Who does Bob Dylan support in the World Cup?

The obvious answer is the United States, as they're one of the thirty-two finalists, but why would anyone, even an American, want the USA to win the World Cup?

Before we get started we should address the question of whether Dylan supports anyone in the World Cup or if he's interested in the sport at all. After all a recent edition of his radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour, was devoted to the theme of baseball, and at one point during the show Dylan called baseball the greatest game in the world. This proves nothing. Theme Time Radio Hour is sent out on satellite radio and available exclusively in the United States, and if history has proved anything, it's that Dylan will always pander to a particular audiences' taste. We also have to get around the fact that he wrote a song named after a baseball player, Catfish, all about the late great A's and Yankees reliever Catfish Hunter. It's almost certain that Dylan didn't write the song out of any love for baseball though; he just liked the name Catfish. Who wouldn't?

Back to the World Cup then. If Dylan isn't going for the USA, maybe somewhere with a family background. In his memoir, Chronicles, Dylan says his grandmother was from a small town in Turkey, near the Armenian border, but neither country made it to Germany this year.

Maybe he'd choose to support a country whose playing style he could relate to. The likely candidates- Brazil, too obvious. They're probably going to win anyway and if they do, Dylan, along with the rest of us, will be hoping they do it with the style of their 1970 (Blonde on Blonde) or 1982 (Highway 61 Revisited) sides. Unless you've got a very good reason never go with the favourite, you'll look like a bandwagon jumper and Dylan's' never been one of those.

Holland are a possibility but they've traditionally been an argumentative bunch- think of Dylan's difficulties with his record producers as described in a 2001 Rome interview. Speaking of Rome, Italy could be in his thoughts. In the same interview Dylan expressed an admiration for the country but, with a cloud of scandal hanging over the current squad, he will probably want to distance himself from any controversy.

No one really likes watching England play soccer, not even the English. They don't keep the ball long enough to establish any recognizable style of play and without Wayne Rooney they'll struggle even more this time around. However England tend to provide the most memorable and emotionally draining performances in major tournaments. This is comparable to Dylan's "born-again" period, best experienced by listening to the Massey Hall bootleg concert. Raw, committed and unapologetically passionate, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Now Dylan has always supported the underdog throughout his life so we'll have to consider the case of the Ivory Coast or Angola. The closest we can get to any possible impulse towards these teams is in his song Mozambique, where Dylan expressed the desire to visit that country but we can't be sure if he ever made it or was even serious. Besides, neither team is expected to go far in the tournament and there's no point in choosing to support a country that's likely to go out before the knock-out stage. The World Cup is a long event and you need to be backing a side that will take you to the final rounds if you're going to get the most out of it.

This is all speculation, we've got to get to the facts. The only known Bob Dylan song mentioning soccer is Goin' to Acapulco from the Basement Tapes, recorded with the future members of the Band. The boys join in with Dylan on the chorus, which goes

Goin' to Acapulco
Goin' on the run
Goin' down to see soccer
Goin' to have some fun
Yeah
Goin' to have some fun

In the first edition of Dylan's Lyrics this is rendered as Goin' down to see some girl. Some girl? Dylan and the Band are going down to see some some girl? What, all of them? Who would write that? In a more recent edition the lyric has been changed yet again. This time they're goin' down to see fat gut. This is just idiocy. Listen to the damn thing. It's definitely soccer and that's the end of it.

Incidentally, we might like to ponder at this point the role of the Band in this saga. We don't know if Levon Helm is playing on this particular song. He wasn't present on all the Basement Tapes recordings and as the only American in the Band, he probably wouldn't be pre-disposed to soccer. Unlike the rest of the group, who were all Canadians, and would have had more of a grasp of the sport. Dylan himself is nearly, if not secretly, Canadian, being from northern Minnesota.

OK, so Dylan and his gang are heading south to see some soccer and, if they're going to Acapulco, unfortunately they didn't think ahead. They would have found on arrival that Acapulco doesn't have a Primera Division soccer club. They would have had to have settled for a lower league game or even an amateur match, but there's no disgrace in that. In fact supporting a lower league club is often a more morally uplifting endeavour (see I took you close I got what I deserved somewhere else on this blog). There's evidence from other Basement Tapes songs that the trip was a good one- Hills of Mexico, Spanish is the Loving Tongue and The Spanish Song, an outrageous piece of drunkenness, where Dylan and the boys chase the girls around the cantina.

A few years after recording these songs Dylan would go back to Mexico to act in a Sam Peckinpah movie, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and the experience inspired him to write the song Romance in Durango (hot chilli peppers in the blistering sun) which appeared on his album Desire (see above). My vinyl copy of Desire is dedicated to Peckinpah, Allen Ginsberg and Emmett Grogan. Throw Dylan himself and violinist Scarlet Rivera into the mix and you've got a pretty tenacious five-a-side team.

So there it is- Bob Dylan will be supporting Mexico in the World Cup and, after England go out, so will I.