Rhett Miller shares a songwriting credit with Bob Dylan on the Old 97s' new album, which will be released next month.

Miller, however, did not actually get to sit down with Dylan, pen and guitar in hands, and compose a song with his idol.

The story is a little more complicated than that.

Miller, who will perform a solo acoustic show Friday at York's Capitol Theatre, says he and his band mates in the Old 97s were driving one night in the wilds of central Illinois.

This was in the band's early days and all four of them were packed, with their equipment, in a van that they had to drive themselves. It was about 5 in the morning.

To pass the time, Miller decided to write a song. There wasn't enough room inside the van to play his guitar so he decided to use the melody of a tune that was stuck in his head and rewrite the lyrics.

Miller wrote a song called "Champaign, Ill.," about the city where the University of Illinois sits. He borrowed the melody from Dylan's "Desolation Row."

"I sat on it for years," Miller says from the home he shares with his wife and two children in New York State, "because I was afraid Bob Dylan's lawyers would come after me and do horrible things."

The song wouldn't go away and Miller and Murray Hammond, the Old 97s' bass player, kept coming back to it. They thought of changing the melody just enough so Dylan's lawyers wouldn't recognize it, but decided that would ruin the song.

Finally, they decided to try the direct approach.

Miller asked his manager to contact Dylan's manager. Luckily, they happened to be friends and Dylan's manager agreed to play the song for his client and ask his opinion of it.

Miller says he decided to provide Dylan with a live version of the song. He did wonder, however, if it was a good idea to include the introduction, which has Miller deadpanning that he had to write new words to the song because Dylan's such a lame lyricist.

"At the heart of that joke," Miller says, "is he's one of my favorite people and one of my biggest influences."

After a couple of weeks, Miller and his manager heard that Dylan liked the song but wanted to read the lyrics.

"I've never typed more quickly in my life," Miller says. "I heard a week later that he liked it and approved it and not only that, he was willing to let me keep half the publishing. I'd been ready to make it 100 percent Bob Dylan publishing, but now the thing's gonna read on there, 'Champaign, Ill.,' by Bob Dylan and Rhett Miller."

Oddly, Dylan and rockabilly icon Carl Perkins co-wrote a song called "Champaign, Illinois," way back in 1969. It appears on Perkins' album "On Top."

Miller says he will play "Champaign, Ill.," tonight in York, along with other songs from the Old 97s' new album "The Grand Theatre, Vol. 1" (the second volume will be released next year), some older songs by the band and tunes from his four solo albums.

A prolific songwriter, Miller usually doesn't need to borrow other musicians' melodies. He says he always offers songs to his band mates first and keeps for himself whatever they don't want.

Though Miller and the Old 97s. which recorded its first album in 1994, have enjoyed long, productive careers, a hit song has eluded him.

He says that's not an altogether bad thing, but he would welcome the money a hit song would bring.

"I feel like maybe if I had more success I wouldn't be as hungry as I am, and that's a big part of what's pushed me to write," Miller says.

Perhaps "Champaign, Ill." will be his hit. But then he'd have to share half of the publishing profits with Dylan.

Rhett Miller

Friday at 8 p.m., $17

Capitol Theatre, Strand-Capitol

Performing Arts Center

50 N. George St., York, 846-1111
www.strandcapitol.org