Bob Dylan in talks to be voice of satnav

August 26, 2009 11:54 pm | Updated August 27, 2009 12:06 am IST

The answer, my friend, is not blowin’ in the wind - the answer is turn left on to the A222 and this time we don’t want to end up on Yazoo Street or at the Gypsy Cafe or in your wife’s home town (it sounds grim, frankly). The truth is, I am sleepy and there is a place I’m going to and it’s called Chislehurst.

As if satnav was not frustrating enough, Bob Dylan has revealed he is in talks with “a couple of car companies” to become the voice of their next global positioning system. In his weekly Theme Time Radio Hour show, broadcast at midnight BST on BBC Radio 6 Music, Dylan, who takes street maps as his theme, said he has been approached by two firms wanting him to record the “turn left, stay in right hand lane,” etc, instructions.

“You know I don’t usually like to tell people what I’m doing,” he told listeners. “But I am talking to a couple of car companies about possibly being the voice of their GPS. I think it would be good, if you’re looking for directions and you heard my voice saying something like: ‘Take a left at the next street. No, a right. You know what? Just go straight.’ I probably shouldn’t do it because whichever way I go I always end up in one place. On Lonely Avenue.” Cue Ray Charles.

Should Dylan take up the offers, it raises the possibility of some imprecise driving. Do we want to be told that there is no direction home? That the M6 is an endless highway? That we can take the A38 but the road is long, and it winds and winds? That we can put our foot down on the A590 into Barrow. “Yeah, 90 miles an hour down a dead end street.” And what happens if you are stuck inside of Mansfield with the Matlock blues again?

Getting anyone but the female voice who comes with your original satnav is big business, with John Cleese, Mr. T and Eddie Izzard (“bear left, monkey right”) among those available as alternatives. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009

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