freewheelin-on-line take 27

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On the 5^th day of May 2004, in the perfectly cooled air of a Manhattan auction room, a happening occurred that caused a gasp across the universe of art. The happening involved the disposal of auction lot number 7 and the gasp occurred when the Auctioneer pounded his gavel to declare that the item on display had just become the world’s richest painting. Lot number 7 was Picasso’s portrait of ‘Boy With A Pipe’ and the price paid, a staggering, and anything but cool, £58 million or, in Yankee dollar terms, 104 million dollars. 

That boy with that pipe has found his way onto a Freewheelin cover where the painting’s Spanish creator shares some space with Pagan Lace, a lady also from Spain. Both Pagan and that boy, who doesn’t look like he his going to offer his pipe to anyone, look down at Jack who is strumming away on his guitar, practicing some chords, showing to his Spanish audience another side of Bob Dylan. Perhaps, when Dylan paints his own masterpiece, it will be the morning after a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs (not to be confused with all those stairs in Dylan’s masterpiece of a movie). 

One of the things that intrigues me about Picasso’s record breaking ‘Boy’ is that crown upon his head: a crimson flame of roses tied through his ears perhaps. Which brings me back to Pagan and Jack and the opening line of ‘My Back Pages’, the first song on the soundtrack album from their joint film venture. And if you look at Another Side of Bob Dylan you will find a song with ‘Spanish’ in the title just four tacks away from ‘My Back Pages’. 

So what is all this all about Spain anyway?  Nothing at all really except that: of the 21 dates on his 2004 European tour, 1 is in Wales, 1 is in Portugal, 2 are in each of the countries England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany , France and Italy and no less than 7 are in Spain. And not forgetting of course that this is the country where our soccer captain plies his trade.  But enough of Spain, could I venture to utter: 

Come on England!!
 

Theo Casamegas