This is the first image in my 100 X 2017 series. My theme is Bob Dylan songs.

Most people who love music have some-one that has been the sound track to their lives.

For me it is Bob Dylan.

My love affair started when I was a teenager. It was not cool to like Bob Dylan where I came from in the 1970s but there was a small group of us who were dedicated followers, a secret society that would sit around, discussing his lyrics, like pretentious intellectuals. Many of my vinyls have written notes on the lyric sheets. When I heard he was coming to Australia in 1986, my first opportunity to see him, I rang my boyfriend in tears and said that once I see him I can die (True Confessions Tour with Tom Petty at Kooyong). I went to both concerts just in case. Well, fortunately for me I didn't and went on to see all his tours to Melbourne since. Anyone who has seen BD knows that his concerts are "like a box of chocolates" you never know what you are going to get. However, I always feel I am in the presence of royalty (His Bobness).

What I love most about his songs is that they always take me on a lyrical journey of such rich imagery and adventure, I can see the places, the characters, their clothes, the ridiculous and the heartbroken. I can feel the rage of injustice, the blistering sun, the outrageous, idiot wind and smell her sweet perfume.

This image is of me holding Bob's first album Bob Dylan (1962), surrounded by all his original vinyls I have collected over the years. I imagine I have bitten off more than I can chew in trying to do this but I think I will have some fun and I hope you aren't too bored by the journey and can share it with me.

Tags:   Bob Dylan Flickr challenge Mono 100 x Monochrome Black and White Records Music 100x Nikon D750 Nikon 24-120

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2/ 100 X 2017 series. Theme: Bob Dylan songs.

"Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in a Gypsy cafe
With a friend of a friend of mine
Who sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
A phrase in connection first with she occurred
That love is just a four-letter word"

As far as I'm, aware, Bob never recorded this song. He wrote it around 65 and it was recorded by Joan Baez in 1968.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1fpDWXwfso

Dylan and Baez had a tumultuous relationship. Listen to the haunting Diamonds and Rust by Baez
about Dylan. Exquisite

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ST9TZBb9v8

Tags:   Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Challenge Song Love is Just a Four Letter Word Black and White Flickr X100 challenge music Nikon D750 Nikon 24-120

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3/ 100 2017 X100 Challenge Theme Bob Dylan Songs

"We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all
It's turned away from the door
To wonder some more
Or put up against the wall"

www.youtube.com
/watch?v=jg29g6D0sPs

This song is the opening track on Oh Mercy, released in 1989. It was a comeback of sorts for Dylan who was struggling for inspiration to write. "Everybody works in the shadow of what they have previously done. But you have to overcome that." The most outstanding song on this album is Man in the long black coat, gloriously covered by Mark Lanegan but I digress...

This street art depicted in this image is located in a Laneway off Queen Victoria Market by the artist Heesco (Thanks Andrew). I'll let you make your own connections between the image and Dylan's song, but for me, it couldn't be more relevant with the recent exclusion events in the USA. The cover of the Oh Mercy album is a piece of street art that Dylan came across in Hell's Kitchen, New York so I thought that made a nice tie in.

Tags:   Bob Dylan Flickr challenge City Street Art Melbourne Street Art Laneway Donald Trump x 100 2017 Nikon D750 Nikon 50 mm

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Flicker 100 x 2017 Theme Bob Dylan Songs 4/100

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D7EJS2nnbc
"......Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world".

Ruben Carter was a middleweight boxing champion and was convicted of triple murder in Paterson, New Jersey in 1966. The police suspected that the shootings were in retaliation for the shotgun murder that night in Paterson of a black tavern owner by the former owner, who was white. Ruben proclaimed his innocence and when Bob Dylan visited him in prison, he wrote the song Hurricane which appeared on Dylan's masterpiece - Desire in 1976. He played it every show of his Rolling Thunder Review Tour in 1975. The song, though full of factual errors, bought the plight of Ruben out into the wider audience and many people campaigned for his release. He was briefly paroled and released in 1976 and granted a second trial. This second jury held up the conviction. However, the convictions were set aside by a federal court in 1985, after 19 years in prison on the grounds that they had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason".

While many people saw him as a hero who was racially vilified and framed, to others, he was a violent man and was guilty of the crime he was charged with. withhttp://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/04/spare_us_the_lies_about_the_late_hurricane_carter_mulshine.html

While there is much controversy surrounding the case, it is clear that racism was intricately woven into the American justice system, as was bribery and while some of the facts are wrong, the song still stands as one of Dylan's greatest protest songs, an incredible story of the inadequacies of the justice system, especially if you are a poor and a minority.

That haunting violin.

I also chose this image and posted it today as it is 50 years since Ronald Ryan, the last man to be hung in Australia (Feb 3rd 1967) was executed at Pentridge Prison for killing a guard during an escape. Many believe that it was infact prison guards in a tower, aiming for Ryan that accidentally shot the guard. Ryan sentence was expected to be commuted but instead he was made an example of, despite widespread protest.

So sorry about length. I can't help myself. I could have written an essay of this one.

Tags:   Pentridge Jail Prison Rubeun Carter Hurricane Bob Dylan Monocrhome window bars song

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Flickr X 100 2017 Theme - Bob Dylan songs 5/100

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWz88VY-FkA
"Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colours you have in your mind
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine".

This song was released in 1969 on Dylan's Nashville Skyline album. It was actually written as the theme song for the film classic Midnight Cowboy but Harry Nilsson's song "Everybody's talking'" was chosen instead.
Funny to think of it now but many radio stations refused to play this song because of its sexual overtones suggested by using the word Lay!
When I took on this theme, I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone by doing images I wouldn't normally tackle. So please forgive any technical inadequacies. I'm just trying to have fun.

Tags:   Boby dylan challenge song Lay Lady Lay Black and White Monochrome Flickr X100 challenge Brass bed lady Nikon D750 mm Nikon 105 mm

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