Tokyo Dylan

I wish every workday were like this.

Typically, my student Hiroyuki meets me on Wednesdays to practice his pronunciation and conversation, but today he surprised me by bringing a guitar to our meeting. In the little cramped classroom he opened the case, tightened the strings, and began to play and sing. I already knew he was a Dylan fan, since we’d spent some time parsing Bob's lyrics (he also loves John Lennon and was a Lennon impersonator back in his high school Beatle Mania club in Tokyo), so I wasn’t surprised when he kicked things off with “Positively Fourth Street” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” While he paused to catch his breath, I hummed a few bars, trying to recall the name of my favorite Dylan number. He guessed right and launched into an awesome, passionate rendition of “Don’t Think Twice, it’s All Right.” Imagine Dylan himself—the precise nasal twang, the tortuous vowels, the sheer persistence of it—but with a Japanese accent. After several more songs, I realized I hadn’t been keeping track of his pronunciation errors or doing anything else particularly teacherly. I’d been too busy singing along like a contented, old drunk.