Turn on a Mexican radio station, walk down a Mexican street, and you’re likely to hear American music. But not just any American music. Bad American music. The very worst of the 70s and 80s, plus today’s top teeny-bopper hits. Basically, if it has a catchy beat and no soul, it has an excellent chance of being heard here. 

Observing this in January of 2006, I resolved to introduce this great country to to the greatest my great country has to offer, musically speaking: Mr. Bob Dylan.

The process was slow at first, and full of pitfalls. I randomly asked a few people on the street with no luck. I befriended a shopkeeper in the Jalisco State town of Chapala and later sent him a CD, then never heard from him again.

I eventually concluded that Dylan doesn’t really fit the average Mexican personality. The rolling stone metaphor, for example, is better suited to a culture where you leave the house at age 18, after having moved with your family every few years, only to strike out on a decade or so of random soul-searching that could take you to all kinds of strange lands. Contrast that with the model here, where people live with their families until marriage and even then keep in very close touch.

“Where are you from?” is a question that yields interesting answers in America. In my Mexican town, however, it usually yields only a surprised look and a one-word response: “here.” By definition people here are not generally on their own, with no direction home, a complete unknown.

Besides, the Dylan sound is usually a turnoff. It’s the words that really pull people in – words that Americans who speak English have a hard enough time comprehending.

Not that this stopped me from trying. Upon returning to the country to join the English teaching racket, I did find a few people that had actually heard of the legendary singer/songwriter, but it was in a very general abstract sense, much like the common perception of Guam or Argentina.

Then, opportunity struck, and a friend of mine with a genuine radio show in Zamora invited me and my ukulele on for an hour. Besides singing “Freight Train,” I managed to take a decent crack at “Don’t Think Twice.”

But the reward came the other day, at, of all places, spinning class. I arrived to find an unusual scene: the room, normally crowded with exercisers, was all but deserted. The teacher was gone too, and she had carelessly left the room’s raging sound system unguarded. This was my chance.

I threw on “Blood on the Tracks,” and immediately got caught by the returning teacher. But lucky for me, she was in a good mood that day, and not really up for the usual formal class.

“Tangled up in blue” never sounded so good as we huffed and puffed away on the machines. “Simple twist of fate” was a little slow for spinning, but no less welcome when played loud, as God clearly intended.

So what’s the translation, my fellow spinners wanted to know. I was speechless. Who the hell knows, really? Usually when they ask this I can be of some help. You can translate “do you believe in life after love,” but what about “all the while I was alone the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

We kept biking, and nobody complained. Perhaps this is the taste of true victory, I thought.

I skipped over ”You’re a big girl now” in favor of “Idiot wind,” which seemed to go over reasonably well.

Eventually the teacher wised up and declared that we could have one more song. I made it “Meet me in the morning,” and savored the moment.

This two year, on-again-off-again quest can now be called off. Mexico has heard Dylan on the radio, and blasted from one of the finest hi-fi sets in Downtown Zamora, Michoacan. They know now that America is more than Britney Spears and Korn, and can do with that knowledge what they like. It’s now out of my hands.