Bob Dylan: Nashville Skyline

Can you please crawl out your window?
Use your arms and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
You can go back to him any time you want to.
BobDylan: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?

Come with me as I open a window to one of the singular moments of my Boomer youth.

During the summers of '68 and '69, I spent many weekends at a friend's family vacation home on the tip of Long Island Sound. Row after tidy row of restored Victorian beach houses clustered so close together you could reach out your window and touch the neighbor's curtains.

Early one morning after a night of hard partying, we woke to music coming from the open bedroom window opposite ours. First groggy, then annoyed, suddenly stilled by the plaintive, haunting sounds floating on the clear morning air, we listened, awed and confused.

Whispering, I don't know why, across the divide between our beds.

"Wow, I didn't know Dylan had a new record."

"Me either. Was there a concert? It sounds so real."

Turns out it wasn't a record. Yet. But the music was very real.

It was Bob Dylan himself, a guest of the family next door. Sitting in his room on a soft summer morning, strumming and singing. Was he composing? Polishing? Playing for his own pleasure? All three, we later found out.

We lay there in our beds, entranced by the melody, the lyrics, mesmerized by that voice, so much cleaner and purer pouring from his throat than on any album, any stage. He sang again:

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen
Bob Dylan: Lay, Lady, Lay

It wove through me, gave me chills. So intensely personal. Sensual. Intimate. To this day, whenever I hear that song I'm transported back to that time and place, laying across my bed while Bob Dylan sang, as if only to me.

In fact, a private concert for three.

We came to our window sleepy-eyed in our rumpled t-shirts to see him sitting at his, looking much the same. No words exchanged ... our silent applause rewarded with a crooked grin. Phew, such charm in that narrow face, from those warm, knowing eyes under that mop of hair.

Yes, Dylan had a reputation as a ladies man. No, I didn't become one of those ladies. Really. I didn't. Okay, believe what you will.

I got something more precious ... a rare glimpse of the muse. A chance to witness a tiny piece of the process, the power of the poet. The memory is perfect, pure joy, all sense and sound and secret smiles. 

And there's more.

Dylan joined our crowd that day at the beach. The transition from bedroom window to blanket on the sand was a bit unsettling -- for him as well as us. He was quiet at first. Seemingly aloof. Uncomfortably shy.

He was thin and pale, especially compared to our robust, tanned bodies. I don't know why I remember this small detail, but not only was his skin very white, it was almost completely hairless. Not even close to the image of a rock star sex symbol ... I guess that's my point.

And yet. There was something unique, special, compelling about him. Sharp intelligence. A vibrating intensity. A hint of tenderness. A measure of poise we didn't yet possess. And quietude. He was so still. 

Those eyes didn't restlessly track every movement on the beach ... though they did linger on the girls in our bikinis. No matter his reputation as a lothario, there was more longing than lasciviousness in his gaze.

We were all so alive, so boisterous, so young and juicy, he seemed to soak up our energy and enthusiasm as the day went on. And because we were also elite Ivy Leaguers, engaged, involved, committed to altering the adult world we were about to enter, he was drawn into our conversations too.

What did we talk about, our little group and Bob Dylan? Vietnam, the draft, the Kennedy and King assassinations. Politics, feminism, sex, drugs and--only a little--rock and roll.

We didn't have to talk about that because he played for us. Bob. Dylan. Played. For. Us.

Sitting on a blanket in the sand, leaning against a big red cooler, an old acoustic guitar on his knobby white knees, Dylan played and sang. We sang too, at first tentatively, then, encouraged by his smiles and nods, belting out familiar lyrics already woven into the Boomer culture.

It was magic. A bunch of tuned in, turned on college kids basking in the sun and our incredible fortune, talking, laughing, sharing cigs and joints and swigs of cheap wine, drifting in a private cocoon of near nirvana.

Privileged to be joined by this odd duck, this awkward performer, this towering talent, who was, for one glorious summer day, One of Us.

Word spread. People wandered past our blanket, self-consciously casual, checking out the famous music icon their kids worshiped. You could see many shaking their heads, wondering what all the fuss was about.

A few stopped, openly listened. And I think--I hope--heard the eloquent pleas for peace, reason, change, understanding. We were their kids, after all, facing a challenging, chaotic future.

So much hope. So much irony. Plus ça change...

Still, that extraordinary experience has stayed with me all these years. Safe to say it will linger in my memory forever. And I know now what I didn't really appreciate then: I was lucky enough to experience, up close and personal, the clarion Voice of my Generation.