Bob Dylan runs on Dunkin'

 

Q:        Why is the “crew from Dunkin’ Donuts” thanked?

A:        Because they were compassionate, supportive and they went                the extra mile.

- Interview with Bob Dylan, The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2022

Bob Dylan has always taken great care in cultivating a persona as an inscrutable interview subject. But now, after over sixty years in the public eye making journalists squirm, he finally let the mask slip. We can all stop wondering about the meaning behind his greatest songs, some of which have entered the pop music canon. What were once Dylan dead ends are now doughy digressions. So let’s go back to the beginning and reframe the career of the twentieth century’s finest troubadour.

Many have wondered how Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota became Bob Dylan. The mystery is mercifully over. Dylan, like doughnut, as well as Dunkin’, conveniently starts with the letter “D” and is just two syllables long. Let’s abandon the notion that the songwriter wanted a name redolent of a certain alcoholic Welsh poet.

On his highly acclaimed second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, there are several hit songs with previously ambiguous meanings. “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” is not about the coming atomic apocalypse, but rather, how volatile sugar becomes when reaching its melting point. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” is not about lost love, but instead a motivational mantra Dylan would say in the mirror after a wildly indulgent, increasingly routine, pastry-rich breakfast. “I Shall Be Free” was his meditation on a world where all baked goods are given away, gratis, no longer the subject of capricious markets. And yes, “Blowin’ In the Wind”, while important during the Civil Rights movement, is actually a reference to common post-snack flatulence; a movement with different implications, but a movement all the same. 

“The Times They are a-Changin’” was Dylan lamenting the expansion of Dunkin’ chains throughout the country. Though he loved their product, he worried about the loss of Mom-and-Pop doughnut shops and whether the country would become one giant strip mall. Oh, how prescient he was.

At Newport in 1965, Dylan went electric after watching a deep fat fryer in action, mesmerized by the scalding oil, and not as some reaction to the inherent limitations of the acoustic guitar. Prior to that epiphany, he hired harmonica player Paul Butterfield solely for his name, believing it would be a boon to his own notorious sweet tooth.

He was called “Judas” in 1966 at a show in Manchester, England, because of the unfounded rumor that he was on a diet for the entire tour. This helps explain why he included “Ballad of a Thin Man” on the same setlist to disabuse fans of this damaging misapprehension.

We can now say with some degree of certainty that his motorcycle accident, which occurred July 1966 in Woodstock, New York, was the result of a massive oil leak. But not the sort most mechanics are familiar with. Apparently, he was mixing the oil meant for frying with what’s typically used in a two-stroke internal combustion engine.

He skipped Woodstock in 1969 because of the emphasis on drugs over dessert.

“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” was about Dylan’s own brush with death after eating three dozen old fashioned doughnuts right before The Concert for Bangladesh. George Harrison was furious, since the purpose of the celebrity revue was to raise awareness for, among other things, starvation.

During his time writing, recording, and touring with The Band, the only source of tension arose from arguments over which was better, Dunkin’ or Tim Horton’s. Seeing as four of five Band members hailed from Canada, Ontario, specifically, they favored the latter. In fact, The Basement Tapes took place in a basement because it was secure enough to store Dylan’s palettes of excess pastry dough growing exponentially with each new contract.

His supposed heavy drug problem in the mid-seventies was more likely a preoccupation with another popular white powder at the time: sugar.

Blood on the Tracks was not about his divorce to Sara Lownds, but rather, a reference to the raspberry filling commonly expelled onto a recording studio’s pristine carpet after a particularly zealous first squeeze. The original track listing was very different, with every song detailing a different aspect of the baking process. Side one featured, “Tangled Up in Spun Sugar,” “Simple Twist of Cinnamon,” “You’re a Big Doughnut Now,” “Idiot Blintz,” and “You’re Gonna Make Me Hypoglycemic When You Go.” Side Two, in typical Dylan fashion, took a darker turn, beginning with “Meet Me in the Morning, That Means Pre-Dawn Since This an Actual Working Bakery.” Then there were lesser-known tunes like, “Honey, Sprinkles and a Dollop of Fudge”, “If You Smell Her, Say Hello,” “Shelter from the Corn Syrup,” and of course, as the grand finale, “Buckets of Jelly.” The record company flipped out, and not in the good, pancake way. They revamped the album, removing all references to fried dough of any kind through overdubs. In the end, Dylan and his wife got divorced anyway, citing irreconcilable culinary differences.

Some interviewers have noticed over the years that Dylan’s eyes seem to glaze over almost immediately upon hearing the most banal of questions. Now, the culprit has been identified as glaze from a full-frontal assault on a sticky bear claw in the green room.

Beginning in the late seventies, his sudden “Christian period” can be directly attributed to the emphasis on unleavened bread during Passover. While not an indictment against Judaism exactly, it’s hard to compare a piece of matzah with a Boston Crème doughnut. Dylan returned to his ancestral faith when he realized Hanukkah, with its focus on oil, was, when done right, an eight-night fried food bacchanalia.

Dylan toured with The Grateful Dead in the eighties because Jerry Garcia, one of the very few portly heroin addicts, surely knew a good bakery when he saw (or smelled) one.

The Traveling Wilburys big hit, “Handle with Care” was about the delicate nature of certain stuffed pastries.

The famous video of Dylan going through the motions during the recording of “We Are the World” was due to a sudden and debilitating sugar crash.

Bob Dylan continues to travel the world on his so-called Never Ending Tour. He keeps at it not out of money concerns, a passion for music, a love of art, but for the fact that touring is still a good excuse for “cheat days” and an easy way to get free food.

Many wondered why Dylan wore sunglasses when President Obama gave him the Medal of Freedom. Oh, it’s just Bob being Bob. Wrong. His eyes were completely bloodshot from an all-night buttery biscuit bender.

He tried to eat his Nobel Prize 18-karat gold medal, convinced it was chocolate; oversized gelt worth 10 million Swedish kroner. He spent the next six weeks getting a brand-new pair of chompers.

And finally, Bob Dylan’s six-decade relationship with Columbia records has garnered the artist a ton of dough. Who could have known all along it was literally just that.