Suze Rotolo: The Girl on the Cover of Freewheelin'

My main squeeze told me that Terry Gross had replayed an interview with Suzie Rotolo.  My heart sank.  "She's dead?"  "Yes."

At one point, just knowing who Suzie Rotolo was marked you as hip.

For a significant number of us Suzie was an icon of a celebrated time, when folk music, "protest music", was the cutting edge of hip.  It was Suzie who open Bob Dylan's eyes to radicalism and art.  She was the girl on Bob Dylan's arm on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

(In an interview on WNYC-FM Steve Earle said he spent a lot of time pointing German tourists in the right direction when they try to position themselves on 4th Street to look like Bob and Suzie.  Suzie herself said that she thought the picture made her look like a stuffed sausage.  She was bundled up because their flat was so cold.  Suzie thought Bob was under dressed to enhance his image.  But could it be that it was because he was from Minnesota?)

It would be hard to underestimate what she did for Bob Dylan or give her enough credit for just being herself.  The photo below is typical of an ordinary photo evocative of the time: legends of the scene with Dylan on the left, Suzie in the middle, and Dave van Ronk on the right. Now only Bob is left.

Pardon me as I blither on:

I first heard Cocaine Blues sung by Dave van Ronk and, in my mind, his version remains the definitive version with that great lyric:

"Cocaine's for horses/ and not for men/
They say it will kill me/ but won't say when/
Cocaine.  Run all around my brain."

It ranks right up there with  Willie Dixon's "If it wasn't for bad luck/I'd have no luck at all" and BB King's:

"Nobody loves me but my mother.
I said nobody loves me but my mother.
I say nobody loves me but my mother.
And she could be jiving too."