Well, yesterday I had the good fortune to get an e-mail from a friend with info on how to access the “press preview” version of Dylan’s first “Theme Time Radio Hour” for XM — the one where the theme is “weather.” Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to write much if anything about it until May 3rd, on the principle that more than enough cats have been let out of the bag in advance — why should I contribute to that? This morning, I turn on the old computer machine and see the same access information splashed on the top of the popular Expecting Rain web site. So much for cats in bags! (I don’t know if XM has taken that file down at this point or not.)

Still, I’m going to limit myself to a few observations rather than a blow-by-blow account. (No matter how many descriptions of the show you read, by the way, it doesn’t replace hearing it.) Number one and above all: it’s a pure delight. Dylan has possibly found his true calling, and not a moment too soon. Back on the day it was first announced, I predicted it would be “a blast,” and “a music-lover’s paradise,” and, of-course, Bob is right again.

A few other random notes:

• A little more crowing: Dylan makes exactly the same point about Dean Martin and Elvis, relevant to “I Don’t Care if the Sun Don’t Shine,” as I made in a previous post when much of the play list for the show was initially reported. While of-course I’m certain that Dylan reads RWB faithfully, I will not accuse him of plagiarism on this, as the show was obviously recorded before my post. It’s just that “great minds” adage, I guess, and I’ll live with it.
• On this one perhaps I’m sensitive (but it’s my job after all): a Reuters advance report about the show referred to Dylan making a number of “pointed but low-key comments about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.” If the writer of that self-contradicting phrase was trying to imply that Dylan was being pointedly critical of someone (like the evil George W. Bushitler who blew up the levees and laughed while everyone died), then listening to the show should dispel that notion. Dylan’s comments on New Orleans and the hurricane are the perfectly natural ones of someone who has great affection for that city, as well as the music and musicians that have come from there, and who is sympathetic to the rough time that part of the country has endured. There is no criticism, pointed or otherwise, of anyone.
• Right before playing “Raining in My Heart” by Slim Harpo, Dylan quotes Saint Basil (hey, today is Sunday, after all): “Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.”
• The final song of the show is the Carter Family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side.” Dylan doesn’t introduce it — just lets it play. Many fans will be familiar with Dylan’s quote, from an interview in the late 90s:
  

  “All my beliefs come out of those old songs, literally, anything from ‘Let Me Rest on that Peaceful Mountain’ to ‘Keep on the Sunny Side.’ You can find all my philosophy in those old songs. I believe in a God of time and space, but if people ask me about that, my impulse is to point them back toward those songs. I believe in Hank Williams singing ‘I Saw the Light.’ I’ve seen the light, too.”

  I’ll just draw this connection as well: Dylan, while referring to songwriter Johnny Mercer on the XM show, happens to mention the song “Acc-ent-uate the Positive” (cowritten with Harold Arlen). A great story of Dylan’s childhood (as recounted in Robert Shelton’s “No Direction Home”) is how, when he was 4 years old, he amazed family and friends by being able to sing that song, and everyone who heard it told his parents, basically, “Wow — your kid’s a genius!” It’s a very different kind of song to the Carter Family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side,” and yet, it’s kind of the same song too. “Serve God and be cheerful,” as Dylan writes in Cross the Green Mountain. Now that’s an adage that’s difficult to live by all the time, but very good to aim for, is it not? It’s also one that Dylan is clearly keeping in mind a good deal in his public offerings these days. Chronicles was notable for its generousity to all and sundry. Dylan’s wonderful new radio show is staking out the same territory: lift up what’s good, the music that you love, and don’t waste any time on knocking people down or on bitterness of any stripe.

…

These shows are going to be an unbelievable treasure for posterity, and a unique and powerful musical education for those lucky enough to hear them. And they’re going to be an awful lot of fun too.

Let us greet with a song of hope each day
Though the moment be cloudy or fair
Let us trust in our Saviour away
To keep us everyone in His care.

Keep on the sunny side
Always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us everyday
It will brighten all our way
If we keep on the sunny side of life.

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