
Mavis walked out and
she started to sing, Bob found his missing shoe,
As you do
Tangled up in blue
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