I Was So Much Older Then
by Sophie Taylor
On music legend Bob Dylan’s birthday, take a look back at his origins withMoment’s “Unauthorized Spiritual Biography” of the singer. Seventy years ago today, Robert Zimmerman was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, a middle-of-nowhere town whose other claim to fame is its six-by-three mile open-air mine shaft. He grew up in a small but deeply Jewish community, studying for his bar mitzvah at a rock-‘n’-roll café and practicing in his garage. Moment editor-in-chief Nadine Epstein chronicles Dylan’s small-town life, his arrival in Greenwich Village, and his early rise to fame, and explores the Jewish, then Christian, themes in his music. Dylan’s religiously inspired lyrics range from:
Oh God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son’/Abe says, ‘Man, you must be puttin’ me on’/God say ‘No.’ Abe say, ‘What?’/God say, ‘You can do what you want...
