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A rare post from Bob Dylan’s official X/Twitter account has left fans scratching their heads.
The legendary singer-songwriter’s social media account has been largely inactive in 2024, occasionally sharing updates about forthcoming releases and live shows.
However, on 25 September, a post shared from the account at 11.02pm BST said: “Happy Birthday Mary Jo! See you in Frankfort.”
So, who is Mary Jo?
Rolling Stone points out that there are a number of famous Mary Jos, including the Canadian actor and chef Mary Jo Eustace, boxer Mary Jo Sanders, and fantasy novelist Mary Jo Putney: “None of them have any known connection to Bob Dylan.”
Dylan is due to begin his European tour in early October, which includes three shows in Frankfurt, Germany.
However, the post said “Frankfort”, the name of Kentucky’s capital, which happens to be a 20-minute drive from Dylan’s Heaven’s Door Distillery, which opened last year.
On the Dylan fan forum Expecting Rain, aficionados continued to speculate as to the meaning behind the post, while others suggested it could simply have been an accident.
“Perhaps Bob meant to privately message this to Mary Jo and accidentally posted on Twitter?” one questioned. “My grandfather occasionally did the same.”
The Independent has contacted Dylan’s representatives for comment.
Others questioned whether the post could be related to a rumoured new album; Dylan’s last record,Rough and Rowdy Ways, was released in 2020 to positive reviews.
In a four-star review for The Independent, critic Helen Brown praised Dylan’s “easy-going embrace of his contradctions” and “ramshackle songs with minimalmelodies that sway back and forth behind him like curtains in a light breeze”.
This year also marks the annviersary of the artist’s historic return to touring after an eight-year hiatus, for which he was joined by Americana group The Band.
To mark the occasion, Dylan has released a new 27-disc box set, The 1974 Live Recordings, which features previously unreleased performances, newly mixed recordings and liner notes by Elizabeth Nelson.
Writing for The Independent, critic Jim Farber said the tour had “largely been forgotten” by anyone who wasn’t there at the time: “Despite the fact that it was clearly the most galvanising music event since Woodstock in 1969 or The Concert for Bangladesh two years later.”
“The show took every element that had awed me about Dylan – his insight, candour, passion, invention and range, not to mention his melodic beauty, singular character and, yes, energy – and gave them a steely new edge,” he wrote.
“Select elements of the show gained special meaning from that particular time and place. It became a staple of the tour that at each performance of ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’, when Dylan shouted, ‘but even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked,’ the crowd would erupt in cheers.”
