Bob Dylan gave The Beatles their first hit of weed, inspiring their transformation from pop craftsmen to revolutionary artists. Truly great artists are able to stay a step ahead of their audiences and evolve without caring who follows. This change inspired rage from the folk community who accused him of selling out. Like Shakespeare, Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde, the words and sayings of a great artist often become so ingrained in culture we forget where they originated. Dylan has a host of lyrics that have become a common part of the English language.
In a time when social media shows us what most celebrities have for lunch, Dylan rarely does interviews or bothers to explain his work. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are either too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that… songs that run you down or songs that poke fun of you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling.
I am out to fight those kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. He wants people to judge him and notice him for the work and not for any other part of it. His shifts in style reflect his personal interests and inclinations rather than a desire to please an external source.
He has never been afraid to challenge himself or step out of his comfort zone. Now in his sixth decade of playing and performing, as many of his peers have succumbed to substance abuse and ill health, year-old Bob Dylan is still out there playing.
His biographies can provide some insight into the personal details around the songs that can prove instructive as to where he sourced his song material. Image sourced from Shutterstock editorial use only. Chris Huff has been a professional singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer for over 20 years. A most interesting and informative article. However I would make two points. If Dylan writes like I do, words just come to you, and you, the first listener, are hooked by the ideas in that first line.
Those first-line ideas imply a story and a second line comes to you that makes sense in the context set by the first line. Soon you start to get the sense of the Singer-Character, not you; the guy in the song, the guy whose story it is, is take on it. And then you keep letting him tell his story, as you comprehend it. He just wrote songs. Kooper and Bloomfield would go on to work together on various projects in subsequent years.
Since this article is appearing in the Forward, it is worth noting that in addition to Dylan, Bloomfield and Kooper were the other Jewish musicians in the room. Dylan had spoken with Phil Spector around the time about possibly working with him as producer. I dwell on the music first because all too often writing about Dylan means writing about his lyrics at the expense of the sound.
Literature, and all that the word indicates in regard to voice and vision and attitude and scope. Of course he was. Well, maybe some did. But time has left them all behind.
It was the sonic embodiment of the cultural revolution of the s.
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