While many users have been leaving Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) in light of the election, at least one artist has continued his somewhat unconventional usage of the social media platform: Bob Dylan. The most recent of his periodic observations from last Tuesday (November 19) was posted after seeing Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform at Paris’ Accor Arena on November 17.
Brooklyn Vegan reports that Dylan wrote: “Saw Nick Cave in Paris recently at the Accor Arena and I was really struck by that song Joy where he sings ‘We’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.’ I was thinking to myself, yeah that’s about right.”
Cave posted a response on his Red Hand Files site, answering a question from a fan, “Have you ever imagined that Bob Dylan would be attending your shows and writing nice tweets about them?”
“Sitting in bed with Susie in a post-tour stupor, watching ‘Carry On Up the Khyber’ and eating Belgian chocolates (gift from a fan), my phone suddenly lit up as excited friends started sending me Bob Dylan’s tweet,” Cave wrote in his reply, continuing:
“I hadn’t known Bob was at the concert and his tweet was a lovely pulse of joy that penetrated my exhausted, zombied state. “You’ve perked up!” said Susie. I was happy to see Bob on X, just as many on the Left had performed a Twitterectomy and headed for Bluesky. It felt admirably perverse, in a Bob Dylan kind of way. I did indeed feel it was a time for joy rather than sorrow. There had been such an excess of despair and desperation around the election, and one couldn’t help but ask when it was that politics had became everything. The world had grown thoroughly disenchanted, and its feverish obsession with politics and its leaders had thrown up so many palisades that had prevented us from experiencing the presence of anything remotely like the spirit, the sacred, or the transcendent – that holy place where joy resides. I felt proud to have been touring with The Bad Seeds and offering, in the form of a rock ‘n ’roll show, an antidote to this despair, one that transported people to a place beyond the dreadful drama of the political moment. I was elated to think Bob Dylan had been in the audience, and since I doubt I’ll get an opportunity to thank him personally, I’ll thank him here. Thank you, Bob! “You’ve definitely perked up!” said Susie. Love, Nick.”
Cave has written about Dylan on the Red Hand Files before, including about how he’d been “extremely moved” by “Murder Most Foul.”
Dylan, meanwhile, has been making waves with another post on X in a reply to astrologer Cheryl Henry, who said she’d rehearsed to be a backup dancer for his Grammys performance in 1991. “My Joy was taken away after rehearsing as one of the Backup dancers for your set on the Grammys in NYC 1991,” she wrote, continuing:
“We all had to walk single file to exit thru the backstage area, past the dressing rooms where you were standing wearing a hooded black robe, kinda like the boxers used to wear & you said to me as I passed you “Now don’t you go cutting that long red hair of yours before tomorrow night.” By the time I reached the exit door at Radio City I had been told not to return Nadine (who was running things) had told us all before NOT to make eye contact with you ! I guess I snuck a peek as I passed you ! I had a letter with me also from an old friend of yours Katherine Perry who knew you in your West Village days. It wasn’t meant to be Gemini Man….”
“Saw your reply,” Dylan wrote. “Just want you to know I’ve never told anybody not to make eye contact with me. That is just ridiculous. And the next time you see me please look straight into my eyes.”
This interaction between Cave and Dylan comes just weeks after Nick Cave released Wild God, his seventeenth album with the Bad Seeds, as well as the announcement of spring 2025 tour. Dylan has also noticeably remained quiet amidst the legal dispute between YouTube and SESAC, though his name and work was mentioned in the case.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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