Will Bob Dylan guide GPS users home, or to Lonely Avenue?
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Imagine getting in your car, turning on your GPS and rather than hearing a robotic greeting, you are serenaded with the chorus of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young,” just before the great musical legend sings, “...and may you turn right in 0.2 miles.”
Well, that’s not exactly what folk-rock legend Dylan announced on his satellite radio program (the Theme Time Radio Hour), but though he may not be singing your directions, he did say he is in negotiations with two car manufacturers to be the voice of their in-car navigation systems.
Bob Dylan is by no means the first celebrity to lend his voice to a satellite navigator system. According to a Telegraph article, the voices of Homer Simpson (by Dan Castellaneta), John Cleese, and ‘Sex and the City’ actress Kim Cattrall also accompany GPS by TomTom, and you can download voice impersonations of Sean Connery and Ozzy Osbourne on the Internet if you ever get bored with the factory ones.
A snarky Washington Post article pointed out that this is not the first time Dylan is selling out -- according to them, he has already done that by appearing in ads for Pepsi, Cadillac and Victoria’s Secret.
L.A. Times music blog Pop & Hiss revealed more evidence of Dylan’s shameless commercialism. You can expect to hear him crooning “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Little Drummer Boy” on his new “Christmas in the Heart” album, set to release in October, his second album this year after the successful “Together Through Life”.
Our real concern, however, is how directionally challenged drivers will distinguish Dylan’s “lefts” from his “rights.”
One website described his enunciation as somewhere between Scooby Doo and Miss Teen USA South Carolina. When navigators are faced with tricky streets and traffic jams, maybe the musician’s sandpapery tone and poetic indecision wouldn’t soothe someone’s nerves.
Dylan agrees with the criticisms of his articulation (or lack thereof). “I think it would be good if you are looking for directions and you heard my voice saying something like, ‘Left at the next street.... No, right... You know what? Just go straight,” he said. ‘I probably shouldn’t do it because whichever way I go, I always end up at one place -- Lonely Avenue.”
-- Kelsey Ramos
Photo: Bob Dylan. Credit: EPA