For this bootcamp I was interested in looking at what Bob Dylan calls “home”. For someone who spends 10 months on the road a year, has multiple houses, has moved from Minnesota, to New York, to Malibu, etc., I figured it would interesting to look at Dylan’s lyrics and note every time he mentions the word “home”. This of course, was a terrible idea since most of his songs (at least for the time period I was looking at) are traditional folk songs, attempting to tell an independent story. So, after wasting hours looking over his lyrics (there are about 59 of his songs that reference “home” for those who were wondering and only a very slim few actually referenced a specific place), I decided to re-watch Martin Scorsese’s’ documentary about Dylan, No Direction Home.

The first few lines of the documentary are spoken by Dylan:

The documentary also concludes with Dylan speaking about home as he tells a reporter:

After his never-ending European tour, documented by D.A. Pennebaker in “Don’t Look Back”, Dylan was involved in a motorcycle crash, although there was no official record of Dylan’s accident (as he did not go to the hospital). What is known of this incident is that it brought his recording to a halt for two years, and stopped him from touring for eight years. As can be seen from the map of Dylan’s first five active years (not only is his touring schedule insane, but he also produce seven albums in five years), Dylan needed a serious break. After his accident Dylan settled in Woodstock, NY, and played in The Band’s basement, where they created carefree music together, without the usual pressure to produce for other people. At this point, his musical style along with his physical and mental state seemed to come to rest. Dylan was finally not only physically at home, but also mentally at home within himself. He no longer had to pretend to be “a Woody Guthrie” or a “political song writer”, but could instead finally be himself. Whether or not the accident was truly an accident (Dylan merely broke a vertebrae after all), the time away from the pressure of stardom allowed him be the father and the person he needed to become.

Therefore for my map, I decided to map Dylan’s busy life throughout the years 1961-1966. This was the result:

Bob Dylan 1961-1966

What this particular mapping method did not show me was anything about Dylan’s quest for home. Not only was this mapping process extremely long and tedious (entering each location of each concert), some of the concerts or the events that occur in the same locations do not show as well, as they are hidden under other events. It is easy not to see them or know that they are even there at all. For example, in 1964 Dylan had a concert at Town Hall in Philedelphia on September 1^st, and another one at the same location October 10^th, when looking at the map, it isn’t obvious that the events took place in such a way. Another problem that occurred to me was that some of these locations might not exist today as they did then. For example a high school that Dylan may have played at in 1964 may not have the same name today, so it’s hard to pin point exactly where these locations were.

The map itself also doesn’t directly show the dates of the concerts or the strain on Dylan’s travel schedule these dates created. For example, December 7,1965 Dylan played in Long Beach, CA. Dec. 8^th he played Santa Monica, Dec. 9^th – Pasadena, Dec. 10^th – San Diego, Dec. 11^th – San Francisco, Dec. 12^th – back to Pasadena (Bob Dylan Set List). This can only be realized if one looks to the table beside the map, noting each concert.  This mapping style didn’t allow me to best represent the rapidness of his scheduling with each stop, only the multitude of shows. Although I know from research that he wasn’t getting any rest in between shows, a quick glance at the map does not show this, however, the table does.

Despite these frustrations, a positive about mapping in this fashion is that I can enter notes on the events that occur. For example if you click on one of the black markers, I’ve been able to provide information on what has occurred to Dylan during the year it describes. However, some of the markers simply hover over the water, since they would be covered by other markers like those of the concert markers if I were to place them in their relevant areas.

One thing this map did show me that I hadn’t noticed before was that Dylan played at the same concert venue, or even in the same major cities quite often. This says something about not only Dylan’s fandom in these major cities, but also about how concert locations and planning works in general. Perhaps most importantly, it showed a massive demand for just one individual and despite the repetition of some venues, with this many places to be throughout his career, I realize that there was no time to even begin looking for home.

Works Cited
“Create and Publish Interactive Maps.” Map Creator Online to Make a Map with Multiple Color Pins and Regions. Web. 19 Oct. 2013.
Gill, Andy. Bob Dylan: Stories behind the Songs 1962-69. [London]: Carlton, 2011. Print.
No Direction Home = Bob Dylan. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Bob Dylan and B.J.Rolfzen. Paramount, 2006. DVD.
Scorsese, Martin. “No Direction Home (Intro).” YouTube. YouTube, 03 July 2012. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.
“Set Lists | The Official Bob Dylan Site.” The Official Bob Dylan Site.  Web. 19 Oct. 2013.