THE FIVE GREAT MYTHS ABOUT BOB DYLAN’S PLACE IN HISTORY
A (RELATIVELY) SHORT SUMMATION
IN this age of excess information, it is hard enough to process a musical career spanning sixty years. With an artist who would have been a legend even if he had vanished at the age of 25 but is still going strong in his eightieth year, it becomes even more complicated. Not surprisingly, there are quite a few misrepresentations on Bob Dylan that have got perpetuated with time, as no one in any mainstream space ever seems to address them.
Below are the five most prominent myths about Bob Dylan as far as his stature as an artist goes, amongst non-fans or casual listeners especially — the far larger number that continuously is increasing in social media times. At least four of these myths can be objectively addressed with fact and reason playing their part. And the fifth one perhaps provides a different perspective. For committed Dylan fans, some of this may seem superfluous, and yet, these commonly-held inaccurate views by thin-slicers and even selective deep-divers, continue to thrive. Hence, this attempt, in the hope that coming to the music from a slightly different angle these perspectives may provide, might bring in more appreciation for music we’re hugely fortunate to have co-existed with in these times.
MYTH ONE: HE IS A FOLK SINGER.
The epithet “folkie” or “folk musician” is used a lot in Dylan’s context, even in the media, where people should really know better. This is highly misleading because Dylan was a folk musician for only the first four years of his life as an artist (1961–1965). Given that he is now in his sixtieth year as a performing artist, that’s just one-fifteenth of his career.
In fact, as a recording artist, it was for 3 years (March 1962-March 1965), which ended when he released his fifth album Bringing It All Back Home — half of which was “electrified” (used electric guitar in the arrangements, which is a departure from what is considered “Folk music”). So, only four of his albums, out of the 39 he has done, contained original Folk material from him. (Two other albums in the 1990s had Folk covers on them).
That should be way too small a proportion to define him as a “folk musician”. In fact, Dylan left the folk firmament at the age of 24 because he felt he had outgrown it — not just the “one dimensional” and “static” musical part of it, but the attendant activist status thrust upon it. He would never come back to it with any degree of sustainability.
So, to call him a “folk musician” is ignorant, lazy and frankly, given the large range in his work, insulting.
MYTH TWO: HE WAS RELEVANT ONLY IN THE 1960S AND 1970S.
Dylan entered the world more or less fully-formed. By the age of 22, he had become a Folk legend — three of his four Folk albums are classics even now (and the acoustic B side of the next one as well). Dylan famously “went electric” in 1965 and transformed rock music very quickly to unimaginable levels in the next two albums. His foray into acoustic Americana and then Country music both produced classics as well, before the first decade of his career got over (in between, he also did the music with The Band that would release as The Basement Tapes a few years later). This level of sustained quality and repeated reinvention is unprecedented in any art form at any time in human history. Though fashionable, to avoid committing to an absolute is just lazy or cowardly in this case.
Engaged in harmonious domesticity, he had a dip then (only in terms of consistency), in the early/mid-1970s, which was blown out of proportion for the sustained and hardly believable run he had had till then (which, now with the distance of time, suggests audience delusion, even if somewhat understandable). Ironically, he came back to roaring form with a “break-up” album, 1975’s Blood On The Tracks, considered his finest album by many even now. This was followed by four albums of sustained quality in that decade, even if varying sensibilities (which threw many people off). His reputation and stock, as the pre-eminent singer-songwriter alive, was very secure as the 1970s drew to a close.
Those two early decades did have Dylan at his peak, that is indisputable, but the fact of the matter also is that he redefined the music of its time in the four decades thereafter as well, because of one simple reason — he was always fiercely committed to the present. His objective has always been to be as authentic as he can be in that moment. This means that Dylan has always sung his age, always sought to capture his own feelings, where’s he’s at, within the zeitgeist — he is the only artist in rock history, perhaps in the history of all music, who has consistently sung from the prism of his advancing years — turning forty can be heard in his songs, as can having a mid-life crisis or two (or three), getting out of that gradually, a distinct world-weariness, dealing with middle-age, bad health and finally, the playfulness and perspective of old age. All of this is not merely discernible in his work, they define it. No other artist in contemporary music has been so vividly in the present as Dylan, and for such a long time.
Never nostalgic or sentimental, not in the least bit interested in being “cool”, at the cost of his integrity, to the paying youth or even his own faithful fans - the weight of living, in all its colours, has informed every note he has sung, every song he has written. Every step he has taken in this context has been unchartered territory for rock music, indeed popular music, in any genre. This is an idea not many seem to wrap around their heads.
To say that it is more meaningful to listen to newer artists than Dylan in the twenty-first century (as some do) is like saying only the young have something relevant to say, and the perspective of older people is not valuable. In real life, it is usually exactly the opposite, so why is this different in the Arts?
Today, it is hard to imagine the explosion of the music industry in the decade that followed the mid-1970s. More genres came alive and took root in public consciousness than at any other time before that or since. It was impossible for any artist to stay relevant for too long in that rapidly churning sea of change. Dylan struggled with that in the early-1980s, despite writing some of the greatest songs of his career (“Every Grain of Sand”, “Jokerman”, “Blind Willie McTell”, etc). His album consistency was gone though (which in today’s playlist times would have been irrelevant) and it affected Dylan deeply. He was convinced he had burnt-out and lost his powers permanently. He was seriously considering retirement by the mid-1980s.
The output that resulted from him coming out of that creative crisis in 1989 (an elaborate account here) constituted the strongest bunch of songs he recorded in a single project in the last 45 years — one of the greatest stories in modern music, that hasn’t really been told enough. No artist before or since then has dealt with that crisis directly in this medium. And just a decade later, his most feted later day album — 1997’s Time Out Of Mind, had the 56-year-old muse about mortality in a way absolutely no one had done before (and again, has done since). Fittingly, Dylan’s new century song (that won the Oscar for “Best Original Song”) was called “Things Have Changed”, as he turned sixty the following year and completely reinvented himself as a recording artist and performer — a phase that has now lasted twenty years.
During this phase, Dylan has released five albums of original material (with a lot of playful material, a clear nod to his phase in life) — a far cry from the consistency and prolificacy of his youth but at least three of these albums are considered classics (and one pretty close to it), without even accounting for the unchartered thematic territory these albums mine. He hasn’t just broken new ground; he is the only one to walk these grounds relentlessly and with such individuality. Take the 2020 release “Murder Most Foul” that released at the beginning of the pandemic — this is not a younger person’s song, it is not even a middle-aged person’s sensibility. But a strange life summation of such vision and clarity that words really are superfluous, as the song actually went on to demonstrate.
MYTH THREE: HE IS A BAD SINGER.
It really depends on what singing means to you. Is it about euphony and technical proficiency? Or could it be about emotional charge, distinct personality and a character for which it is perfect casting? Is it about virtuoso power or pure authenticity?
Since Dylan doesn’t exactly sing out-of-tune or off-pitch, and has a distinct timbre and projection with an absolutely unique approach to phrasing, he obviously cannot be dismissed technically as a singer. It really comes down to prettiness and pleasantness then, both of which are qualities that are not seen as essential to a lot of great art; in fact, they positively are seen as obstacles in some cases.
Taking the thought forward that Dylan has always sung his age and been single-mindedly committed to his present rather than his past body of work (which he has always reinvented through the prism of his present), his vocals provide the most compelling evidence of it. Through the years, his voice kept changing and he musically adjusted his expectations from it to keep himself intact as a performer. This included adjusting the music around his vocals too, so it often dictated his choice of material and musical direction. This is perhaps the most prominent reason why Dylan has never performed any song the same way twice, neither in the studio nor live, and still doesn’t.
In the end, intellectualisation cannot make one appreciate any kind of art any more than it can make someone like a certain foodstuff. Either the emotional power of Dylan’s vocals gets through to you, or goes above you. But an open mind can help sometimes to see things a bit differently; that can make all the difference.
MYTH FOUR: HIS LIVE SHOWS HAVE BEEN A MESS FOR A WHILE.
It is not a coincidence that Dylan has not officially released a single live album since 1995’s MTV Unplugged (recorded in 1994).
His declining voice in the 1990s pushed him to rethink his musical directions, making him first go back to his roots. So, he did two back-to-back cover albums of Folk standards, perhaps to regain his voice in some way. That phase culminated with 1997’s Time Out Of Mind, which also benefited from the thematic hook of being a mortality album, so the expectation from listeners diving in was focused and specific, and the songs in the album delivered on that. (He did exactly the same thing in the decade just gone by; after starting it with an outstanding album — Tempest in 2012 - albeit with a palpably declining voice, he released three back-to-back albums of covers that delved into the American songbook for the next few years. It was as if he was getting his mojo back again as a singer, getting his voice back to speed for a special effort. And that manifested last year, staggeringly the best-reviewed album of his career, at the age of 79.)
But, at the beginning of the century, his live shows had somewhat been in shambles, given his rapidly declining vocals. He had to reinvent himself to survive. This reinvention is one of the most remarkable stories in music history (as is his average of 100 shows a year, every year, in the last two decades — this is unreal) — as if on cue, around the retirement age of sixty, Dylan recrafted his sound with his band in a way that his vocals within the performance had flexibility. But this also meant that the reinterpretations of his older songs were even more radical than before, which led to fans looking for faithful versions (always the majority) feeling let down. It hasn’t helped that sometimes it takes almost up to a minute to even figure out which famous song he is performing, given how much of a musical departure it appears to be. This invariably leads to a lot of angst among many fans, for whom those songs constitute a barometer to their past.
But for those who can simply look at the events unfolding in front of them as someone within his physical limitations striving for something fresh with the kind of charge not many have the stomach to reach out for, regardless of age or physical condition, there is a lot on offer. The familiarity of the songs is just a hook then, not the point of the performance. Suddenly, with this understanding, the seeming distortion may seem much more like reinvention, as is intended.
As the artist who perhaps moved the idea of beauty away from the notion of prettiness more than any other in history, in any medium, Dylan is now redefining what can be done with the muse despite every limitation that time affects, without sentimentality or nostalgia. His twenty-first century live performances are perhaps the best example of that.
MYTH FIVE: HIS GREATNESS RESIDES ONLY IN HIS LYRICS.
There is no doubt that Dylan’s most unique contribution was to bring a certain literary sensibility and approach to the popular song, and expanding its scope with his own influences: classicist poetry at first, then the Beats and the symbolists (Rimbaud remained a big influence for a long time) in a manner no one before or since has done. He changed the preoccupation of the popular song and redefined its boundaries, bringing it closer to literature than any other artist. But he only really saw himself as a poet in his early years, before he recognised rock music as his true art form, and the secondary status of words in a medium where emotional resonance was the point. Serving the music through words became his dominant preoccupation, not the other way around.
The Nobel citation seems to perfectly acknowledge this as it specifically praises him for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” This is different from the only other songwriter who has won the Nobel — Rabindranath Tagore, whose 1913 song lyrics translated to English never had the panel considering the context of song but as verse on paper, meant to be read (as his citation says — “his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the west”). In any case, while it had huge impact in Bengal, Tagore’s music meant (and means) nothing to most people outside that region, leave alone India, nor did his music ever really transcend its form, like Dylan’s did, several times. And that is not merely because of the universality Dylan’s language gave him.
No one else in musical history comes close to what Dylan did — using a unique approach to words to change an art form repeatedly. Words as a means, not an end, but still crucial in their import, thus changing the contours of his art form with words despite words not being the point. That is why those words are less notable as autonomous poetry or catchy phrases than as hooks and navigation points for the song as a whole, rhythmically and thematically. They’re vehicles for feeling, not carriers of literal meaning — the feeling is the meaning.
Dylan recently offered the analogy of a painting in the context of his songs, where you can’t take it in all at once if you get too close. Perhaps focussing on lyrics is standing too close, its piecemeal pleasures notwithstanding. Again, Dylan himself has never hidden the fact that a lot of those words fall into place because of how they sound rather than what they mean. It is not inconceivable then to even go as far as to say that, if the familiar words were not lodged in listeners’ heads, many of his famous lines could perhaps be interchanged with others (provided they had the same gravity within that spot), and no one would really miss them, given the weight of that sensibility. It’s not the words themselves that are indispensable; in song, their power lie elsewhere.
It’s rather like many famous films remembered for the performances of their lead actors (many of whom may not even have been first-choice actors during casting). But were they the most indispensable elements in the film? Or were the script and the director far more intrinsic in that context?
It is worth recounting again — no musical artist ever has traversed such a vast range over such a long period creating songs of such longevity that are stamped with instantly-recognisable individuality, and have such impact, beyond his own art form. Here is a quick and very selective primer — 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985/6, 1989, 1994, 1997, 1997/2001, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2020…there are other classics that could represent any of his periods and demonstrate an even greater range. Moreover, within that oeuvre of 600-plus songs, have been dozens of unreleased classics that were put out as novelties later — unlike any other artist in music history — here are three examples from 1976, 1983 and 1989.
Simply put, Bob Dylan is the greatest creator of songs in human history. Not just in the last century or the Modern Age, but all time. Not “one of the greatest” but absolutely pre-eminent, in a place comprehensively his own. Like Shakespeare’s is in history, or Picasso’s. So, as it stands currently, Dylan is the world’s greatest living artist. When he passes, given his massive global impact (that doesn’t get spoken of enough on more normal days), he will, in all probability, be the most mourned individual in human history (at the time of passing in terms of pure numbers). But hopefully, that hour of passing is still some way off as every musical step Dylan takes now is unchartered territory, through the prism of advancing age, constantly expanding cumulative human consciousness.
Immortality, as we understand it, may be gradually becoming impossible in a world getting rapidly defined by the vanity project that is social media. It is not enough to be grateful that our lives have intersected somewhat with Bob Dylan’s but also that he wasn’t born later (the idea of being born ahead of one’s time has actually been reversed by this generation). Individuality and originality find it much harder to break through in this low-attention-span era; someone of Dylan’s calibre would find it next to impossible to start up now. And yet, Dylan’s musical seeking at every stage of human life will always stay relevant regardless of historical era, for those who choose to reach out for it.
Jaideep Varma
February 2021
(Some of the points above and some others elaborated here, and if you are a masochist with your time, here too.)