Artists are rarely straightforward and forthcoming about their work. Bob Dylan’s 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks was written and recorded during the end of his relationship with his wife Sara. It is a great breakup record, but Dylan denies it was autobiographical. “A lot of people thought that album pertained to me. It didn’t pertain to me,” he said. The American songwriter cites Anton Chekhov as a bigger influence on this work than the collapse of his marriage. Chekhov’s talent was to make a character or a scene say more to the reader by writing fewer words, not more.
Eden Hazard is off to Madrid, and he’s not explicitly saying it. Instead, he’s recording a breakup album for Chelsea fans, and each match until the end of the season is a new song. His performance against West Ham was the football equivalent of Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”
I’ve been shooting in the dark too long
When somethin’s not right it’s wrong
When somethin’s not right it’s wrong
As a Chelsea fan, I hated international breaks. Every Belgium match for the last five years brought out new quotes from Hazard about Real Madrid. It was scary at first but soon become tiresome. These days though, it’s just sad. The relationship, while not yet over, is fated to end and we all know it. It’s like a husband and wife who have decided to sleep in separate beds and begin making mental notes of how to divide up their belongings. How did it come to this, they wonder. Is it just another case of the seven-year itch?