Yes I'm a Dylan Fan (for Steve Bank)

[Tharmas]

In a post in the General Religion section Steve Bank includes the following opinion. I told him I’d like to start a dialogue on the topics of pop music and Dylan in particular. So here it is:

My favorite example of human behavior in this aspect is Bob Dylan. He started off imitating Woody Guthrie and 60s counter culture types turned his largely incoherent lyrics into prophetic works. and Dylan into a prophet. Books and PHD theses were written about Dylan, yet if you listed to what he said if interpret his lyrics that is up to you.

I’ll parse the above opinion in a bit, but first as one of those “60s counter-culture types” I want to say a few words about the folk music renaissance, which was really a 50s movement. Folk singers researched and performed traditional folk songs. You weren’t considered authentic if your band lacked a washtub bass and washboard percussion. This is the environment Dylan, as well as Joan Baez, came up in. As a teenager Dylan acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of folk music. His first album contains only two original songs; one was a tribute to Woodie Guthrie, which Dylan claims was the first song he’d ever written.

He started off imitating Woody Guthrie and 60s counter culture types turned his largely incoherent lyrics into prophetic works. and Dylan into a prophet.

Dylan worshiped Guthrie and literally sat as his feet when he made his frequent trips to see Guthrie in the hospital. It’s more accurate to say that Guthrie mentored and inspired/encouraged Dylan to write his own songs.

I’m not sure what you mean by “incoherent lyrics.” Consider these song titles, off one early album:

Blowin’ In the Wind

Girl From the North Country

Masters of War

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright

Oxford Town

Corina Corina

That’s a short list from the album. Which ones are incoherent? Some are definitely rooted in folk traditions. Others clearly reflect social and cultural concerns. Clearly.

I don’t think my generation turned Dylan into a prophet so much as a spokesperson. Some of his songs became marching songs of the Civil Rights movement. Others were anti-war and anti-military-industrial complex. These were not controversial opinions. But Dylan rejected all attempts to pigeonhole him or make him a leader of anything. I just write songs, they don’t mean anything, he says in a 1965 interview with a Time magazine reporter (from the documentary “Don’t Look Back”). He goes on that people come to his concerts to be entertained, and he’s essentially an entertainer.

The fact is, Dylan is/was a very private person who resisted being made into a spokesperson, and like many other serious writers before and since, he resisted all efforts of people to discover the “meaning” of what he wrote. In one interview, when asked why he wrote what he wrote, he answered “news sells.”

I don’t think that makes him a hypocrite. I don’t think he “sold out.”

Steve, a bit later in the religion thread you expand on your thoughts:

At a 60s Newport Folk Festival Dylan, real name Robert Allan Zimmerman, showed up at a Newport Folk Festival playing an electric guitar backed by what became The Band. His devotees were horrified.

He was an entertainer who gained fame and fortune. He did country music for awhile. In an interview he was asked given his iconic status among the counter culture how he felt about being rich. He said what is wring with with getting rich?

There were genuine activists and folk music social commentators like Pete Seeger and others, and grass roots music like the Carter Family.

Same with Johnny Cash's image. Does not men I did not like his music sometime, but like Jesus man vs myth.

I’ll get back to you on this when I have some more time.

 

[bilby]

There are three ways to be successful in popular music:

1) Write inspiring lyrics that capture the mood of your audience. Bob Dylan exemplifies this; He couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but it didn't matter. He's one of very few famous performers whose work sounds as good or even better when covered by someone else. Folk, as a genre, lends itself to this - it's supposed to be sung by everyone and anyone.

2) Be an accomplished musician/performer. If the tune is catchy and performed skillfully and stylishly, nobody cares about the lyric. You could sing "do-wah-diddy-diddy", or "do-wap-be-bop" or "Hey-nonny-nonny", and people would still want to listen. This is the most common path, and is why most pop is ephemeral.

3) Do both at once, and become immortal mega-stars. Queen exemplified this, Bowie too. If Dylan could sing, he would have been in this bracket too.

 

[rousseau]

As a (former) Dylan fan I agree with your synopsis.

The other aspect of it, is that some of his lyrics do approach something like oracular speech. Not quite realist, not quite abstract, but mysterious and intriguing enough in contrast to what was around before him, that he gained a following of people who were curious about his poetry. His lyrics were interesting, with flashes of brilliance. But the prophet aspect likely started with some of the earlier, more coherent lyrics, before he became more intentionally obscure.

But I wouldn't call the 'obscure' songs incoherent whatsoever, it's their exact quality of being hard to pin down that drew people to them. Think about something like 'Visions of Johanna', that one blew me away for months when I was younger.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Dylan is absolutely protean, like few other artists. Who even comes close? Maybe Miles Davis. You'll never pin either one down to a simple definition. I used to listen to a lot more Dylan than I do now, but, in so many categories, he's done classic work.
Folk: North Country Blues, Boots of Spanish Leather, Tangled Up in Blue, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (why this one hasn't been covered by more singers, I just don't know) (All four of these are gorgeous songs.)
Scorching rock: Like a Rolling Stone, Absolutely Sweet Marie, Odds and Ends, Idiot Wind, Shelter from the Storm, All Along the Watchtower, Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Gospel: Precious Angel, I Believe in You, Dear Landlord
Country: Down Along the Cove, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Ballads: Abandoned Love, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Just Like a Woman (are these ballads? Who knows -- he can't be pigeon-holed.)
Blues: Buckets of Rain (what a song -- where did it come from?), Journey Through Dark Heat (neither of these was written in classic blues form, but they're still in the zone, for me), The Wicked Messenger (insanely catchy blues run in this thing)
Absurdist/Unclassifiable: She's Your Lover Now, Quinn the Eskimo, Clothesline Saga (which is probably my favorite Dylan track ever, it seems to come from outer space, and he talks his way through it), Rainy Day Women, Visions of Johanna
Other singer/songwriters would sell their children to write just one of those songs. Dylan wrote 'em all. Also... I could redo this post with an entirely different list of Dylan songs. That's our man.

 

[southernhybrid]

Although, I'm no longer a fan of Dylan, this thread made me nostalgic for my teen. years when my two best friends and I were big Dylan fans. Those songs are from the album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan". It was released in 1963 when I was in high school.

A nutty woman who I mentioned in another thread awhile back was a big Dylan fan. I think she probably liked him because he became a so called "born again Christian". I had bought her a CD player as she was poor and her CD player stopped working. She was so exited until someone told. her I was an atheist. She returned it because I "don't believe in the power of prayer". I know that's not exactly related to the thread, but it reminded me of her. I guess it takes all kinds to be fans of Dylan.

Being an antiwar protester during the Viet Nam War, I loved "Masters of War" and might still know most of the words. I never cared for his later stuff.

I like Miles Davis, but if you want an artist that could do soul, funk, rock, jazz and country, that would be the musical genius Ray Charles.

 

[rousseau]

To add a little more, in poetry terms what Dylan was doing with his writing was evocation. In poetry proper the common adage is show, don't tell, and Dylan was one of the first to bring that style of writing to popular music. People were fascinated by it because he didn't tell people what to feel or think, he let his audience use their imagination to react to his songs. It'd never been done before.

Dylan and Cohen comparisons run rampant, and it was Dylan's career that inspired Cohen's. The strongest argument I've heard in how they differ is that Dylan was able to write cohesive, complete songs, Cohen only knew how to write lyrics. As a poet, Cohen was far stronger, but Dylan's level of writing skill was exactly what was needed to strike a chord in popular music.

 

[ZiprHead]

Springsteen was influenced a lot by Woody Guthrie too. But he could actually sing.