Whatever hurt has happened in your life, Bob Dylan wrote a melancholy ode to it. Whatever bitter sarcastic comment you’ve wanted to utter, Dylan turned it into a stream of consciousness growl. And whatever regret you wanted to explain, Dylan penned it into an eloquent elegy.

I counted 18 Dylan albums in my possession, dating back to his second studio release The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan from 1963. My collection of about 200 songs doesn’t total even half of this prolific poet’s portfolio – even if you don’t count the songs he allegedly usurped as his own or rejected for bootleg outtakes.

And none of them are about anything happy. In fact, name your top five break-up albums of all time, and Blonde on Blonde along with Blood on the Tracks, Street Legal, and Time Out of Mind have got to make the list. (Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is right up there.)

When Dylan wasn’t beautifully crafting despondency and desolation, he was giving the middle finger to the protesting purists who anointed him as their acoustic prophet. Even the up-tempo tunes like “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Maggie’s Farm” (both on Bringing it All Back Home), and “Rainy Day Women #12 & #35” from Blonde on Blonde are sneers at his supporters and skeptics. He told us, “It Ain’t Me Babe.”

Entering the world one year after the Baby Boom, I personally prefer his electric evolution and forays into blues and jazz. From all accounts, even his own, he was into Elvis before he donned the Guthrie persona. By the time I discovered Dylan, about the same time I first read “Catcher in the Rye” in junior high, I loved how his words commanded a paradoxically cynical romanticism.

Dylan didn’t write teen-age angst or puppy-love pop hits. He wasn’t a musician, and he wasn’t a singer. He was a poet steeped in the folk traditions of troubadours and bluesmen. He sponged the sweat of underground Beat freaks. He stole and invented phrases that defied genre or expectations or courtesies. To me, Dylan was Shakespeare. To me he was always old, but timeless.

So why am I writing about him in the past tense, as if this were a eulogy for a dead legend? In fact, I asked my son if he wanted to see Dylan with me this Saturday in Portland. “You know, you might not get another chance. He might be dead soon,” was my attempt at persuasion. Of course, I said the same thing the other four times I saw him – twice in California and twice since I’ve lived in Maine. But Dylan’s not dead yet. He might finally be starting to live.

This concert won’t be the same Dylan we all thought we knew. Believe it or not, his latest album Fallen Angels, released this spring, contradicts the title by offering a sweetly and calmly optimistic song set. This may have something to do with the fact that none of the songs are Dylan’s. Better than his scratchy attempt at Sinatra crooning on last year’s Shadows in the Night, this gentle collection of American jazz standards mark the letting down of his guard.

Never would I have thought that Dylan would be singing Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” as a welcome invitation to untainted smittenness. Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn make another contribution with the bravely vulnerable “All the Way,” a song I’ve cooed about before. “Skylark,” a true standard by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, bounces with an easy Django Reinhardt – Stephane Grappelli style lilt. The album finishes with “Come Rain or Come Shine,” a hopelessly romantic track by Harold Arlen and Mercer.

What surprised me the most about Fallen Angels is Dylan’s vocal performance. He never did have any singing chops, unless you count that weird baritone thing he did on Nashville Skyline. To this day, I can’t associate “Lay Lady Lay” with Dylan, and I don’t know how many bets I won with that song in high school. But with these song choices – and I give credit to a master songwriter for knowing what makes a song work – Dylan has to sing. He can’t just mumble and intone something that was lyrically and melodically composed with pure poignancy.

Yes, Dylan’s voice is shot. The national critics have panned Fallen Angels as a sell-out in a trend of has-been legends attempting to prolong their performing careers. But critics have been accusing Dylan of selling out for decades. And what’s wrong with just singing really nice songs about really nice things? Maybe it takes a lot of living to remember what it’s like to be young – young, as in a time when happy endings and moonlit daydreams seemed natural. Interesting that the cover art is a hand holding cards. A hint that Dylan is taking a gamble with this album or that he’s maybe finally willing to be unlucky at cards?

Of course with Mavis Staples performing this Saturday with Dylan, there will surely be an obligatory nod to the “The Last Waltz,” The Band years, and The Basement Tapes. At least I sincerely hope so. If for no other reason, I loved Bob Dylan for making the band The Band. Maybe even a shared gospel tune or two.

But if this is the last time I see Dylan, and he just wants to relax and play happy music, then I’ll gladly be there ready to smile. And I think it would be great if this were the first Dylan concert I’ve been to where I see him smile. That would be a nicer twist of fate.

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