Bob Dylan – My Own Version of You Review

Halloween in Glasgow marks a rough and rowdy treat for attendees of the Bob Dylan tour. What a spectacle it is and it is hard to believe such a monumental tour is reaching its end. Crawling to a close in the likes of Nottingham and Wolverhampton, Dylan is skipping the spook-filled season for colder ground, and rightly so. He has already trodden the waters of Halloween with a terrifying performance from Scotland, and what a joy it is. An apt experience for the origins of the holiday, a remembrance of the dead and a song to do just that. My Own Version of You serves as, on the face of it, an appraisal and desire to fit someone into our over-glorified view. But it is never this simple and the performance here contains the multitudes expected of Dylan in the Rough and Rowdy Ways period.  

Two years on and the wonder remains. Therein lies the joy of My Own Version of You. The shadow self and the portrayal of another in your light. Parts of it are from the constant cultural references heard throughout the song, from psychologists like Sigmund Freud to the works of Jonathan Swift. All of it pairs together, initially, with a wilder sensibility to it. But bring it back a little and focus not on the detail but on the broader picture it paints. My Own Version of You is an establishment of a person made by their influences. Whatever the influences are for here, whether it is a portrait of Dylan and the devices which phased through his life or that of a close friend or lover is neither here nor there. On the Glasgow stage it sounds divine and yet haunting, a fitting spectacle for Halloween. 

Because regardless of these influences which may form a person, they are a mere spectre without experience. Tools of our personality, formed by influential pieces of art are just that, influences on our core. Within this song is not a defiant appraisal of a former flame or close ally but an adjustment to perceiving them as a well of knowledge. Their cultural context and reading are not enough. Experience guides the heart and so Dylan walks through the field of ghosts, the hollow shells of those who live and breathe the work of others. Are we not all doing that? What separates us from those heard on My Own Version of You? Nothing. But such is the point, or part of the wider reading associated with the Rough and Rowdy Ways centrepiece.  

This performance has it all. A chilling reminder to pick off your influences and reassess who you are from time to time. My Own Version of You is that launch point. And from there it lingers as to why we pursue influence and knowledge. We sap at the dead poets and creatives to fill the void like vultures, and whether Dylan is truly critical of this or just one of the many to do so is not revealed. His religious intertextuality heard on My Own Version of You is a delight. A daring instrumental hanging in the background, a push for the lyrics and vocals to be front and centre, it all comes together as a sharp and proactive assessment of how we use those musicians and artists we love.