Last word

"These so-called connoisseurs of Bob Dylan music, I don't feel they know a thing or have any inkling of who I am or what I'm about. It's ludicrous, humorous and sad that such people have spent so much of their time thinking about who? Me? Get a life, please. You're wasting your own" ~ Bob Dylan, 2001...

N.B. Above collage assembled by an avid fan, link available here.

So...

Bob Dylan has had a big influence on society: directly, in terms of the reach that his music (and his promotion of the work of others; in Theme Time Radio Hour, for example) has had in the general public; and indirectly, in terms of the effect his work has had on other artists (affecting a much wider audience with varied musical tastes). Joan Baez described his music as the soundtrack to the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties, and since then he has continued to affect new generations, academically, socially, and - of course - musically.


I think Hardy (2001) best sums it up here:
''I like to stay part of that stuff that don't change,' said Dylan in the notes to his retrospective five-record set Biograph (1985). And the key paradox of the work of Dylan, the most influential of the songwriters and singers of the sixties, is that his supreme originality was firmly rooted in his absorbing of traditions of music, poetry, and biblical myth and allegory. The impact of that originality on the direction taken by later popular music was two-fold. His work encouraged a serious attitude to rock music among pundits and practioners alike. Dylan was the catalyst for the growing complexity in The Beatles' work after 1965, and he enabled critics and academic to claim the status of art for the music, as well as giving rise to a vast amount of scholarship, both professional and amateur, concerned to elucidate his own work and life. Secondly, Dylan was the first of the singer-songwriters. The appeal of his intensely personal and poetic utterances paved the way for the success of Leonard Cohen, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Neil Young and myriad others'.

Hardy, P. (2001) 3rd Edition. The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music. London: Faber and Faber Limited.

Coronation Street

Maybe not the most obvious place for a Bob Dylan reference, but just the other night one of the old codgers on Coronation Street said (in reference to the slightly-less-than-revolutionary situation he and his cronies were in): 'as Bob Dylan once said, 'the times they are a'changing''. Kind of freaked me out actually...

But it's a good example of how Dylan's words have become mainstream cultural reference points in Britain, but (so often) still represent challenges to the status quo (whatever that status quo may be).

The Folk Devil

Dylan has been known to say: 'A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.' He is infamously difficult to interview (when he does feel like being interviewed, which isn't often), and has frequently lied to the press in order to protect his privacy (and possibly to perpetuate the sense of mystery that many of his fans are fascinated by). 'Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot'.

I think that it is the elusiveness behind this paradox that arguably makes him something of a 'folk devil' (Thornton 1995) - he caused an outrage from the Folk community when he 'turned electric', for example, as he 'deviated' from the genre he had been so appreciated for until that point (and so shirked his 'responsibility' to satify the demands of fans, and so at least temporarily alienated them). He doesn't seem to have ever behaved the way people, particularly celebrities, are expected to behave in the public eye. Or, arguably, behind closed doors either, but I digress...

There is felt to be a sense of 'authenticity' about Dylan's work, because he seems driven by the music rather than by the money, fame, or extra-musical commodities of the music industry. 'The idea that authentic culture is somehow outside the media and commerce is a resilient one. In its full-blown romantic form, the belief suggests that grassroots cultures resist and struggle with a colonizing mass-mediated corporate world. At other times, the perspective lurks between the lines, inconspicuously informing parameters of research, definitions of culture and judgements of value' (Thornton 1995: 116).

Personally, I think it would be fair to say that many Dylan fans express such a romanticised sense of the authenticity of his music (and personality/lifestyle), and have (in my experience) a tendancy to be quite scrupulous in their judgements of mass-produced, 'brainwashing' music.

Thornton, S. (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. UK: Polity Press.

Theme Time Radio Hour

His radio shows (created in America but aired in the UK via BBC Radio 2) are based on themes like Numbers, Jobs or Water, and are packed with information about the songs on the show (artists, producers, stories behind the songs). The influence of this show on the lives of the general public can (at least in part) be expressed in videos such as this one:

Fanzines & Websites

Fanzines of Bob's have included: Isis/Wicked Messenger (est. 1985); On The Tracks/Series of Dreams; The Bridge (est.1998); and Freewheelin' (est. 1985).

Websites include:
www.bobdylan.com - the official site, which contains news, discographies, etc. It is better than most other Dylan sites because it has a lyric search-engine - 'type in a word or two of a half-remembered line, from even the most obscure Dylan song, and chances are that the entire lyric will come up' (Williamson 2006: 309) - and there are downloadable performances available which span most of his career.

www.expectingrain.com - one of the newer sites, which has a great news service that has links to newspaper and magazine articles (that have reference to Dylan) from all over the world. It also has a who's who of people who have 'come within his orbit' (Williamson 2000: 309), and - oddly - a compiled list of the jokes that Dylan made on stage from the late 90s onwards.

www.bobsboots.com - bills itself as 'The Bob Dylan Bootleg Museum': the definitive guide to unofficial recordings (with reviews of content and sound quality).

Willimson, N. (2006) The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan. London: Rough Guides Ltd.

Books & Biographies

'You can't accurately measure Bob Dylan's importance in record sales, for according to the statistics The Carpenters and even Ozzy Osbourne have sold more albums. But you might calculate the man's contribution to our times by the amount of literature devoted to him' (Williamson 2006: 300).

Some titles of the many books about him:
The Bob Dylan Scrapbook 1956-66 ~ Robert Santelli. This was published the year after Chronicles and is a kind of companion to the book. 'Although collectors will cherish the previously unpublished photos, the real meat lies in the facsimile items of memorabilia tucked inside almost every page, from handwritten lyrics to ticket stubs and concert flyers via newspaper articles and even a cardboard cut-out of Bob from a 1965 promo campaign' (Williamson 2006: 301).
No Direction Home - The Life and Music of Bob Dylan ~ Robert Shelton. Shelton's New York Times reviews of Dylan's early music helped to launch his career, but this book took over twenty years to write because Dylan kept doing things that Shelton felt should be included.
ISIS - A Bob Dylan Anthology and Bob Dylan Anthology Volume Two - 20 Years of Isis ~ Derek Barker (ed). 'Two volumes of the best essays and interviews from the pages of Isis, the longest-running and best of the Dylan fanzines, purveyors of splendid erudition, insane obsession and searching insight since its inception in 1985' (Williamson 2006: 308).
Studio A - The Bob Dylan Reader ~ Benjamin Hedin (ed). And of course Chronicles Volume One ~ Bob Dylan.

There are many more biographies about Dylan than there are about James Brown, for example. Arguably, they are 'two of the most important figures of the 1960s in terms of their influence on subsequent musicians. Dylan, in creating the prototype of the "singer-songwriter", invites fans and biographers to hear his songs as directly related to his life, whereas Brown, in his creation of hyperkinetic dance music with minimal and impressionistic lyrics, encourages other forms of engagement' (Horner and Swiss 1999: 127).

Horner, B. & Swiss, T. (1999) Key Terms in Popular Music & Culture. USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
Williamson, N. (2006) The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan. London: Rough Guides Ltd.

Co-op Advert

This Co-op advert uses the universally (or at least internationally) relevant lyrics and sentiments of Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind to infer an organic/wholesome/ethical nature to the organisation. His music - or at least this particular song - can be said to represent a depth of concern for social and environmental issues that much of the 21st century western world seeks to resolve, despite the fact that the song was written decades ago.

Dylan covers others

Although some folk might suspect Bob of thinking himself somehow 'too good' to do cover music, much of his 'Self-Portait' and 'Dylan' albums include his versions of other people's music: The Boxer, My Lilly of the West, Mr Bojangles (one of my favourites, which Nina Simone does a brilliant version of), Big Yellow Taxi, and Can't Help Falling in Love With You, for example.



Done originally by Gordon Lightfoot, this song has also been recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, Paul Weller, Elvis and Bob Dylan.

'All Along the Watchtower'

The funny thing about this song is that Bob started doing the Hendrix version of it after he heard it and decided that it was better than his own original. Not sure about the XTC version, but it adds to the diversity of the ever-increasing list of artists doing Dylan covers...


Jimi Hendrix -



XTC -

'Diamonds and Rust'

This song of Joan Baez's gives us a little insight into his relationship with her during the early stages of his career.

'Knockin' On Heaven's Door'

Number 191 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, this song has been recorded by a staggering 150 artists (according to '...Sings Dylan'). For example:

Guns N Roses -



Ladysmith Black Mambazo & Dolly Parton -



And Avril Lavigne -

'Mr Tambourine Man'

This 1964 video of Mr Tambourine Man is great, and certainly better than the Lulu version shown on the BBC. In fact, the BBC say in '...Sings Dylan', that they had 2 versions of the song in their archive - both featuring groups of dancers with tambourines!

Bryan Ferry

Ferry's first hit was with a Dylan song, and he has paid tribute to Bob's music ever since. Here's a version of another well-known Dylan song, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue:



Ferry covers on his Dylanesque album (2007) include:
All Along The Watchtower
All I Really Want To Do
If Not For You
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Positively 4th Street
Knocking On Heaven's Door
Simple Twist Of Fate

The dylandaily.blogspot.com (from dylandaily.com) seems pretty positive about Ferry's cover album, calling the album a 'must-buy for all fans of Ferry/Roxy Music and many in Dylan’s fanbase (count me in, twice over). Although the cognoscenti regard all the Ferry solo releases as inferior to all the Roxy Music albums, his cover versions - including Dylan’s A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on his first solo album, in 1973 – generally garner high praise.' This is a 1976 version of this song, which I happen to like quite a lot:

'It Ain't Me Babe'

Joan Baez's version of It Ain't Me Babe is probably one of versions of Dylan that is closest to the original recording. The song was first released on the 1964 Dylan album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, and was later a monster hit for The Turtles, but it was Baez's version which brought Dylan to a wide audience in '65.

Much of the fame and fortune that Dylan received in the late sixties was due to Baez's support; she recorded his songs, and brought him on stage with her at concerts, for example.

'Masters of War'

This commanding version of Masters of War by Julie Felix, demonstrates some of her passion for Dylan's lyrics (which she sang all through her career). Apparently, she was such a big Dylan fan that she released 2 of his songs on her debut album, and went on to record a double cd of his songs.

'Wheels on Fire'

Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger's version of Wheels on Fire from 1968 is not bad, but the smoke-effects and weird dancing-styles are not really my taste...

The song was co-written with Rick Danko from The Band, for the 'Music from the Big Pink' album, but Brian claims that he got it from a bootleg of Dylan and The Band's 'Basement Tapes'. The 'Tapes' have been an important source for fans of Dylan, particularly those keen to cover his music.

'Gotta Serve Somebody'

This video of Roebuck 'Pops' Staples (founder of The Staples Singers) on 'Later with Jools' is a great version of Gotta Serve Somebody!

The song comes from Dylan's controversial Slow Train Coming album, full of explicitly Christian/religious songs, and is (in my opinion) one of the best Dylan songs.

'All I Really Wanna Do'

Here are The Byrds, singing Dylan's All I Really Wanna Do (though this is not, admittedly, one of their better performances of the song).

Aside from Joan Baez, The Byrds are probably the act most associated with Dylan. Their version of Tambourine Man was their first hit, and in total they recorded 15 of his songs.

'Like A Rolling Stone'

'Greatest song of all time', Rolling Stone magazine called it, in 2004.



And I'm inclined to agree that it's a good 'un (though probably not the best ever). And in case you're wondering, the rest of the Rolling Stones top 10 looks like this:

2. Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
3. Imagine, John Lennon
4. What's Goin' On, Marvin Gaye
5. Respect, Aretha Franklin
6. Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
7. Johnny Be Goode, Chuck Berry
8. Hey Jude, The Beatles
9. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
10. What'd I Say, Ray Charles

To see the other 490 songs in the list, go to http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs

The blip-firing media

'In describing today's accelerating changes, the media fire blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse them. As a result, change itself comes to be seen as anarchic, even lunatic.' - Alvin Toffler

Popped blog-cherry!

And boy, does it feel good!

Actually, I'm not so sure it does... But what the hey, it's got to be done, right?! And who knows, maybe it'll start feeling a bit more natural over the course of the next couple of months...

Ok, now onto the task of uploading some images, etc. Will write again when I conjure some inspiration from somewhere (could be some time)! :)