A few days ago, Bob Dylan announced the return of his Sirius XM show Theme Time Radio, and now we’re getting a preview of its first episode in 11 years through three audio snippets.
In the first, Dylan welcomes fans back after a decade-plus hiatus. “Hello friends and welcome back to Theme Time Radio Hour. I’m your host, Bob Dylan. To paraphrase Alexandre Dumas in The Count of Monte Cristo, I’m so delighted to see you again, it makes me forget for the moment that all happiness is fleeting,” he says before admitting his newly launched whiskey brand, Heaven’s Door, is the catalyst for the show’s return.
“Now I’m not gonna pull your coat too much about it, ’cause me telling you how good it is is like tickling yourself. It just doesn’t work. You just have to taste it, and it speaks for itself. But we all thought it’d be a good idea to do an episode all about whiskey,” the Rough and Rowdy Ways singer explains. “There’s no shortage of songs and it’s been fun to get the gang back together.”
He’s got jokes, too. “It’s been so long, I’m not even sure if we should call it Theme Time Radio Hour anymore. I mean, does anybody still have a radio?” Dylan quips. “Some folks might even be listening on a smart toaster. I don’t know, Theme Time Device Hour doesn’t sound right.”
In the other two clips, Dylan introduces Charlie Poole’s 1920s rendition of “If the River Was Whiskey” and tells listeners about the Great Molasses Flood of Boston.
Listen to all three snippets below.
