12. Bob DylanThe Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
The first song I ever played in public was ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ in the back room of that pub. I was nervous, but I loved it and the following week I tried out ‘Girl From The North Country’. But I was in awe of songs like ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and ‘Oxford Town’, which were full of political content but delivered in a light hearted way. Gaps manages to do that in The Selecter, he has a wry sense of humour. But with Dylan, to be able to take something like ‘Oxford Town’ and deal with it in the way he does, I found this extraordinary. The civil rights movement had passed a lot of people by in this country, and in Coventry and I had not discussed it outside of the few black friends I had. When I joined The Selecter, I learned from this album the need to write about things that had and did happen to black people.
