What makes bob dylan

Because he's the most unquenchable music fan himself. Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour series may be the single most educational and amusing history lesson in 20th-century Western popular music ever curated. Because he wrote "Like a Rolling Stone", frequently voted the greatest single of all time, and a song whose seismic impact in the pop scene of was like the drawing back of a curtain. Because of the way he constantly revises his classic old material in concert.

Infuriating for some, this process of revision is a vital way of keeping the songs interesting for him, and for his audience. There's no danger that a Dylan show will just be a facsimile run-through of heritage tracks.

Because his world tour with The Hawks effectively invented rock music, as distinct from rock'n'roll: nothing that loud, and that powerful, had been heard on stage before.

Because, back in the s, just as most fans and critics were considering him washed-up and mined-out, he somehow came up with Blood on the Tracks, an indisputable classic containing some of his finest songs. He has repeated this trick many times. Because he brought an unparalleled — then and now — philosophical and artistic depth to the humble pop lyric, incorporating a wealth of literary, religious and historical references within surreal "chains of flashing images", as Allen Ginsberg described them.

And unlike his imitators, he managed to make them mean something. Because, with his last album, Together Through Life, he became the oldest performer to debut at No 1 on the US album chart, and the oldest performer to top both UK and US charts simultaneously.

Because when he wrote a protest song, it made a difference. Thanks to "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", his powerful account of the death of a poor black serving-woman at the whim of a Baltimore society blade who served a derisory sentence, the killer in question, one William Zantzinger, lived the rest of his life in bitter ignominy. Because of his nimbleness in sidestepping cultural trends. Just as Western youth was becoming obsessed with protest songs, he slipped into more personal, surreal territory; and a few years later, just as Western youth was becoming obsessed with the DayGlo paisley counter-culture which those surreal songs had helped create, he opted out of psychedelia to woodshed more rootsy material with his friends in The Band.

The resulting Basement Tapes became a trove of strange new material for others to cover, instigating both the bootlegging phenomenon and the widespread interest in what became known as "Americana".

Because, when included in Time's Most Important People of the Century, he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counter-culture generation". Because just as the world was going disco in the mids, he chose to revive the notion of a travelling gypsy revue of poets, playwrights and troubadours, the Rolling Thunder Revue, and film it as the world's most expensive home-movie, Renaldo and Clara.

Because he is the only contemporary songwriter to have one of his songs prompt a homily by the Pope. So it is: but it is not the wind that blows things away.

It is the wind that is the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, the voice that calls and says, 'Come! Because he wrote "Subterranean Homesick Blues", a condensed well-spring of social comment via catchphrase and slogan that remains one of the most compelling raps ever put to tape. Because he has on several occasions deliberately appeared to defy fans' expectations in a career-threatening manner, most notably with the double-album Self Portrait, a collection so contrary and shambolic critic Greil Marcus's opening line in his Rolling Stone review became a legendary catchphrase: "What is this shit?

Then there was the bible-thumping admonishment of his Christian period, when audiences were subjected to fire-and-brimstone sermons rather than favourite songs.

Because, if you turn the cover of John Wesley Harding upside-down and look at the bark of the tree, you'll see The Beatles vinyl only drugs optional. Because he created an entire industry of Dylanologist commentators and interpreters, way beyond the attention afforded any other songwriter or performer. Because, honouring Dylan at the Kennedy Center Honors Reception, President Clinton described him as "striking the chords of American history and infusing American popular music He probably had more impact on Because he made Bringing it All Back Home, the album on which folk music first transmuted into rock music.

Because, when Bruce Springsteen inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he said: "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body — he showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual. Because, while other artists of his generation have struggled to come close to the creative power of their youth, Dylan has found renewed strength and inspiration: the recent "trilogy" of Time Out Of Mind, Love and Theft and Modern Times is his most sustained burst of artistic potency since the mids "electric" trilogy.

Because Tom Waits called him "a planet to be explored Because just when everyone thought he was washed-up again after a terrible time in the s, he came up with Oh Mercy, one of his most atmospheric and memorable albums. But Mr. He is great because he is a great musician, and when the Nobel committee gives the literature prize to a musician, it misses the opportunity to honor a writer.

Call it a worldview: a cultural and generational movement set off in the mids that affected people in new and serious ways. Dylan — who later claimed he never wanted to lead any charge — had been crucial to this disruption. He met with derision all along: Mainstream news reporters found both his lyrics and attitude unfathomable. His audience, though, believed that the artist spoke for them, that he was confronting a stultifying world that they were trying to overcome. As a result of his influence, some who might have been authors and poets wrote popular music instead.

What made Bob Dylan such an influential figure and inventive writer? He adopted a hero and model: Oklahoma-born singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, whose ballads and political songs were remarkable enough to justify any invention.

He would throw in the sound of the last letter of a word whenever he felt like it and it would come like a punch. The songs themselves, his repertoire, were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them. Dylan wanted that for himself.

He had his eyes and ears open — not just to folk music but, in an autodidactic way, to a vast array of other influences. There was nothing synthetic about it. The godawful truth of that would be the all-encompassing template behind everything that I would write. Plus, Dylan took to the wrath and language he found in Old Testament poets and prophets. Wrath, in particular, worked well for him; it formed a frequent viewpoint in his songs, along with contempt and mistrust.

It also had the ideal chorus for the lyrics. I wanted to figure out how to manipulate and control this particular structure and form. These influences came to bear fast, as Dylan began writing his own songs.

It was as timeless as a s Scotch border ballad and as visionary as Isaiah, yet its specter of doom was immediate, in precisely the way we feared at that moment: the wasteland of a post-nuclear world.

By , Dylan had already written all the anthems he was going to write. He was restless, ready to move on to a greater purpose. Also, other influences were moving in.

Dylan realized it was possible to restyle and enliven his music. It was majestic and, at six minutes, epic: the longest single that had ever been released. There was clearly a tale — a rushing soliloquy — at work here, but not a pretty or straightforward one. The song was a condemnation, and yet in another way it spoke for both its target and the listener: It was scathing but sympathetic. Through all the changes in musical direction, which have seldom been of immediate commercial benefit, the artist follows his instincts without seeming to care in the least what anyone thinks about it.

Dylan knew he was right; the world would have to catch up…. There is truth in art. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth. There are many great songwriters, but not many can be described this way. Skip to content.

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