What about Bob and BRIDESHEAD REVISITED?

Dylanetics

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Jan 21, 2013, 11:09:54 AM1/21/13

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Oddly, nobody on RMD has considered whether Bob might have been playing with Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" when he titled "Highway 61 Revisited" (song and album).

Sure, "Brideshead Revisited" seems almost impossibly remote from our perspective in 2013.

But go back to 1965. "Brideshead," which was published in 1945, was only 20 years old. That's equivalent to **1993** from today's perspective.

So Waugh's title would have been bouncing around in Bob's mind when he was selecting a title for his latest hit song/album. Or at least it would have occurred to Bob, LOUDLY, as soon as he started to consider using the phrase "Highway 51 Revisited."

Who knows, literate Bob may even have read Waugh. Somebody please check Chronicles.

In "Brideshead Revisited," a middle-class young man's eyes are opened, and life transformed, when he is exposed to the ethos, esthetics and mysterious faith of an aristocratic Anglo-Catholics family.

In selecting his title, was Bob enjoying an ironic comparison to his youthful encounter, via radio, with the Blues?

khematite

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Jan 21, 2013, 12:10:34 PM1/21/13

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Could be. Or maybe Dylan was influenced by Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World Revisited," published in 1958--a discussion twenty-five years after the publication of "Brave New World" of the extent to which humanity had moved in the direction predicted by the original novel.

Just Walkin'

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Jan 22, 2013, 10:40:14 AM1/22/13

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Thinkin' about Tom Lehrer Revisited myself. Live album recorded in '59
and released the following year; very popular with college students
those days...

M. Rick

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Jan 22, 2013, 7:37:35 PM1/22/13

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> Oddly, nobody on RMD has considered whether Bob might have been playing with Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" when he titled "Highway 61 Revisited" (song and album).

Has anyone considered whether Bob might have been playing with Roger
Maris' 61 home runs?

>In "Brideshead Revisited," a middle-class young man's eyes are opened, and life transformed, when he is exposed to the ethos, esthetics and mysterious faith of an aristocratic Anglo-Catholics family.

In 1961 Roger Maris hit 61 home runs. In other news, Kennedy was
inaugerated, Castro murdered all his opponents, Hemingway shot himself
and Bob Dylan sold his imaginary soul to the imaginary devil.

Dylanetics

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Jan 23, 2013, 8:47:42 AM1/23/13

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Thanks for posting these very interesting possibilities. I think RMD has now established that the formula "XYZ Revisited" had plenty of opportunities to seep into Bob's mind at a formative age. (Or into his imaginary mind, to credit M. Rick.)

Forced to choose, I would probably go with the Tom Lehrer, inasmuch as Bob was a college student about that time, the title involved an album title, etc. But Huxley (Mr. "Doors of Perception") would likely have been residing in Bob's mind as well. With Waugh floating around somewhere, too.

Or are we over-thinking this "influence" business? Maybe everybody just used to use "revisited" a lot, the way people these days say "you know" all the time.

Will Dockery

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Jan 23, 2013, 10:32:59 AM1/23/13

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Revisited is a mighty good word, after all.

Brother Jumbo

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Jan 25, 2013, 5:58:09 AM1/25/13

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On Jan 21, 4:09 pm, Dylanetics <dylanet...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> "Brideshead Revisited" seems almost impossibly remote from our perspective in 2013.

Yes and no.

I read it a few months past. Waugh's one of my favourite novelists but
I prefer his earlier stuff (Vile Bodies, Black Mischief, A Handful of
Dust ...)

Mr Jinx

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Jan 25, 2013, 11:52:52 AM1/25/13

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Hi Brother Jumbo.

I guess that makes you a master of Waugh.

Mr Jinx :-)

Just Walkin'

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Jan 25, 2013, 7:56:33 PM1/25/13

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And then of course there's F. Scott Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited...

RichL

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Jan 25, 2013, 8:18:13 PM1/25/13

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"Just Walkin'" <kens...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7c6f3bdd-4166-4605...@k4g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...

That's the one I thought of as well. Then again, "revisited" is just a
word, it doesn't have to have been influenced by anything!

Mr Jinx

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Jan 26, 2013, 6:30:59 AM1/26/13

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It seems to me that one of the central lessons Dylan has given us is that it is valid for someone to make new clothes out of old cloth.

And even that is not a new idea!

Mr Jinx