Bob Dylan heading for Mauchline?

Oct 31 2008 by Edwin Lawrence

COULD it really happen? Superstar Bob Dylan singing Robert Burns at Mauchline?

It certainly could. And go-ahead Mauchline Burns Club aim to invite him.

The club would love to have Dylan as the headliner for the Holy Fair on May 23 next year.

This year’s event attracted staggering crowds estimated at 25,000.

And this could easily double if the living legend agrees to come to Mauchline.

A club spokesman said: “Dylan has been quoted worldwide, saying he was inspired by Burns.

“So it’s up to us to fire his imagination to perform where Burns lived and wrote.”

Bob Dylan was asked to name the lyric or verse that has had the biggest effect on his life.

He could have chosen This Land Is Your Land by his mentor Woody Guthrie.

The radical folk singer’s most famous song is now regularly sung in American schools.

And Bruce Springsteen has sung it in support of presidential candidate Barack Obama.

He could have selected lines from Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by another hero, Dylan Thomas.

The Welsh poet wrote the emotive lines for his dying father.

And Bob Dylan – born Robert Zimmerman – is said to have taken his adopted name from the Welshman.

But no. Dylan chose My Luve Is Like A Red Red Rose by the Ayrshire ploughman poet.

Burns showed his genius by reworking an old folk song into a classic.

It’s something Dylan has done too. And the American clearly has the utmost respect for how Burns collected and enriched old tunes, saving them for all time.

Dylan made his revelation as part of music retailer HMV’s My Inspiration campaign.

Burns is said to have heard a country girl singing Red Red Rose.

And he turned it into one of the greatest love songs of all time.

Burns compares love to joyous things in nature and art.

And you have to admit it’s very emotive and emotional stuff.

O, my luve is like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June.

O, my luve is like the melodie,

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I,

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

A Mauchline Burns Club spokesman said: “Jeremy Paxman recently took a cheap shot at Burns, virtually dismissing his work as sentimental dross.

“But it’s his view that we should dismiss. So many great artists and scholars have hailed the genius of Burns.

“And now Bob Dylan has joined their number. It would be incredible if we could get him here for the Holy Fair in the year of The Homecoming.”