Death and Dylan

OK, OK, I know this getting habitual, and I seem to becoming lazier by the day. And what does it say about me when I tell you that the obituaries are the first place I turn to in the paper. (The online paper, by the way, a concept with which I'm still having trouble getting my head around.)

But yes, the obituaries it is, and there you're never quite sure what you'll find. So as I moused my way through the paper this morning, I enountered the attached obituary recounting the life of William Zantzinger, the real-life inspiration behind Dylan's song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.

Now I was never really a Dylan guy--he's a little before my time, and I never could get past his voice to want to spend time with his lyrics. But after reading this narative, and the seemingly inevitable and horrifying arc of the evening of February 8, 1963, I have a new appreciation of why Dylan spoke so powerfully to his generation. And I have to dust through the LPs, and see whether I have a copy of this laying around. It may be a long, snowy day today, and a cup of tea and a little music might be just the thing. Ah, there are the first flakes now...