FILE - In this Jan. 12, 2012, file photo, Bob Dylan performs in Los Angeles. Universal Music Publishing Group is buying legendary singer Bob Dylan’s entire catalog of songs. The company said Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, that the deal covers 600 song copyrights including “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” “Tangled Up In Blue." (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

It has been a number of years since I’ve written anything about Bob Dylan. For some reason that remains a mystery to me, just lately, like a ghostly figure drifting out of the mist, some thoughts of him have been wandering down the back alleys of my mind. In the 21st century, Bob Dylan is the only musical artist whose presence still casts a very long shadow over the broad and parched landscape of today’s cultural scene. Just saying the name, “Dylan” is a bit like drinking an ancient potion that has the power to instantly whisk music lovers away on a lyrical magic carpet ride.

For me, his words are like looking through a window into the house of my memories. On May 24th he will turn 80 years old, and yet across a wide gulf of years and generational boundaries, he remains a timeless figure with an enduring presence. Bob Dylan stands alone at the top of the mountain as the poet laureate and conscience to the generation that came of age listening to, and digesting, his seminal lyrics.

In my life, there have always been those precious pockets of time when I have sequestered myself from the chaos and cacophony of the cloying outside world that lives on the other side of my door. The “alone” moments when I put on Dylan’s music and once again drift away to wherever it might take me. They offer me a soft and snug interlude where I can listen again to his words. It is in those brief pauses that I rediscover all over again what made him a force of such paramount importance to me, and to millions of others as well. In my mind, he was so richly deserving of winning the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Even now, when I let his lyrics take up temporary residence in my mind, I never fail to come away with the thought that, when all is said and done, more than any other living artist, Bob Dylan represents a one-man renaissance.

The face that he has always shown to the world is that of an aloof, elusive, remote, and enigmatic man who has never made any attempt to promote himself in an industry that is driven by turbo-charged egos. In the face of this, and as he closes in on 80, he is still the most talked about, anticipated, and listened to, musical artist in the world.

In December of 2020, he stunned the world by selling the rights to his 600 song catalogue to Universal Music Publishing Group for a staggering $300 million. A massive sum of money that could only be rivaled by the Beatles. Not a bad day’s work for the man who was born Robert Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 in the bleak and cold iron ore town of Hibbing, Minnesota,

Fifty eight years after he was catapulted onto the world stage with the release of his first album, the self-titled “Bob Dylan,” he released “Rough and Rowdy Ways” on June 19th of last year. It was his first collection all new material in nearly eight years. The album was praised by the critics across the globe. For Dylan devotes, the long drought was finally over. For them, listening to it was like standing under a Niagara of frothy, cold, cascading spring water on a blistering hot August day. The collection was indeed well worth the wait.

That album also revealed to the world a now grizzled and worn leathery look to the Nobel laureate as time is often a ruthless biographer of the face. Across the decades, his voice has gone through various phases that have featured his trademark nasally talk-speak style, sometimes a raspy brittle tone, and for a short-lived moment, had him even sounding just a tiny bit like a crooner on songs like “Lay Lady Lay” from his classic “Nashville Skyline” album.

That being said, and in the face of his lyrics speaking volumes to the world, he will never be accused by anyone of having a good singing voice. However, in the grand scheme of things, his voice never really mattered all that much, for it has always been his gift of genius poetry that has captivated people from across six generations. “Rough and Rowdy Ways” was simply another proof point that the Master still has an infinite capacity to captivate us by continuing to be himself. His well of creative talent still appears to be bottomless.

That 39th studio album was not a spare or economical effort, as the massive volume of verbiage within the tracks is stunning. In truth, my intent here is certainly not to review an album that was released eight months ago. However, I will say that for my money, the crown Jewel in Rough and Rowdy Ways is “Murder Most Fowl.” A 17 minute long marathon offering where he employed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to shine a sobering light on America’s collective disenchantment during those turbulent times. In its way, “Murder Most Foul” evokes distant images of his classic song, “The Hurricane,” where he held a mirror up to America’s systemic racism in chronicling how an all-white New Jersey jury put former boxing champion Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, an African American, behind bars for a murder that he did not commit.

Using his pen to capture what his eyes take in, his work is still powerful and thought-provoking as it was when the world first discovered him in the 1960’s. Again, in the waning months of his 79th year, the caliber of his artistic output is still amazingly viable and relevant; still vintage Dylan. He is a poet who has never been a dispenser of soft and soothing reassurance to a world that still can’t seem to find the eyes with which to see its own flaws and imperfections.

As one who has followed him for through the years, it makes no difference what singing voice he may use at a given point along the way as a vehicle to convey his lyrics. In my mind’s eye, there resides a pristine and indelible image of a young rail-thin, scraggily-haired, scratchy-voiced poet from Minnesota who, such a long ago, had the power to reach out and capture my imagination.

Six decades after he first burst upon the cultural scene, Bob Dylan remains a captivating poet-lyricist speaking to us as no other ever has. He still has that power and the magic that reaches out to resonate with people across all levels of society. To those who came of age in the 60’s, and for so many from the generations that followed in their wake, this restless exponent of creative expression is like a farmer who plants and nurtures the creative seeds that cultivate the deepest human feelings that reside so deeply in all of us.

Paul Collins is a freelance writer from Southborough, Massachusetts.