I'm struck that Bob brought his umbrella along. You'd think he'd have someone to hold it for him as he approached the Pope. He must have wanted it for its real or symbolic meaning.Fr. Antonio Spadaro has revealed that Pope Leo XIV introduced himself to Bob Dylan as a 'a son of St. Augustine' in reference to Dylan's song 'I Dreamed I saw Saint Augustine' https://t.co/PTfopIuE51
— Catholic Arena (@CatholicArena) November 4, 2026
My post title refers to the only Bob Dylan song with an umbrella, "Series of Dreams (Studio Outtake — 1989)": 
Just thinking of a series of dreamsDreams where the umbrella is folded
Into the path you are hurled
And the cards are no good that you’re holding
Unless they’re from another world
A folded umbrella may symbolize an awareness of vulnerability. You've brought the umbrella, but you have not opened it. You would never need to open it indoors. In fact, it's an old superstition: opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck.
In the song, there is bad luck, even though the umbrella is folded: "the cards are no good." For good luck, Bob is relying on the possibility that the cards are "from another world."
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10 comments:
So which one is shepherd and which one is the devil?
A hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
The Grim Reaper cometh...
Dylan is 84. Maybe an umbrella looks better than a cane.
…or he’s the penguin…
Sometimes an umbrella is just an umbrella.
Why is he dressed like a druid?
I think he's using the umbrella as a substitute for a cane.
That painting is worth, like, a million dollars.
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