I’m not falling for Lay Lady Babs

EXCUSE me. Where is the actual proof that Bob Dylan wrote Lay Lady Lay about Barbra streisand? He admired her, yes. He once sent her flowers, yes. There was even a note to her in his archives, but it hardly bristled with passion.

‘You are my favourite star,’ he wrote. ‘Your self-determination, wit, temperament and sense of justice have always appealed to me.’

Hmmm. Not exactly throbbing with loins aflame, is it? It sounds more like an homage to Officer Dibble on Top cat than a declaration of sexual intent. Nothing in the note comes close to echoing the desire that smokes through Lay Lady Lay’s lyrics: ‘I long to see you in the morning light, I long to reach for you in the night.’

I prefer to believe Dylan was writing about all women, not just Miss streisand. Although it is all in the ear of the beholder.

My friend, Joyce, thought it was about a charlady folding sheets. And for years I thought Neil Young’s The Needle And The Damage Done — about injecting heroin — was a lecture on taking care of your LPs. We were so innocent in Dundee!