Columbia Records are collecting people's stories about Bob Dylan. I'm working with my client to collect their people's stories about their organisation. So one's more glamorous than the other, but we're both using the good old story to make sense of something.
Columbia and me are even using a similar online tool to do it.
Anyway, here's the Dylan story I've just submitted.
I'd been a Dylan fan since my schooldays. But it was the summer of 1998, two years into university, that he became a part of my life.
I was living in a caravan in the Lake District with my best friend. We explored the Lakes in the days, worked in the local pub in the evenings, and played Risk and drank whisky through the nights.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend spent the summer in the south of France.
I'd just discovered Blood on the Tracks and Desire. And these songs about Bob and Sara Dylan struck me, like they have so many others, in a very personal way. The intensity of their love, the hurt they caused each other: the joy and the loss. Especially the song Sara. It still brings me to tears.
I guess I missed my girl. Anyway, she came home and I gave her this album Blood on the Tracks. She loved it. Still does. She's my wife now and it's the only Dylan album she likes me to play.
This is one of many Dylan stories I could have told. I would love to hear others, if you have them and want to share.