92 LIFE BOB DYLAN
time to time, but “time to time” is never enough, and Carolyn
eventually called the marriage quits.
There have been unsubstantiated rumors that Dylan mar-
ried other women through the years, or might have fathered
other children, and these rumors can be chased effortlessly
on the Internet if one chooses to do so. A life lived as clan-
destinely as Dylan’s encourages rumors. But what we know
for sure: Twice he tried to make a family; twice he succeeded;
and twice he hit the road again.T
his time, he hit the road in earnest—he hit the road
for good, seemingly forevermore.
Since 1980 he had been singing the old songs
again as well as the new, and clearly this decision, at least,
made everybody happy. In the mid-1980s he had done a
couple of mega tours with famous friends—Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead—and these were well
attended, but, frankly, even on the Dylan classics, they just
weren’t Dylan. He performed at well-intentioned benefits
such as Live Aid in 1985, but the performance was uneven
at best, Keith Richards’s backing notwithstanding. He made
a bunch of albums—Shot of Love (including the wonderful
“Every Grain of Sand”), Infidels, Empire Burlesque, Knocked
Out Loaded (including the greatly underappreciated
11-minute collaboration with Sam Shepard, “Brownsville
Girl”), Down in the Groove—that did little to dispel the gen-
eral notion that the great bulk of Dylan’s best music was
behind him. His guest vocal on rapper Kurtis Blow’s 1986
offering Kingdom Blow only served as a confirmer.
And then, on June 7, 1988, all of the wandering came to anYVES FORESTIER/SYGMA/GETTY
MATTHEW MENDELSOHN
GIANNI GIANSANTI/POLARIS
80-96 LIFE_Bob Dylan 2020 Rolling.indd 92 FINAL 1/13/20 4:37 PM