Bob Dylan recommends restaurants now!
Last night, another tweet was sent out by Bob Dylan’s account on X (former Twitter), where he recommended a restaurant:
Check out the restaurant here!
London Weeks
In our London Weeks-series we want to dive deep into Bob Dylan’s first trip outside of North America. This often overlooked trip was more important for his career than most fans might imagine.
We will deliver bite-sized pieces of a puzzle, bring together the whole story of Bob’s first trip abroad.
I am a Dylan fan for over 15 years now, and I always love it when I find out about Dylan-stories that I’d never heard a thing about. I still remember the day, some years back, when I found out about Bob’s trip to Denver and Central City, I spent half a day to read all about it.
It was pretty much a moment like this when KG Miles told me about Bob Dylan and Pauline Boty. If the story is true or not, I think it’s worth an article here on our journey back in time to Bob’s first trip to London.
We know by now that Philip Saville saw Dylan perform in Tony Pastor’s West 4th Street New York Club in late 1962 and then successfully got him out of America to take part in the play “Madhouse On Castle Street”.
When Bob Dylan arrived in London on December 17th 1962 he was picked up at the airport by Philip Saville and his then-girlfriend Pauline Boty.
Bob first stayed at the Mayfair, before moved into the Cumberland (more on this story in a later post), and stayed at Pauline’s place for a couple nights during his London stay (most likely between the two hotels) and she showed him around in London.
But who was Pauline Boty?
Pauline Boty was born in 1938 into a middle-class, catholic family, just outside London. According to Wikipedia Pauline was
“…a British painter and co-founder of the 1960s' British Pop art movement of which she was the only acknowledged female member. Boty's paintings and collages often demonstrate a joy in self-assured femininity and female sexuality, as well as criticism (both overt and implicit) of the "man's world" in which she lived.”
There are some researcher who claim that, during his time in London, Bob Dylan had a romantic relationship with Pauline Boty.
During my interview with KG Miles (Podcast episode coming in October!), who wrote the great book “Bob Dylan in London”, his opinion is, that, after counter-checking all dates, “not even Bob Dylan had the time for a romantic relationship whilst being in London.”
Which brings us to the next point: In 1963, Bob Dylan wrote a song called “Liverpool Gal”, of which the only existing recording from around the time of its conception (July 17th 1963) was made at Tony Glover's Minneapolis home in 1963 and to this day remains in his possession.
You can get a pretty good impression by this fan’s cover of the song:
So, who is the “Liverpool Gal”? Is it Pauline Boty?
It was the first time that he left North America, and he must have still be missing Suze, who, ironically enough just came back to New York from Italy while Dylan went to London. But:
I'd stand by the river Thames
With the wind blowing through my hair
And who should come and stand by me
But a London gal so fair
Her eyes were blue, her hair was brown
(…)
Here Dylan speaks of “a London Gal”. It is only the title of the song that refers to Liverpool. Nothing else, neither in Pauline’s life nor the song itself do have any connections to Liverpool or the English north country.
And I awoke the next morning
And the rain had turned to snow
I looked out of her window
And I knew that I must go
I did not know how to tell her
I didn't know if I could
But she smiled a smile I'd never seen
To say she understood
On the reason I was leaving
She seemed no better than me
These parts sounds much like a regret. A regret because he is still with Suze and therefore “must go”. And “she” (Pauline) “seemed no better” than him, because she was still with Philip Saville.
Clinton Heylin wrote in “Double Life Pt. 1”:
That this “Liverpool Gal” was probably real is strongly suggested by Dylan’s long spoken intro to his one documented performance, to Minnesotan friends in July:
“She was one of the most beautiful girls in the world… like a dream… beautiful to look at, beautiful to talk to, beautiful ideas.”
Pauline Boty’s fate was a tragic one, though. In June 1965 Boty became pregnant. During a prenatal exam, a tumor was discovered and she was diagnosed with cancer. She refused to have an abortion and also refused to receive chemotherapy treatment that might have harmed the foetus. Her daughter, Boty (known as Katy) Goodwin, was born on 12 February 1966. Pauline Boty died on 1 July that year. She was 28 years old.
Her husband died in 1977 aged only 45.
Her daughter, Boty Goodwin, for whom Pauline died to not affect her life whilst still unborn, died from a heroin overdose on 12 November 1995 aged 29...
But there's one thing that's for certain
Sure as the sunshine down
I'll never forget that Liverpool Gal
Who lived in London Town
If you want to dive deeper and more in detail into this topic, you can read this paper!