When the Beatles hung out with Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan. Source: New York Times

What made the late Anthony Bourdain entertaining was his colourful life, power of articulation and vivid imagination. He once spoke of a hypothetical photograph, in which he, the Dalai Lama, Keith Richards and Christopher Walken are sitting in a hot tub, “doing bong rips”.

While that hilarious scenario never panned out, the \,/p.e 80th birthday on May 24 is being awaited by his fans, did light up togethe.p-/r. In fact, Dylan, who won the 2016 Nobel for literature, initiated the new kids from Liverpool into the experience in 1964.

Earlier this month, Paul McCartney spoke about hanging out with Dylan at the Delmonico Hotel in New York.

“I remember it pretty well,” McCartney said on the Adam Buxton Podcast. “We were staying in that hotel, and I think we were on tour. So we were all together in the hotel suite; we were having a drink, and then Bob arrived. We said ‘hi,’ and he vanished into a back room, one of the rooms off the suite. So we just carried on ... but Ringo went back to see him.”

The drummer rejoined his band mates after some time. In the words of McCartney, Ringo was “looking a little bit dazed and confused.” When asked why, he replied, “Oh, Bob’s smoking pot back there.”

“We’d never had it,” McCartney said on the podcast. “So we said, ‘What’s it like?’ Ringo said, ‘Well, the ceiling feels like it’s coming down a bit.’ We go, ‘Whoa!’ And we all just dashed in the back room to partake of the evil substance. That was quite an evening. It was crazy. It was great fun.”

McCartney added: “I’m not sure Bob is keen on being labeled as the guy who turned the Beatles on [to pot]. I’ve heard that he’s sort of trying to play it down a bit — but whatever, that’s the truth. We met him on other occasions under those kind of circumstances, but it was very nice.”

Concerts with social distancing have been planned in different parts of the world to mark Dylan’s birthday. In India, a recent video of young Ishaan Chintamani, the son of musician Gaurav Chintamani, singing Dylan’s ‘Blowin in the wind’ has been widely appreciated.

Everyone knows about Dylan’s fondness for the joyful leaf, but now we have it on good authority.