~~~~~~~~~~~~DYLAN BRINGS BACK THE NOSTALGIA OF RICKY NELSON'S "GARDEN PARTY"

                                              

Bob Dylan, "Rough and Rowdy Tour," 2025

On what is now my only entertainment refuge, YouTube, I just witnessed 84 year old Bob Dylan, the "voice" of my generation, pounding on a piano, not guitar.  Bob's face was puffy with age, the pharynx of his throat swollen and drooping.

I quickly recognized the song, "Garden Party," by another so-called heartthrob of my youth, Ricky Nelson, a teenage singer who those of us of a certain age witnessed on the old "Ozzie and Harriet" TV show.  

I'll bore Brownsville with only the chorus:

But it's all right now

I learned my lesson well

You see, you can't please everyone

So you got to please yourself

Surely, those words applied to Ricky, who was never quite taken seriously as a singer and poet, but, they also apply to Bob, who's fought for 60+ years to define himself, not wear the mantle designated by the American public.  

Of course, once we're gone, we fade into obscurity, defined, rightly or wrongly by perception.  A quick Google pulls up someone with the same name as ours, but maybe not the same story.  It's all fleeting.

Ricky Nelson, "Garden Party," 1972