It starts with the sound of rain and a woman’s weighty voice: “it’s night time in the big city. Outside the dogs are barking. A woman walks barefoot, her high heels in her handbag. It’s theme time radio hour with your host Bob Dylan.”

Then comes a man’s growly and gravelly voice, the whisky-drenched voice that makes you feel as if you’re drunk or as if you should be, right now. "It's time for Theme Time Radio Hour. Dreams, schemes and themes." The voice of Bob Dylan, the disk jockey.

Throughout the next hour the most iconic recluse in the music business introduces his favourite records from his collection, with a new theme each week. So far themes have included coffee; jail; divorce; summer; flowers; cars; the devil; eyes; dogs; the Bible; maps; school; water; time; guns; dance; sleep; food; Tennessee; moon; women's names; hair; musical instruments; luck; and tears.

In a seamless and natural way Dylan combines logically linear words with abstract ones; light-heartedness with seriousness, intellect with kookiness, and topical information with playful anecdotes. With songs as diverse as Merle Haggard's Mama Tried with LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out (as in the program, Mothers), he taps America’s wide musical heritage. He is eagre to share his impeccable taste and encyclopaedic knowledge of song, and is clearly having a ball behind the mic.

XM satellite radio finally signed Dylan for the program last year, after three years of persuasion. They provided the 65-year-old with a digital recording kit so that he can record and present from home, studio or tour bus. Subscription-based, ad-free satellite radio is growing rapidly in popularity and XM also carries shows presented by Tom Petty, Oprah Winfrey and Snoop Dogg.

The eclectic brew of blues, rockabilly, soul music, bebop, rock-and-roll and pop on Theme Time Radio Hour is interspersed with poetry recitations, scripted commentary on the music, film snippets, recipes, random oddities related to the themes, and email readings.

In the Baseball program he reads an email from Jamie Christionson, Nevarda: “She writes, ‘dear Theme Time, I enjoy listening to the ballgames late at night but my boyfriend says the radio keeps him up – what should I do?’ Well Jamie, you should do what I used to do: when I was supposed to be asleep I would take the bedside radio and slip it under my pillow … press you ear close to the pillow, which is what you’re supposed to do with pillows anyway, and listen to the game without bothering any body else in the house … I hope you do hat with Theme Time radio hour, thanks for your letter, press your ear up close to the pillow Jamie.”

Dylan has told us before how important radio had been to him. In Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, he recalled how radio had given him his first sense of an American musical culture that reached far beyond his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota: "We'd have to, like, listen late at night for other stations to come in from other parts of the country," he said. "Johnnie Ray,

he had some kind of strange incantation in his voice, like he'd been voodoo'd, and he cried, kind of, when he sang ... it was the sound that got me, it wasn't who it was ... I began to listen to the radio, [and] I began to get bored being there [in Minnesota]."

The Baseball program closes with the song Heart by Damn Yankees (the Original Broadway Cast) and the following sign off: “In baseball, as in life, you need heart. You gotta have heart. Gotta have a lot of things. Gotta have something on the brain. Gotta have correct postage. Gotta have a dog you can trust. Gotta have a dry hat and your lawyer’s phone number. Gotta have your girlfriend’s credit card. You gotta have it all together. You gotta have room to move. Gotta have what it takes. Gotta have a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. You gotta have heart.”