I could sit and recount probably my first time with every album, at what age, where I was living, etc., as if they were little relationships in my past, but all the while instead of break-ups they have just all come together to form a catalogue of musical reference that is in my opinion unprecedented and unparalleled. Though before my, let’s say ‘awakening’, to Dylan, I had known quite a bit of his material, and listened to it plenty through middle school, high school, and my first two years of college. However, even though I understood his ‘magic’ and that spark he had that others didn’t, which was what had catapulted him to greatness, I don’t feel I really ‘felt’ him until I was living in France, as well, back in 2005. Now this may make others think they need to move to France to “hear” him based on our two experiences, but surely, it was junior year of college, and while physically I was there, I feel that at exact point I could have been anywhere and it would have had the same effect. Side note: I actually bumped into him in Rome in November of 2005, but that’s a different story.

The album was the Bootleg Series, Volume: 7, No Direction Home, which was also the soundtrack to the Martin Scorcese documentary of the same name, released during the fall of 2005. Being that it was not going to be released on DVD until December of that year, but had been aired throughout the US in, I believe August of the same year, on PBS, I felt the next best thing was to purchase the soundtrack. And that was it.

From the first track which was a home recording from 1959 straight thru to the ending of the second disc with the truly – alive performance of Like A Rolling Stone, with The Band backing him – a part of me had changed for better and not worse, for once I could distinguish that certain! There were two tracks that I would say had the most instrumental effect on me. these were: “I Was Young When I left Home” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”.

Not sure if you were even interested in reading a post similar to yours, relating to initial experiences and so forth, but it’s like you said, you just “feel compelled to everyone about it.” Bob Dylan, had become from that “awakened” point forward, my closest companion, best friend, a confidante, mentor, teacher, and much more. This is something, that, as you understand from living in a new country on your own, means a great deal. Any young or old person who fiddles with an acoustic guitar or piano and jots notes in his mind or on paper, will always wonder where this man got it from – and as he says in that very interview on 60 Minutes – “I don’t know where those songs came from” – in response, Neil Young states, “that is the beauty of Bob, and even he can acknowledge it. I don’t know ‘exactly’ what he means, but I can understand it.” I can rant and rave for pages, but I’d better not. Rather, if you have not done so in your life, I am in complete agreement with Max, go take some time and you’ll come away with something and even if you can’t pin point what that something is when you come away from it, you’ll still be well aware that there is something.