Eyes and eyes (and I’s and I’s) — their prominent presence in Dylan’s corpus is indisputable, and his love of images using light and darkness is something that is hard not to notice. This show wasn’t about Dylan’s music, though — it was about other people’s songs that he loves.

The female voice-over at the start of the show said:

It’s night-time in the big city. A trail of perfume follows a girl leaving a cheap hotel. A man wakes up in an alley-way. It’s Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan.

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t think the name of the woman doing the voice-overs at the start of each show has been previously specified. However, based on the fact that the voice of this week’s guest sounded identical to the voice-over voice, I think we can conclude that it has been none other than actress Ellen Barkin all along. ( “My favorite color eyes are green. I can’t quite figure it out, because I hate nature and I hate trees.” )

Dylan showed up talking over the tune Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, being tinkled on the piano. Oscar Peterson? I don’t know. The first track Dylan introduced was Brown Eyed Handsome Man by you-know-who ( “Charles Edward Andersen Berry” ).

I got to agree with John Lennon. He said, “If you’re gonna give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.”

Another repeat performer was the next one:

From Belfast, Ireland, George Ivan Morrison, talkin’ about his Brown Eyed Girl, on the Bang record label. First solo hit, after he left the band “Them.” Here he is skippin’ and jumpin’, with his heart thumpin’ in the misty morning fog, going down the old mine with the transistor radio, hidin’ behind the rainbow walls, slippin’ and-a slidin’ along the waterfall, with you, his Brown Eyed Girl.

After playing it he made his now historic Dubya reference. I wrote about it already, and see no need to correct what I said then:

– On today’s new Theme Time Radio Hour on XM Radio, after playing Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, Bob Dylan said this:

That was Van Morrison. In April of 2005, the White House announced that Brown Eyed Girl gets regular rotation on George W. Bush’s iPod. Hmm. I’m glad he’s got good taste in music.

Perfect. People who hate President Bush will hear that as, “At least he has good taste in music.” And they’ll be happy. But that’s not what he said. Of-course, what he said wasn’t an endorsement either, of anything, aside from just what he specified: Bush’s taste in music. Conservative Dylan fans will take it. What’s missing is as important as what’s there — and what’s missing is the kind of scorn and vitriol that comes out of the mouth of so many other figures in the entertainment world when the name of President Bush comes up.

Nice diplomacy, Bob. –

Bob played Jimmie Rodgers doing My Blue Eyed Jane — the song that he himself chose to cover on the tribute to Jimmie that he put together in the late ’nineties. Rodgers’ version is a wonderfully rich track from 1930, accompanied by Bob Sawyer’s Jazz Band.

Jimmie Rodgers would have loved to have lived in Finland. They say they have the highest percentage of blue eyed people.

Except that he wouldn’t have ended up being the “father of country music” in that case. Or would he? Dylan, as always, forcing us to ponder the really big questions.

And keeping the world informed, Bob gave us a list of famous people with “heterochromia,” i.e. two different colored eyes, from David Bowie to Louis Pasteur. We also later got a list of famous bluesmen who were blind ( “they were blind, but they all had great vision” ). Bob sure likes lists.

Chuck Higgins was “eye-ballin women ’til I go stone blind” (and you can’t help but think of Bob’s line, in a very different song, “I’m gonna look at you ’til my eyes go blind“).

Part of the Jim Crow laws in the south prohibited a black person from looking at a white person in the eye. And a black person could be sent to jail for reckless eye-ballin’.

Fortunately, that isn’t what Chuck Higgins is singin’ about.

Chuck retired from performing to become a music teacher. I once had a cross-eyed teacher who couldn’t control his pupils. But I’m sure Chuck Higgins could.

George Jones popped up for what I believe is the third time in the series.

We don’t usually do commercials on Theme Time Radio Hour, but I wanted to tell you that George Jones has his own line of dog food and sausage. Enjoy ’em.

That line preceded Jones’ absolutely heart-rending and glorious performance of Tell Me My Lying Are Wrong.

George Jones was a Marine, and served his country proudly. And Frank Sinatra once called him “the second best white male singer.”

Nick Lowe is not quite on that level as a singer, but Bob spun his effervescent track Raging Eyes, and mentioned the good work he’s done as producer too.

A question in an actual letter (not an e-mail, according to Bob) regarding the line “I never got over those blue eyes,” prompted the playing of I Still Miss Someone by Johnny Cash.

Dylan ended with a much more recent tune: one from British singer Mike Skinner (aka The Streets), titled Dry Your Eyes. A remarkable record, no question.

As Da Vinci said, “The eye sees the thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination does awake.”

Playlist:

Chuck Berry – Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Jimmy Martin and the Osborne Brothers – 20/20 Vision
Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl
Jimmie Rodgers – My Blue Eyed Jane
Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown – She Winked Her Eye
Al Martino – Spanish Eyes
Ernestine Anderson – Keep An Eye On Love
Chuck Higgins – Eye Ballin’
The Blue Sky Boys (The Bolick Brothers) – Brown Eyes
Sonny Boy Williamson – Born Blind
George Jones – Tell Me My Lying Eyes Are Wrong
Nick Lowe – Raging Eyes
Wynonie (Mr. Blues) Harris – Bloodshot Eyes
(Ellen Barkin bit)
Johnny Cash – I Still Miss Someone
The Flamingos (The Flaming O’s) – I Only Have Eyes For You
The Streets (Mike Skinner) – Dry Your Eyes

Next week’s theme: DOGS

Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan, on XM Radio.

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