Bob Dylan Wallpaper

My basement is covered in Bob Dylan sheet music.

I didn't do it.  I've always been more of a Paul Simon guy.  When it comes to songs about New York City streets, give me the one about 59th over the one about 4th any day.

(I have a theory that you're either a Simon or a Dylan person.  Prose or poetry.  Stories or sonnets.  Yes, you can be both, but you inevitably have a preference and what the preference is says a lot about you.  For example, if you are a Simon person you tend to wear glasses, eat way too much Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, and wear the same pair of blue jeans every day for a week.)

The old owners of the new blue house were obsessed with all things Robert Zimmerman.  There were posters and pictures everywhere.  Young Dylan.  Old Dylan.  Folk Dylan.  Rock Dylan.  Every album on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, and CD.  Concert tickets from the last three decades in shadow boxes.  Framed Rolling Stone covers.  And when they refinished the basement they made wallpaper out of Bob Dylan sheet music.  Famous songs and obscure songs.  Early songs and old.  A history of one of the great American writers in various key signatures and tempos — on my wall.  

Right above my desk is "Tangled Up In Blue" and "Going, Going, Gone."  

Next to the couch is "Open the Door Homer" and "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again."  

Above my daughters' toy chest is "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" and "Hurricane."    

Despite not being the world's biggest Dylan fan, I love being surrounded by his songs.  Some I know and some I don't.  Some are important to me and some are downright lousy, but I love them all.  I find them oddly comforting.  And inspirational.  So much so that the other day I got out my guitar for the first time in three months and decided to learn some songs.

That's when I discovered, to my horror, that they're not in order.  The pages are random; put up without any regard for song, album, era, year, decade, key signature, time signature, tempo, or theme.  Yes, "Tangled Up In Blue" is above my desk, but only the first page.  Next to it is the second page of "Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread" and odd pages of two other songs without titles that I don't recognize.  

"Knockin' On Heaven's Door" is followed by the third page of "Wiggle Wiggle."  (Which is an absolute travesty.)

"Like a Rolling Stone" is followed by the second page of "Quinn the Eskimo."

It's driving me mad.  I want all of "I Shall Be Released," not just the second page.  I want all of "Masters of War," not just the first page.  Or better yet, I want to be ignorant again.  I want to go back to that moment before I had that spark of inspiration and got my guitar out of it's dusty case only to realize that the songs on my wall serve no purpose but as wallpaper.  The lyrical equivalent of flowers and neutral colors.  

It could be worse though.  They could be Paul Simon songs.  That would be a real travesty.

R