Bob Dylan puzzles fans with Patreon debut

Bob Dylan has baffled fans after launching a Patreon.

On Sunday (March 29), the singer-songwriter posted an Instagram story with a flyer promoting ‘Lectures From the Grave’, an exclusive series on his new Patreon account, which costs $5 a month to view.

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As yet, there are only six posts on Dylan’s Patreon, with the first simply an embedded video of a Mahalia Jackson performance, which is followed by three posts featuring audio essays seemingly read aloud by an AI voice. These are about former Vice President Aaron Burr, 19th-century outlaw Frank James, and American folk hero Wild Bill.

There’s also a series titled ‘Letters Never Sent’. The sole entry so far features a fictional letter written by Mark Twain and sent to Rudolph Valentino, an Italian actor from the silent film era – who was 14 years old when Twain died in 1910. The letter ends with Twain’s cursive signature, and the post is attributed to the pen name “Herbert Foster”.

Another post is titled “Bull Rider (short story)” and lists Marty Lombard as its author, and tells the story of a man who seeks out a Texan rodeo to try bull riding.

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“The bus coughed me out somewhere past Amarillo, dust in my teeth and a sky that stretched out so wide it felt like it was laughing at me,” it reads (via Pitchfork). “I had a duffel bag, two shirts, a paperback of The Sea Wolf with the spine cracked like an old man’s knuckles, and the kind of hunger you don’t fix with food.”

The latest move from Dylan, who has won a Nobel Prize for Literature, has baffled fans, particularly given many of the posts seem to utilise AI. “Bob Dylan AI history patreon just confirms he is in the very top percentile of weirdest/most inexplicable people ever born,” wrote one X user after he launched it.

“Guaranteed to zig when you think he’ll zag every single time,” another agreed.

Meanwhile, Dylan is set to continue his ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ tour tonight (March 30) at Waukegan’s Genesee Theatre, and will continue until the final announced show in Abilene, Texas on May 1.

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Elsewhere, Dylan paid tribute to Shane MacGowan with a cover of ‘A Rainy Night In Soho’ in Dublin back in November, while at another show in Ireland he performed a traditional folk ballad for the first time in 34 years.

Earlier on the tour, the operator of a Dylan fan site claimed he was asked to leave the venue in Glasgow, after being told he was an “unwanted person”. He said he was removed from the gig because he had been recirculating live photos and footage from Dylan’s tour – which prohibits the use of video cameras and mobile phones.

It was also reported last year that Dylan had been working on new music with “members of his band” in Albany, New York. He has also contributed to Willie Nelson’s new album ‘Dream Chaser’, which is out in May.