For the past 26 years 2SER have always presented a Bob Dylan Birthday Marathon, and this year is no exception. It starts at 7.30pm this Saturday 21st of May. This year it will be featuring Dylan’s latest release, The Witmark Demos 1962-1964.
The station’s volunteers have produced programs as long as ten hours in the past, however, this year’s show will be a slightly trimmer seven hours long. 2SER commented that despite this, “[they] still ended up arguing about the songs they didn’t get to play”. Not surprising, given that Dylan’s body of songs number over six-hundred, potentially sustaining a week long program.
The program will also include news, reviews and interviews with or about Dylan.
His birthday is celebrated all over the world with similar radio formats, as well as tribute bands, conferences and movie screenings. Dylan’s work is now being studied at the University of Oslo, Bristol and numerous other tertiary institutions. It appears that despite old disputes regarding the status of song lyrics, many academics have accepted him into the canon of twentieth/twenty first century poetry. He was recently invited to the White House to perform before the President.
The Bob Dylan Birthday Marathon began in 1985 when then UTS lecturer Arnie Goldman suggested an extended celebration be broadcast on the University’s radio station. Goldman was known to digress during his poetry lectures on William Blake, to discuss the work Dylan.