Someone asked him in an interview once if he was happy...he said he'd never thought about it. I suspect he had no desire to answer such a question at all in the first place.

My impression of Dylan is: He was ecstatically happy in the early days, when he managed to realize his adolescent dreams...by playing music onstage, by meeting many of his heroes (especially Woody Guthrie) in the flesh, and playing music with them, by recording his first album, by playing the legendary folk clubs and stages like Carnegie Hall.

He positively bubbled in those days, was often hilarious onstage, cracking jokes, telling tall tales, and was full of high spirits. At the same time he had a lot of really serious and dark stuff on his mind to be writing the social protest material and the other poetry, and often had a torturous private life, trying to work out his personal relationship with Suze Rotolo, etc., and trying to handle outrageous success. She said he tended to see "the dark side" an awful lot.

Later, by '65 and '66, he was becoming very alienated and prickly...because he was just too damn famous, and people expected him to do the impossible for them. He started being really hard on most other people then, and on himself too...he acted downright hateful at times in his efforts to protect himself from fans and from the press. That's what it amounts to. You wouldn't have said he was "happy", I don't think, but I imagine he still felt it was all "worth it". He certainly played like he thought it was.

After he married Sara and cracked up on the motorcycle, he just wanted OUT. And he got out...for awhile...as best he could. He was definitely happy in the early years of the marriage....he seemed to have decided that marriage and children and a quiet domestic life were THE ANSWER. The love songs of that period (after the intense self-examination and spiritual searching of John Wesley Harding) certainly stronly reflected that on albums such as: Nashville Skyline, New Morning, and Planet Waves.

He was happy...the music critics were less so...they preferred Dylan in a state of anger or angst.

They got that Dylan...when the marriage started to fall apart and he started touring again on a regular basis. His first album in the new phase, Blood On The Tracks, is probably his very finest of all. It's really incomparable. The material that followed led down a road of greater and greater angst...if not real desperation...and that culminated in his born-again conversion with 3 "Christian" albums. They were often very impressive musically and emotionally, while sometimes very dour and doctrinaire in tone. Was he happy? I wouldn't exactly say that, but he was certainly inspired and filled with new purpose.

That led into the 80's...a rocky period which included some great songs, some very poor ones, and some fairly disastrous live concerts, plus some darn good ones, plus a totally lousy movie that never should have been made. It was a real up and down decade. Was he happy? No point even asking, in my opinion...

Then he did some more great stuff...with the Travelling Wilburys, and on albums such as Oh Mercy, World Gone Wrong, and others. Then he did maybe the darkest album ever...Time Out of Mind...it was pretty darn good, but if you can listen to the whole thing without getting depressed you have mastered detachment!

It's clear from the songs on Time Out of Mind that Bob would far rather be young again! So would I, as long as I didn't forget what I've learned along the way. I imagine he'd rather be anonymous too. Most of his close friends say that's the gift they would give him if they could. Suze Rotolo said she would give him "youth, beauty, and no more biographies".

Man, I would give him that too, and anything else if I could for what he has done.

Was it worth it? Yup. It was for me, and it was for millions of other people, and it was for him. It was his chosen destiny. Would he choose to do it again (in another life)? I doubt it. Once through that whirlwind is enough for anyone.

To close this I will quote Joan Beez from her own song lyrics:

"Happiness is temporary, believe me, I know
It can arrive like a shining crystal and leave with the melting snow
Come all ye lads and lasses
The Kingdom of Childhood passes..."br>

I love them both dearly. They brought me more than happiness.

- LH