Last week, the world lost one of the great icons in the Bob Dylan universe, as the stunning Suze Rotolo, Bob's former lover and the girl he is walking arm in arm down Jones Street in New York City on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, died at the age of 67 on February 24th after a valiant battle with an undisclosed illness, according to Rolling Stone. For a beautiful obituary on this West Village treasure, please check out J. Hoberman's piece in The Village Voice. Her muse helped inspire Dylan to write some of this greatest songs, including "Boots of Spanish Leather", "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right", as well as "The Death of Emmett Till", as she was the one who first told Bob about the controversial 1955 murder case that inspired him to write one of his most renowned protest anthems.
"Right from the start I couldn't take my eyes off her," Dylan gushed in his 2004 memoir Chronicles. "She was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blooded Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid's arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard."
A lifelong New Yorker who based her whole being in the West Village in spite of its ever-changing facades, Suze will be greatly missed.
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