Nice day. Some emails and pix.
From:Jane Thom
Date:7/15/2025, 8:34 PM
To:Joel Harvey , Amber Harvey
Dear Amber and Joel,
Home and having a snack (and some cooling stout), unpacking, laundry etc.I'll send a better thank you when I organize the notes but I first wanted to say that - Joel, when you played "Every Grain of Sand", that began the feeling of bliss I get when our whole company begins to really listen together, great concentration, to music we love.Heavenly under the trees and tarp -- and it was way too hot on the ferry tarmac, your setting was absolutely perfect.
love and thanks,
Jane----
From: Jane Thom
7/16/2025, 8:57 PM
To: group
Dear Everyone,Martin gave permission to share the poem he recited with us all.
Amber, I know you'll pass it on to your Mayne friends who added so much to our perfect event.
love,
Jane
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On Thu, 17 Jul 2025 at 21:26,
greg windwick wrote:
Thanks for recording our celebration of Dylan's genius, Jane. I love hearing everyone's perspective on his songs. Now I also have a record of names that I couldn't remember once I got home.
The weather was wonderful except, maybe, for the sun beating down on the car at the ferry terminal because I arrived ONE FULL HOUR too soon.
Thanks to everyone for the great food, and to Amber and Joel for making us feel so comfortable and welcome.
May we be able to gather for many years to come! Greg
From: Jane Thom
Date: 7/16/2025, 9:21 PM
To: Amber Harvey/ Joel HarveyDear Amber and Joel,
Thank you for all your hospitality in your portion of paradise.
Thank you for writing time and conversations outdoors, the birds visiting, the flowers, the tarp and the trees which protected us from the heat, the salad, the coffee, the scrumptious breakfast, Ludwig, generous tables inside and out, the Hoisin tofu, colourful comfortable quilts on the bed.We loved the music, the food (the Mayne people brought wonderful food!), the meaningful presentations, the company. I loved our circle of people paying attention and then applauding after every offering. So supportive.Joel, as I said, "Every Grain" was what enveloped me into the bliss of it all.We got home to find some wood rounds placed along the side of our driveway, so they're here when you're next over. Also let's remember the bird bath in our garage -- it's not a help to the birds in our yard because of roaming cats.See you soon!
love and many thanks,
Jane
On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Amber Harvey wrote:
Dear Jane, You took us right back to that afternoon in your complete and generous reporting of the offerings. Everyone contributed so much insight into Bob Dylan's "roots" and you recorded them so faithfully and beautifully. I hope everyone enjoyed the day as much as Joel and I did. We learned so much and enjoyed it completely! Thank you Jane, and thank you to everyone. We hope we can continue to bring this lovely group together again next summer.
Joel and Amber----
From:Laurel Saunders <>
Date:7/17/2025, 11:21 AM
To:Amber Harvey >, Joel Harvey>
Hi Amber and Joel,Thanks so much for another wonderful Dylan event! It’s always our favourite date of the summer and as usual I’m disappointed when it’s over. The food and the company and the setting were wonderful and the music and thoughtful insights were uplifting and joyous. I loved the community singalong to The Time They Are a Changing. It’s so eerie how current Bob’s music seems in light of what’s going on the world. Thanks also for your warm hospitality in your comfortable, welcoming house. We always feel so at home there and really enjoy the chance to have a good visit with you.
We had a very pleasant trip home. We did walk though the Japanese Garden which was cool and beautiful. Mostly greenery but the Hostas were in bloom and the odd Hydrangea bush still had flowers. We ran into Mick and Marg there! Then we sat in the shade at the ferry terminal and read until boarding time. I hope the rest of your summer goes well.with love from
Laurel---
Pamela Smith
Date: 7/18/2025, 2:52 PM
To:Amber HarveyAnd THANKYOU Jane for the ‘minutes’!
Love Pam
On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 2:51 PM Pamela Smith wrote: THANKYOU SO much Joel and Amber for the great day! Love Pam
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7/17/2025, 9:25 PM>>>
groupjane
Thanks for recording our celebration of Dylan's genius, Jane. I love hearing everyone's perspective on his songs. Now I also have a record of names that I couldn't remember once I got home.
The weather was wonderful except, maybe, for the sun beating down on the car at the ferry terminal because I arrived ONE FULL HOUR too soon.
Thanks to everyone for the great food, and to Amber and Joel for making us feel so comfortable and welcome.
May we be able to gather for many years to come!Greg
7/18/2025, 10:41 AM >>> whole group
Dear Jane,You took us right back to that afternoon in your complete and generous reporting of the offerings. Everyone contributed so much insight into Bob Dylan's "roots" and you recorded them so faithfully and beautifully. I hope everyone enjoyed the day as much as Joel and I did. We learned so much and enjoyed it completely! Thank you Jane, and thank you to everyone. We hope we can continue to bring this lovely group together again next summer.Joel and Amber>> photos>> jane's journal
JANE'S SUMMARY
On Thu., Jul. 17, 2025, 7:10 p.m. Wayne Thom, wrote:
A beautiful summary. Thanks for the hours you spent on it.
Wayne
On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 at 21:11, Jane Thom wrote:
1. Heather began the afternoon with good feeling, presenting Dylan singing "Shenandoah", a sea shanty-- a rolling river, a beloved, separation - "Away, I’m bound away, across the wide Missouri."
2. Al brought "Forever Young", Dylan and Joan Baez singing a soaring version. As a retired medical prof, Al is interested in the idea of "forever young". Dylan wrote it with one of his sons in mind. " May you have a strong foundation / When the winds of changes shift"
3. Joel discussed the idea of Dylan as a spiritual seeker, with interests in many faiths, and mentioned his and Amber's explorations in that area too, with special mention of their friend who became a Hare Krishna devotee. Dylan's contradictions and changes -- he contains multitudes, as he tells us.
Joel then played the sublime "Every Grain of Sand". "I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea".
4. Greg said that he has been with his wife for 57 years (applause heard), and the song "In the Summertime" from Shot of Love makes him think of their meeting and their life. "In the summertime, when you were with me."
5. Eric chose "The Lake of Ponchartrain" --"like a "Girl from the North Country", he said. I don't think we'd ever listened to this song at any of our Dylan on Mayne gatherings before. A traditional ballad, lost love but thankfulness for kindness. The Creole girl won't marry our narrator
" For she had got a lover and he was far at sea / She said that she would wait for him and true she would remain".
6. I presented the Irish ballad "Eileen Aroon", a song that has lasted through many translations since it was composed in Gaelic in the sixteenth century, and which Dylan learned from Liam Clancy. Jane Jacobs said that the Irish held on to their culture and identity, against centuries of oppression, through "the fragile medium of song". " Castles are sacked in war, chieftains are scattered far / Truth is a fixed star, Eileen Aroon."
7. Bill was the first to offer us live music on the day! He first heard a version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" in the Chess Mate Club in Detroit when he was young. The version he sang, referring back to a variant titled "Baby Let Me Lay It On You", definitely had some twists. It ended with a mean and unexpected "You've got to go".
8. Kim told us her personal experience with "Masters of War". In 1963, one of her cousins, a pacifist, asked if he could come from the U.S. to stay with her family. Kim remembers him and his friend playing this song over and over. Kim sees "a bad time building up" and, unfortunately, this song remaining relevant. " Then you sit back and watch / When the death count gets higher".
9. Pam brought us "I Shall Be Released" from The Last Waltz -- The Band, Dylan, Ronnie Wood, Ringo, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton and others singing in joy and community. So great to have The Band with us.
"I see my light come shining". In conversation later, Pam said she saw Dylan in the Royal Albert Hall in 1965 -- clearly a long-time Dylan appreciator.
10. Amber played Dylan singing Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" -- another song that has resonance in our time. The impetus for the song was an airplane crash over Los Gatos canyon in January, 1948. It was popularized by Pete Seeger. Amber chose a strong version from the Rolling Thunder Revue, Dylan and Joan Baez singing. Woody Guthrie wanted to accord the dead the dignity of naming some of the nameless:
"Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees" ".
11. Martin recited, with no notes, a poem he wrote about Dylan in Toronto. I happen to have a typed version of it and he has kindly given permission to send it -- I'll send a separate email.
He also read a bit on a lost love, Monica, from the memoir he is writing. He took Monica to a Dylan concert just before he left for university in the U.S., but was not giving her a message when Dylan sang "Restless Farewell". But still, separation: "I'll bid farewell and be down the line."
12. Mick asked "what is folk music?" He read some lines from "Murder Most Foul", lines on the tragedy of the Kennedy assassination and references to some of the many other figures named in the song. Mick did not play all 17 minutes of the song, but he places it in the epic poem tradition.
"I said the soul of a nation been torn away".
13. Mary and Steven -- our second live music of the day, and what a beautiful choice and duet: "Tomorrow is a Long Time", from 1962. "Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting". What a gift that was.14. Laurel told about the roots of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in the old ballad "Lord Randall" -- poison, hell-fire, death, betrayal, lurid and gothic, says Laurel. The old ballads had it all.
Dylan rang changes on the refrain "O where ha you been, Lord Randall, my son? And where ha you been, my handsome young man?" turning it into the one we know. He kept the rhythm and power, used "the canon of the English language folk song", said Laurel, and made it new too. His variation contained both "social consciousness and a more impressionistic and personal" response and decision: "And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it" and " I’ll know my song well before I start singin’".
Wayne said "A hard rain means justice" ("fall-out too, but justice") and Bert said "There's not enough of that about these days." Wayne said he was a bit surprised that Dylan believed in justice at that time, as it can be difficult to believe that. Freewheelin' came out in 1963, around the time of the Cuban missile crisis.
15. I needed to be able to write faster to capture all of Laurel's research and I needed even more speed as Marilyn considered Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train" (written when she was 11) and Dylan's "Slow Train Coming".
Marilyn has promised to type and send her notes. I will ask if she would give permission to send them all out.
Marilyn, and Dennis who didn't join us this year, always present with deep thoughtfulness.
Marilyn compared and contrasted, marvelled at the complexity of Cotton's themes: "when I'm dead and in my grave", time and the passage of time, the hope in wanting to continue hearing the train.
"So I can hear Old Number Nine / As she goes rolling by".
Dylan: "Slow Train Coming" -- " Have they counted the cost" ;
"And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend" -- you can't see what's coming.
Death in this song too: the backwoods girl knows "you could die down here".
Marilyn feels there is hiding in both songs -- "Please don't tell what train I'm on" and the characters in "Slow Train" hiding from self-examination and the suffering around them.
Images of wealth and power are presented in the song, but with consequences.
Elizabeth Cotten, even as a child, saw life goes by fast.
Dylan sees a "slow train".
16. Greg played a delicate piece, John Fahey's "Poor Boys Long Ways From Home", from 1964-65, our third live music experience of the afternoon, and lucky us! Bravo and brava to the brave players.
17. We ended with a communal singalong to "The Times They Are A-Changin' ", led by Steven and Mary, our house band, accompanied by a tambourine and a second mouth organ.
THANKS TO ALL !
And THANKS to our beloved hosts, Amber and Joel, for another luminous time "Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon".
Jane