Jeremy Parker @astutepanther.bsky.social · 24/05/2026In honor of Bob Dylan's birthday, here's a 1963 Columbia Records ad spreading the notion that he was a hobo from the age of 10 010
![HOW MANY ROADS MUST A MAN WALK DOWN…
Bob Dylan has walked down many roads. For most of his 22 years he “rode freight trains for kicks and got beat up for laughs, cut grass for quarters and sang for dimes.” And his songs today are the sounds he sopped up all those years on the road—“the coyote's call and the train whistlin's moan, the ol' time pals an' first run gals, the faces you can't find again.”
Bob does what a true folk singer is supposed to do—sing about the important ideas and events of the times. And he does it better than anybody else. One Dylan fan, Joan Baez, said, “I feel it, but Dylan can say it. He's phenomenal.”
His new best-selling album (the first was *Bob Dylan*) is *The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.* It features ten of Bob's own compositions, including the sensational hit, “Blowin' in the Wind.” Also, songs on subjects ranging from love (“Girl from the North Country”) to atomic fall-out (“A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall”). Hear it and you'll know why Bob Dylan is the voice of the times.
BOB DYLAN ON COLUMBIA RECORDS
The above text was printed white on a black-background magazine advertisement dominated by a monochrome photograph of a 22(?)-year-old Bob Dylan standing at a microphone, acoustic guitar in his hands and a harmonica on a holder around his neck, earnestly looking out at a presumptive audience. (Photo Credit: Don Hunstein)
[ad originally provided by the now-defunct @OldSchoolAds account on Twitter, as indicated by their watermark]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h2crspwvima3jofhppfpdcd6/bafkreign64p4siyjr3rqdgmvvzgmqoqmha36jbcxaxdxgimjzvfmw2u6vu)