One of the more niggling annoyance this modern world seems to offer us is the propensity for the popular press to dab the terms “legend” or “genius” on to any one-hit, one-trick musical performer. It is probably symptomatic of the culture of the non-celebrity, albeit in this case it is the non-talented or the extremely limited talented at best.
“Oh yes, Brits,” the A&R agent gushes, “you are a star, a superstar and we have your new single playing 24/7 on all the FM radio stations.”
Yet for all the false prophets and charlatan messiahs, there are those who really deserve to be acknowledged as legends and geniuses. These are the artistes who have helped shape the way we listen to and even approach music.
A tribute to a genius
The date was October 16, 1992 and the venue was Madison Square Garden. The MSG has had its fair share of famous names in its lifetime, but there was something different and special about this occasion. It was a veritable who’s who of popular music – from classic performers such as George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Byrds, Lou Reed, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder and Neil Young to slightly more contemporary artistes such as Eddie Vedder, Shawn Colvin, Mary- Chapin Carpenter, Chrissie Hynde and Sheryl Crow.
They were all gathered there on stage and the fans… the fans were bursting their lungs out with cheers and applause. But this time it was different. They weren’t there to showcase their own considerable talents but rather to pay tribute to a man whose work for 30 years have helped influenced music and society as a whole.
Or to put it more succinctly, in the words of Neil Young, they were there to celebrate “Bobfest”.
A song to Woody
Let us begin, not at the beginning, but in January 1961 and in New Jersey. A 19 year old singer was paying a hospital visit to his musical idol. It was almost akin to a meeting of two generations and the passing of a torch. The ailing idol’s name was Woody Guthrie, a hero of American folk music and the working class in the United States, as well as the composer and performer of that classic anthem, “This Land is Your Land”.
And the young singer who came visit him? Well, he was a native of Minnesota, the grandson of Jewish migrants from Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine and his name was Robert Zimmerman.
In performing terms, there are names that invoke the aura of stardom and there are those who don’t. One can only imagine the first time Robert Zimmerman met with a record executive; “What’s your name, son?” the executive chomps on his cigar as he peers at the young aspirant in front of him and when he heard the answer, he growled, “Names like Robert Zimmerman don’t’ sell records.”
Still, one can’t blame Abraham Zimmerman and Beatrice Zimmerman nee Stone for their lack of foresight. After all, they couldn’t’ have known or even countenanced on May 24 1961 that their newly born infant son will grow up to be a musician. As Oscar Wilde would have said if he had been alive, “Robert Zimmerman sounds positively like a lawyer!”
However, the problem was easily solved. Young Robert’s parents gave him the middle name Allen, which he liked as Robert Allen “sounded like a Scottish king”. He later heard of a saxophonist by the name of David Allyn and the exotic spelling of the moniker attracted him. Then one day, he came across the works of that great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas and a mental debate took place – Robert Allyn or Robert Dylan? Robert Allyn… Robert Dylan… Bob Allyn or… Bob Dylan?
A license to thrill
What is it about Bob Dylan that has caused him to garner so much respect and accolades throughout the years? What is it about him and his music that has enraptured, not just his peers, but the fans and the radio as well? At first glance, no one would consider him as a star – not terribly good looking with his shock of frizzy, curly hair. No, Bobby Dylan was no pretty boy.
And his voice; his voice was and still is unique to say the least. It is best described as nasal in intonation and there was never any chance of this happening – “Ladies and gentlemen, and now to sing the National Anthem of the United States of America… Bob Dylan!”
But what Dylan lacked in looks or vocal skills, he more than made up for it in other areas. He was a charismatic performer, a singer who compensated for his lack of natural ability with sheer passion and a consummate song-writing ability whose lyrics were often thought provoking, poignant and just pure poetry.
It would not be wrong to say that Dylan is part and parcel of Americana, as so many of his musical styles reflect those of popular American music tradition such as folk, country, rockabilly, blues, jazz, bluegrass, rock & roll, swing and Broadway. Yet he was the figurehead and chronicler of protest against institutionalised injustices in a way akin to his idol Woody Guthrie. In a nutshell, he is part of culture and, at the same time, part of counter-culture as well.
He was born and bred in the United States and a number of his songs reflect his observations of conditions in the United States at that time (conditions that some people might say are still present) such as racism – “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”, militarism – “The Masters of War” and the belief in the divine right of their military actions – “With God on Our Side”. Yet his songs also reflect worldwide social concerns such as those anthems of change “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin'”.
However Dylan is not just a political or social commentator, although he did make his mark during the early Sixties folk protest scene. He wrote songs that were surrealistic and poetic, songs that were reflections of literary influences and philosophy such as “Visions of Johanna” and “Desolation Row”, he wrote love songs such as “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, he was capable of brilliant, acerbic wit as seen in “Queen Jane Approximately” and “Like A Rolling Stone” and there was a time during the late Seventies and Eighties when he went through a religious conversion and released songs such as “Property of Jesus”.
In a nutshell, Dylan is no one trick pony. He is able to appeal to a wide spectrum of fans and admirers because of his versatility. How else can one explain that two dichotomous musicians such as country singer Willie Nelson and punk luminary Lou Reed count him as an influence? The different eras of Dylan have engendered their own disciples – from his early folk protest songs to his introspective rock & roll compositions to his Gospel period. Yet at the end of the day, despite their differences, the various limbs form one circle and it all comes back to one person – Bob Dylan.
How many roads must a man walk down
“How many roads must a man walk down
Before you can call him a man?”
And so begins one of the classic anthems of protest and hope. It is fitting that the first song covered in this article is “Blowin’ in the Wind” because that could be said to be the song that most people, even those who are not fans of Dylan, would know.
“Blowin’ in the Wind” was a song in Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which was released in 1963. However, although he wrote and composed the song, he was not the first to release it. That accolade went instead to Peter, Paul & Mary whose rendition of the song came out several months before Dylan’s.
Peter, Paul & Mary took the song to number one in the charts and subsequently into the record books as the fastest selling record in Warner Bros’ history. Then over the years, various artistes, including names such as Joan Baez, Peter Seeger, Stevie Wonder, Marianne Faithful, Chet Atkins and Bobby Darin, have performed it to different degrees of success. Yet, at the end of the day, the definitive rendition of the song belongs to Dylan. The strength of conviction in his voice more than made up for any lack of technical grace on his part.
“Blowin’ in the Wind” has lasting universal appeal mainly because its lyrics, those famous rhetorical questions, can be used for any occasion where there are important social questions to be faced. It was sung during the Civil Rights marches of the early Sixties, during the protests against the Vietnam War in the Seventies, and even today the song and the questions are still being asked –
“How many times must a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t care?”
The refrain tells us, “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.” And in its own inimitable way, it gives us hope that the long hoped for change is there waiting for us to reach up and grab it.
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
Dylan became a mainstay of the Civil Rights movement and due to the championing of his music by other musicians, most notably Joan Baez – the acknowledged queen of folk music at that time – he began to make his mark in popular culture. Incidentally, Dylan and Baez became lovers, a relationship that would end in 1964.
The early Dylan was renowned for his protest songs such as the aforementioned “Blowin’ in the Wind” and the sombre, accusative “Masters of War”. The latter was a song full of invective against military industrialists, the “masters of war” or as Dylan calls them.
“You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks.”
Although the song was written during a time of increasing concerns of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, like many of Dylan’s songs, its message still rings true today. The song may not be as celebrated as some of his other songs, it remains an important part of his repertoire. So much so that when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy’s in 1991, this was the song he performed on stage.
In 1964, Dylan released his third album, The Times They Are A-Changin’, the title track to which is another legendary Dylan anthem. However, whereas “Blowin’ in the Wind” appealed to fellow travellers, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” was directed towards the unconverted. The song contains one of Dylan’s most memorable lyrics,
“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'”
Just like “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “The Times They Are A-Changing'” is a timeless song because it is not confined to any single topical period. The song is as relevant today as it was back in the Sixties when it was first performed.
The electric shock
In 1965, during the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan did something that will shake the folk music world to its very foundations. We should bear in mind that folk music at that time was an extremely acoustic scene where the only use of electricity was in lighting the stage. And there was Dylan, Bob Dylan, the acknowledged king of folk music, the hero and idol of all folk music fans.
And in Newport 1965, Dylan went on stage and plugged an electric guitar into an amplifier and when the first electric chord rang out, it was as if a shockwave had gone through the crowd. It would not be an exaggeration that for Dylan, the king of folk music, to embrace electric – a concept that was near heretical – it was as if the Pope had renounced Christianity or the Queen had become a republican. Accounts of Newport have been divided since then. One popular tale is that Dylan was jeered off stage by the crowd who were incensed by his decision to go electric. Another is that the crowd started jeering after Dylan left the stage because he only performed three songs despite being the main attraction of the Festival.
Nevertheless, Dylan had embraced electric whole-heartedly. He believed that literally, the times were indeed changing and that acoustic was no longer a powerful medium of communication.
Yet, his change was greeted with derision by many folk fans who were unprepared for such a shift. It all culminated during his 1966 tour of the UK when he was playing at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, when an angry fan (Keith Butler) stood up and shouted “Judas!” at Dylan. Dylan responded with an angry, “I don’t believe you! You’re a liar!” Then he turned to his backing band and cried, “Play f**king loud!” and one of the most memorable renditions of “Like a Rolling Stone” stormed through the hall.
The Holy Trinity
Dylan’s decision to go electric might have stunned many of his traditional fans. Yet, as early as 1964 and the release of “Another Side of Bob Dylan”, we can see the gradual shift away from overtly folk political songs to the more surreal and introspective lyrics of his later rock period.
His songs became more up-tempo and had a more rock & roll feel to them. An example of the change can be seen in his decision to grant the Byrds the recording rights to the song “Mr. Tambourine Man” with the full knowledge that Roger McGuin and company will turn the song electric.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” was, of course, a song in his 1965 album, “Bringing It All Back Home”. The three albums he released during this time – a transitional period for him – “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited” in 1965 and then “Blonde on Blonde” in 1966 are recognised as the Holy Trinity of Dylan’s albums.
“Bringing It All Back Home” introduced the more surreal Dylan to the world with songs such as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. The final song on the album was the aptly named, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” – a title that seems to be directed at his folk fans and a reminder that the old Dylan was a thing of the past.
The double album “Blonde on Blonde” continued with the surrealism and contains some of Dylan’s best song writing including an all time crowd favourite, “Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35”, which contains the double entendre lyrics,
“Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good
They’ll stone ya just a-like they said they would.
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to go home
Then they’ll stone ya when you’re there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.”
On one hand, the term “stoning” could be interpreted to be the castigation or metaphorical stoning of Dylan by his former adherents, after he went electric. The other interpretation of the lyrics is the play on the word “stoned”, which is another term for being under the influence of marijuana.
“Blonde on Blonde” also contains one of Dylan’s most beautiful love songs, “The Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, which was written to his wife Sara Lowndes. This song was and still is stuff of pure poetry, with lyrics that few have ever matched for a love song. This was no standard fare but a much higher art involved. Just reading the lyrics itself will give one the sense that the line between popular music and literary art has been breached by Dylan,
“With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?”
I have left the second album in this trinity, “Highway 61 Revisited” to the last in the vein of leaving the best to last. And it is no hyperbole to say that that album is the jewel in Dylan’s crown. “Highway 61” has a raw edginess and power that has marked it as a legendary album. Interweaving acidic wit with surreal imagery, “Highway 61 Revisited” was a magnificent tour de force.
The first song, “Like a Rolling Stone” is truly one of the most revolutionary songs of all time and was the first song to ever breach the 3 minute mark on commercial radio. It was proclaimed to be the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, which cited, “No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time.”
The song, which was about the rise and fall of a society debutante (some say it was about Edie Sedgwick), is both vicious and demonstrates Dylan’s qualities as a verbal assassin,
“Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?”
The unknown fallen debutante is a fitting victim for Dylan’s acerbic wit. Amidst Mike Bloomfield’s guitar and Al Kooper’s majestically sonorous organ riff, we have Dylan full of sound and fury, singing as he could only sing.
The subject matter in “Like a Rolling Stone” might be anonymous, but there is little doubt about the subject of a latter song, “Queen Jane Approximately”. This brilliantly biting song sees Dylan displaying his contempt for “Queen Jane” who is painted to be a person out of touch with people while being on a “high horse”. Hence lyrics such as,
“Now when all of the flower ladies want back
what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?”
The popular belief is that the song was directed at former lover and collaborator Joan Baez, with whom Dylan fell out after his decision to go electric. “Highway 61 Revisited” was Dylan’s first completely electric album and the songs reflect the change in position. This was no longer sing-along folk music but something more personal, more introspective and yes, much more vicious and acidic than before.
But it was not all acidity, although the acidic tone of his songs were an important factor in what made the album great. There were also the quite humorous lyrics such as those found in the title track,
“Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61.”
Highway 61 – that legendary stretch of roadway that has earned a place in the mythology of American popular music and culture. For it was on and off that stretch of road that Bessie Smith met her death, where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the Devil, where Elvis Presley grew up and where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. And Dylan helps create a new mythology for the highway in his song.
In the final track, “Desolation Row”, we have, arguably, the most poetic, most surreal lyrics written by Dylan. The song was an 11 minute tapestry of what can only be called pure beauty. Dylan invites us to travel to “Desolation Row”, a place where misfits and the ostracised live. And he brings to life characters from popular culture and literature albeit with a difference. Hence we see Cinderella and Romeo falling for each other, the Good Samaritan also makes an appearance as does Ophelia for whom “death is quite romantic”.
We are introduced to Albert Einstein, not as a successful scientist, but as a bum who was living off past glories such as “playing the electric violin” when he was younger. We see the Phantom of the Opera “in the perfect image of a priest” and Casanova who is “being punished for going to Desolation Row”. Our minds are filled with images of T.S Eliot and Ezra Pound fighting with swords “while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers.”
Yet, despite the gloom of Desolation Row, it is obvious from the end of the song that Dylan has a special place in the heart for it. This can be seen in his words,
“Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can’t read too good
Don’t send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row”
Like a Rolling Stone
If Dylan had not released another album after “Highway 61 Revisited”, his legend would have been assured. Even if he were to release dross after that, it wouldn’t have mattered because that album alone was enough to earn him an exalted place in musical history. Of course, happily, he released “Blonde on Blonde” and thus completed the Holy Trinity.
Dylan since then has gone through many personal and professional changes. There was the motorcycle accident, which caused him to break his neck in 1966. Then during the late Seventies, he became a born again Christian, which saw him record songs with a distinctively religious feel. Although his songs during that period weren’t as bad as some might claim them to be, they definitely were not the Dylan that everyone knew and loved. Pastor Bob was not as good as Protest Singer Bob or Acidic Wit Bob.
Today, Bob Dylan is recognised as one of the most influential musicians, whose vision and songs touched countless artists. It is therefore ironical when we look back in the past and see, the then young man singing “A Song to Woody” in 1962,
“Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things that I’m a-sayin’ an’ a-many
times more.
I’m a-singin’ you the song, but
I can’t sing enough,
‘Cause there’s not many men that done
the things that you’ve done.”
Maybe someday, someone will have “A Song to Bobby”.
