Bob Dylan Said He Ran Away From Home 7 Times as a Child
Bob Dylan lived in Minnesota until he left home for New York at the start of the 1960s. Long before this, though, he made multiple trips out of his hometown. He explained that he ran away from home seven times before he permanently left. Dylan said he kept doing this until he realized there was no sense in running away. He later shared that he didn’t want to inspire young people to act as he had.
The ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ singer grew up in Minnesota
Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941.
“Minnesota has its own Mason Dixon line,” Dylan said in an interview on his official website. “I come from the north and that’s different from southern Minnesota; if you’re there you could be in Iowa or Georgia. Up north the weather is more extreme — frostbite in the winter, mosquito-ridden in the summer, no air conditioning when I grew up, steam heat in the winter and you had to wear a lot of clothes when you went outdoors. Your blood gets thick. It’s the land of 10,000 lakes — lot of hunting and fishing.”
He explained that growing up, he hated hunting but fished often. He also began playing music here and noted that Minneapolis and St. Paul were “rock and roll towns.”
Bob Dylan consistently ran away from home as a child
Dylan said that before he permanently left Minnesota, he ran away from home seven times, at 10, 12, 13, 15, 15 and a half, 17, and 18. According to him, he visited Kansas, Illinois, South Dakota, New Mexico, and California on his trips. He explained that he didn’t feel “free” at home.
“I kept running because I wasn’t free,” he told The New Yorker in 1964. “I was constantly on guard. Somehow, way back then, I already knew that parents do what they do because they’re up tight. They’re concerned with their kids in relation to themselves. I mean, they want their kids to please them, not to embarrass them — so they can be proud of them. They want you to be what they want you to be. So I started running when I was ten. But always I’d get picked up and sent home.”
Even though he kept getting sent back, he continued to run away.
“I tried again and again, and when I was eighteen, I cut out for good,” he said. “I was still running when I came to New York. Just because you’re free to move doesn’t mean you’re free. Finally, I got so far out I was cut off from everybody and everything.”
Bob Dylan said he wouldn’t want others to run away from home because of him
Dylan realized there was no sense in running once he got far enough from home.
“I decided there was no sense in running so far and so fast when there was no longer anybody there,” he said. “It was fake. It was running for the sake of running. So I stopped. I’ve got no place to run from. I don’t have to be anyplace I don’t want to be.”
He said he didn’t want young people to start running away from home because he’d done it. He didn’t want his behavior to guide or inspire others.
“I am by no means an example for any kid wanting to strike out,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t want a young kid to leave home because I did it, and then have to go through a lot of the things I went through. Everybody has to find his own way to be free. There isn’t anybody who can help you in that sense.”
