100 Funny Bob Dylan Moments

15. The part in the Halloween 1964 Philharmonic Hall concert where he has a member of the audience prompt the first words of I Don't Believe You for him

16. I said "They refused Jesus too."
"you're not him!"

17. The cover of Empire Burlesque

18. Well, my telephone rang it would not stop,
It's President Kennedy callin' me up.
He said, "My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?"
I said, "My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot,
Anita Ekberg,
Sophia Loren."
(Put 'em all in the same room with Ernest Borgnine!)

please come crawl out your window
use your hands and kegs it won't ruin you
how can you say he will haunt you
when you can go back to him any time that you want to

legs

20. "I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time."

21. "Well, I saw him makin' love to you, you forgot to close the garage door"

such a lewd song but this line is so overt that I bust out laughing everytime

22.

Well, she's got jet pilot eyes from her hips on down
All the bombardiers are trying to force her out of town
She's five feet nine and she carries a monkey wrench
She weighs more by the foot than she does by the inch

She got all the downtown boys, all at her command
But you've got to watch her closely, 'cause
she ain't no woman, she's a man.

23. What he's wearing for the Empire Burlesque sleeve

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/615ptwSwJpL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

24. "I like Fidel Castro and his beard!"

25. I'm in Boston town in some restaurant
I got no idea what I want
or maybe I do but I'm just really not sure
Waitress comes over, nobody in the place but me and her

Well it must be a holiday, there's nobody around
She studies me closely as I sit down
She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs
I said "Tell me what I want"
She say "You probably want hard boiled eggs"

I said "That's right, bring me some"
She says "We ain't got any, you picked the wrong time to come"
then she says "I know you're an artist, draw a picture of me"
I said "I would if I could but
I don't do sketches from memory"

Well she's?? near she says "I'm right here in front of you or haven't you looked"
I say "All right I know but I don't have my drawin' book"
She gives me a napkin, she say "You can do it on that"
I say "Yes I could but I don't know where my pencil is at"

She pulls one out from behind her ear
She says "Alright now go ahead draw me I'm stayin' right here"
I make a few lines and I show it for her to see
Well she takes the napkin and throws it back and says
"That don't look a thing like me"

I said "Oh kind miss, it most certainly does"
She say "You must be joking", I said "I wish I was"
She says "You don't read women authors do ya?"
at least that's what I think I hear her say
Well I say "How would you know, and what would it matter anyway"

Well she says "Ya just don't seem like ya do", I said "You're way wrong"
She says "Which ones have you read then?", I say "Read Erica Jong"
She goes away for a minute, and I slide out, out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody's goin' anywhere

26.

You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances
On a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

Such an arresting image.

27. Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"

28. Per Roger Ebert on "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" in 1973: "Bob Dylan plays a character named Alias, and should have used one. His screen presence makes him look as if he's the victim of a practical jokes involving itching powder."

29. You promise to love me, but what do I see? Just you comin' in and spilling juice over me.

30. Hell's my wife's home town.

Well, I run right down ’n’ bought a ticket
To this bear mountain picnic.
But little did I realize
I was in for a picnic surprise.
Had nothin’ to do with mountains.
I didn’t even come close to a bear.

31^

I wrote this a couple years back for the AV Club:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IgB0JLKO15Q/RqDvomie9UI/AAAAAAAACBo/EjOWWXUB9fg/s1600-h/den+feat+2+4329.jpg

oops, did that not work? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IgB0JLKO15Q/RqDvomie9UI/AAAAAAAACBo/EjOWWXUB9fg/s1600-h/den+feat+2+4329.jpg

Just noticed what I quickly c&p got the punchline wrong.

32. I took my potatoes down to be mashed

33. I was shadow-boxing earlier in the day
I figured I was ready for Cassius Clay
I said "Fee, fie, fo, fum, Cassius Clay, here I come
26, 27, 28, 29, I'm gonna make your face look just like mine
Five, four, three, two, one, Cassius Clay you'd better run
99, 100, 101, 102, your ma won't even recognize you
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, gonna knock him clean right out of his spleen."

34. Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.

35. Well, I set my monkey on the log
And ordered him to do the Dog
He wagged his tail and shook his head
And he went and did the Cat instead
He's a weird monkey, very funky.

I sat with my high-heeled sneakers on
Waiting to play tennis in the noonday sun
I had my white shorts rolled up past my waist
And my wig-hat was falling in my face
But they wouldn't let me on the tennis court.

God said "No"
Abe say "What??"

matos's PLAYBOY quote sounds very funny read in a Terry Tibbs voice.

creepy orange skin and black eyeliner:

number them plz!

39. "Ladies and gentlemen please welcome the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. The voice of the promise of the '60s counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock. Who donned makeup in the '70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse. Who emerged to find Jesus. Who was written off as a has-been by the end of the '80s, and who suddenly shifted gears releasing some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late '90s. Ladies and gentlemen - Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!"

40.

41.

42.

43. He love your sexy body, he loves your dirty mind
He loves when you hold him when you grab him from behind
Oh baby, you're such a pretty thing
I can't wait to introduce you to the other members of my gang

You don't need no wax job, you're smooth enough for me
If you need you oil changed I'll do it for you free
Oh baby, the pleasure would be all mine
If you let me drive your pickup truck and park it where the sun don't shine

Every time he touches you his hair stands up on end
His legs begin to quiver and his mind begins to bend
Oh baby, you're such a tasty treat
But I'm under doctor's orders, I'm afraid to overeat

He love your sense of humor, your disposition too
There's absolutely nothing that he don't love about you
Oh baby, I'm on my hands and knees
Life would be so simple if I only had you to please

Oh baby, turn around and say goodbye
You go to the airport now and I'm going home to cry

(Chorus)
He loves your...
Electric dumplings
Red bell peppers
Fuel injection
Service charge
Five-speed gearbox
Long indurance
Quest for junk food
Big refrigerator
Trembling wilbury
Marble earrings
Porky curtains
Power steering
Bottled water
Parts and services

(Bridge)
Dirty world, a dirty world, it's a ...ing dirty world

oh man, I forgot "Dirty World," well played

haha awesome. Cosign.

"big refrigerator"

Does he really say "porky curtains"? That's disgusting!

44. John Wesley Harding was a friend to the poor, he traveled with a gun in every hand

45.
http://blog.kir.com/archives/images/dylan_newport_2002.jpg

46. Dylan says today's recordings sound "atrocious"
Legend fine with illegal downloads because "it ain’t worth nothing anyway"

(moreso for the sub-header)

John Wesley Harding was a friend to the poor, he traveled with a gun in every hand

Ha, I'd forgotten that one.

His Buckwheat impersonation on "We Are The World"

48. No mention of SOY BOMB?

(maybe this doesn't fit the thread, since it wasn't a moment that was actually instigated by Dylan)

49. Sorry about the terrible video quality:

"Well, my daddy he didn't leave me too much, he was a very simple man, and he didn't leave me a lot but he did say this he did say SON ... he said, ...

...

...

...

he said so many things you know ..."

50. And a personal favourite of mine ... Dylan inducting Gordon Lightfoot into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/topics/743-4679/
http://www.lightfoot.ca/dylangl.htm

We could make a whole separate thread of ridiculousness based on just that clip, with everything from Anne Murray's hairdo, to Dylan missing his cues, to the spotlights furiously circling the auditorium waiting for Dylan to appear, to Dylan's sequined jacket and black leather gloves, to Dylan being too distracted to speak because he was watching himself on the video monitors behind him, to Lightfoot's rambling speech, to ...

51. Some old David Letterman anniversary show from Radio City Music Hall, where they gave him a tremendous build up and recruited a huge all-star band, and he came out and sang the laziest, slurriest "Like a Rolling Stone" ever. I'm pretty sure he just sang the vowels.

52. After a while we took in the clothes,
Nobody said very much.
Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants
Which nobody really wanted to touch.
Mama come in and picked up a book
An' Papa asked her what it was.
Someone else asked, "What do you care?"
Papa said, "Well, just because."
Then they started to take back their clothes,
Hang 'em on the line.
It was January the thirtieth
And everybody was feelin' fine.

The next day everybody got up
Seein' if the clothes were dry.
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed,
Mama, of course, she said, "Hi!"
"Have you heard the news?" he said, with a grin,
"The Vice-President's gone mad!"
"Where?" "Downtown." "When?" "Last night."
"Hmm, say, that's too bad!"
"Well, there's nothin' we can do about it," said the neighbor,
"It's just somethin' we're gonna have to forget."
"Yes, I guess so," said Ma,
Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet.

I reached up, touched my shirt,
And the neighbor said, "Are those clothes yours?"
I said, "Some of 'em, not all of 'em."
He said, "Ya always help out around here with the chores?"
I said, "Sometime, not all the time."
Then my neighbor, he blew his nose
Just as papa yelled outside,
"Mama wants you t' come back in the house and bring them clothes."
Well, I just do what I'm told,
So, I did it, of course.
I went back in the house and Mama met me
And then I shut all the doors.

53:

BF: Who are some of your favorite songwriters?

BD: Buffett I guess. Lightfoot. Warren Zevon. Randy. John Prine. Guy Clark. Those kinds of writers.

BF: What songs do you like of Buffett's?

BD: "Death of an Unpopular Poet." There's another one called "He Went to Paris."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/bob-dylan-exclusive-inter_n_187216.html

Larry Charles' telling the story of the HBO slapstick comedy series he and Dylan wrote is the best, so many funny parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQDTSu8v8QI

I say "I want a hot beverage" in Bob's voice to my wife about once a week.

And she says "You ain't him..."

More like rolls her eyelids and punches my cigarette.

In the same category, there's Carrie Fisher's story about how she met Dylan: he calls her up out of the blue and she assumes it's to ask her out, but no, it's because a company has asked him to endorse a cologne and he thinks she might have some good ideas for cologne names. "Do I look like somebody who would be walking around with a bunch of cologne names rattling around in my head? Well, tragically, I did." He also tells her he's thinking about opening a beauty salon.

That's a great story

That Letterman performance upthread is pretty bad, but it's absolutely hamstrung by the shitty video recording. Here's a far better version without the flutter on the audio ("like a bee singing into a fan" as one comment put it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LaNXwqLFnc

I guarantee you won’t see this one coming pic.twitter.com/wygC15Qcpy

— Jordan Hoffman (@jhoffman) January 13, 2021

In his new WTF interview, Rick Rubin tells a story where Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Tom Petty are writing a Traveling Wilburys' song together. Harrison leaves for a minute, and Dylan leans over to Petty and whispers, completely seriously, "You know, he was in the Beatles."

— Luke Epplin (@LukeEpplin) July 19, 2021

Also the Modern Lovers

Peter Grant: Mr. Dylan, my name is Peter Grant. I'm Led Zeppelin's manager.
Dylan: I don't come to you with MY problems, do I?

- at a party or backstage or somewhere, mid-'70s

― I wish he hadn't adapted my critique of his "ilxor" moniker (Myonga Vön Bontee), Wednesday, May 13, 2009 4:09 PM (twelve years ago) bookmarkflaglink

That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.

Dylan clearly channeling Groucho Marx there.

...or maybe George in A Hard Day's Night. something in that vein.

it's all in the mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g-RDQ-2AaE

Pet Shop Bob

"Doesn't sound a bit like cagney!"

finally got around to this new yorker piece and I nearly spit out my coffee laughing at this little scene between Mavis and Dylan in 2016. truly the one who got away. pic.twitter.com/OG0DDU3i7O

— Allison Rapp (@allisonrapp22) July 11, 2022

More of a Dylan-adjacent moment, but when David Lynch and Peter Wolf were roomies in Boston in the late-60's, both wound up at a Dylan show. Halfway through Wolf notices Lynch getting up and leaving, and angrily confronts him in the apartment later that evening. "Nobody walks out on Bob Dylan!" "Fuck you, I walk out of Bob Dylan!"

Would've been the 1964-1965 school year...probably would've been a solo acoustic show, and to be fair, except for the few new songs released on Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan generally would have sounded bored with the old material that formed the bulk of his sets around this time.

LOL at that Dylan-Staples story.

meeting Archibald MacLeish (from Chronicles):

He reiterates a few things he said in his letter. (In his letter, he made mention of some lines in a song of mine that places T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound symbolically fighting in a captain’s tower.) “Pound and Eliot were too scholastic, weren’t they?” he says. What I know about Pound is that he was a Nazi sympathizer in World War II and did anti-American broadcasts from Italy. I never did read him. I liked T. S. Eliot. He was worth reading. Archie says, “I knew them both. Hard men. We have to go through them. But I know what you mean when you say they are fighting in a captain’s tower.”

I'll tell you this one funny story about them in the Warfield Theatre in 1995. We were getting ready to do the show. I'm getting my clothes on. I see my wife in the green room, and I don't see my daughter. I said, "Deb where's Marcella?" She looks at me, the color drains from her face. She's like, "Isn't she with you?" I go into a panic. At one point, one of our guys sees me and I said, "I'm looking for my kid. Have you seen her?" They're like, "No, man, we'll help you look."

Everybody helped. At one point, I'd looked everywhere except Bob’s dressing room. I go up and knock on the door real quick. His assistant opens it or whatever and there she is.

We were already five minutes late going onstage, and the two of them were holding the show up. I said, "Babe, come on. Bob's got to go to work now." She says, 'Oh, okay." He says, "I want to talk a little more about that later, okay?" She's like, "Okay, Bob." And she grabs her drink and comes out and meets my wife.

At that point, I go to stand with the band and wait for him. They bring the house lights down. Bob stops me with his arm. He says, "We got to do something about that girl."

I said, "Oh man, I'm sorry, she just loves you. I didn't want her to disturb your show." He goes. "No, that girl in art class. She's real mean. We got to do something about her."

We’d gotten Marcella these cowboy boots and there was this mean little girl in her art class who splashed paint on them. Bob asked her, "How'd you get that paint on your cowboy boots?" So while I'm looking for my daughter, she's telling Bob that story, and they're holding the show up. He stops me and says, "Hey, we got to do something about that girl." [laughs]

From: https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/winston-watson-talks-drumming-for?

I'll tell you this one funny story about them in the Warfield Theatre in 1995. We were getting ready to do the show. I'm getting my clothes on. I see my wife in the green room, and I don't see my daughter. I said, "Deb where's Marcella?" She looks at me, the color drains from her face. She's like, "Isn't she with you?" I go into a panic. At one point, one of our guys sees me and I said, "I'm looking for my kid. Have you seen her?" They're like, "No, man, we'll help you look."

Everybody helped. At one point, I'd looked everywhere except Bob’s dressing room. I go up and knock on the door real quick. His assistant opens it or whatever and there she is.

We were already five minutes late going onstage, and the two of them were holding the show up. I said, "Babe, come on. Bob's got to go to work now." She says, 'Oh, okay." He says, "I want to talk a little more about that later, okay?" She's like, "Okay, Bob." And she grabs her drink and comes out and meets my wife.

At that point, I go to stand with the band and wait for him. They bring the house lights down. Bob stops me with his arm. He says, "We got to do something about that girl."

I said, "Oh man, I'm sorry, she just loves you. I didn't want her to disturb your show." He goes. "No, that girl in art class. She's real mean. We got to do something about her."

We’d gotten Marcella these cowboy boots and there was this mean little girl in her art class who splashed paint on them. Bob asked her, "How'd you get that paint on your cowboy boots?" So while I'm looking for my daughter, she's telling Bob that story, and they're holding the show up. He stops me and says, "Hey, we got to do something about that girl." [laughs]

From: https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/winston-watson-talks-drumming-for?

picturing an ill-conceived 90s family comedy... well-meaning, but bumbling dads (inexplicably led by Bob Dylan), try to solve their daughters' problems at school.

the Mike Love diss in his rrhof acceptance speech is hilarious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyqFL9m2odg

the mike love speech was pretty insane so v good idea to take the piss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZSAQX2uuUY

Love apparently likes to take off his shoes when he performs, and during that night’s all-star jam, Mick Jagger stole his shoes.

cracking up this morning hearing "sign language," a song Dylan donated to Eric Clapton ...

’Twas there by the bakery

Surrounded by fakery

HBD Bob!

haha that's a gorgeous lyric