Bob Dylan Feared for His Life After a Heart Infection: ‘I Really Thought I’d Be Seeing Elvis Soon’
Bob Dylan never met Elvis Presley in his lifetime, but he once feared he’d meet him after death. After complaining of severe chest pains, Dylan learned he had Histoplasmosis, a fungal infection. The condition forced him to cancel tour dates and made him fear for his life. He explained that he was genuinely worried about dying.
Bob Dylan never met Elvis
Dylan admired Elvis’ music, but he said he never met the other musician. This wasn’t because he never had the opportunity; he explained that he deliberately chose not to meet Elvis.
“I never met Elvis,” he told Rolling Stone in 2009. “I never met Elvis, because I didn’t want to meet Elvis. Elvis was in his Sixties movie period, and he was just crankin’ ’em out and knockin’ ’em off, one after another. And Elvis had kind of fallen out of favor in the Sixties. He didn’t really come back until, whatever was it, ’68?”
He wanted to meet the Elvis of his youth, not the version who existed in his adulthood.
“I don’t know if I would have wanted to see Elvis like that,” he said. “I wanted to see the powerful, mystical Elvis that had crash-landed from a burning star onto American soil. The Elvis that was bursting with life. That’s the Elvis that inspired us to all the possibilities of life. And that Elvis was gone, had left the building.”
Bob Dylan worried he would die and meet Elvis because of an infection
In 1997, Dylan was in the middle of a tour when he began complaining of chest pains. They grew so severe that he went to the hospital.
“It was his birthday at the weekend and he complained of chest pains,” his agent Barry Dickens said, per The Independent. “He went to hospital where he was admitted for treatment. In the 10 years I have represented him he has never complained about chest pains once … The infection is potentially fatal. He will remain at the hospital until his condition is stable and he has improved.”
Dylan learned that the infection was Histoplasmosis, caused by inhaling fungal spores. He reportedly had a rare case that impacted his heart.
“He has a very unusual clinical problem,” Dr. Arnold Weinberg told Rolling Stone. “Most people who inhale spores have flu symptoms or contract a respiratory infection, at most. Only about 5 percent suffer pericarditis.”
The musician worried that the ailment would kill him. “I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon,” he said, per the book No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan by Robert Shelton.
Luckily, Dylan recovered, and he was touring again by the summer.
The musician retreated from public life because of a motorcycle accident
Earlier in his life, another scare forced Dylan out of the public eye for much longer. In 1969, he reportedly lost control of his motorcycle and crashed it. While some doubt the accident ever happened, Dylan used it as a reason to step back from public life.
“Then, I had that motorcycle accident, which put me outta commission,” he told Rolling Stone in 1992. “Then, when I woke up and caught my senses, I realized I was just working for all these leeches. And I didn’t want to do that. Plus, I had a family, and I just wanted to see my kids.”
