Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylanis an American singer-songwriter, artist and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when his songs chronicled social unrest, although Dylan repudiated suggestions from journalists that he was a spokesman for his generation. Nevertheless, early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements. After he left...
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth24 May 1941
CityDuluth, MN
Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite. It was obvious we were from the same side of town . . . the same musical family and were cut from the same cloth. I liked his version (of 'Positively 4th Street) better than mine.
Anybody can be specific and obvious. That's always been the easy way. It's not that it's so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it's just that there's nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.
She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.
Look out, kid, it's sumpin' ya did, God knows when, but you're doin' it again
When asked what his songs were about: Some are about 10 minutes long, others are about 5 or 6.
Up on Housing Project Hill It's either fortune or fame You must pick one or the other Though neither of them are to be what they claim
To bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
You know, you're on your brothers coat tails.
You have to work out where your place is. And who you are. But we're all spirit. That's all we are, we're just walking dressed up in a suit of skin, and we're going to leave that behind.
Once you think you know the song, then you have go and see how other people have done it.
A lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there's no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness.
I can picture the color of the song, or the shape of it, or who it is that I'm trying to appeal to, in the song, and what I'm trying to, almost, reinforce my feelings for. And I know that sounds sort of vague and abstract, but I've got a handle on it when I'm doing it.
There are degrees of happiness. You go from one to the other and then back again. It's hard to be completely happy when those around us are suffering and groaning from hunger.
Some of the old folk singers used to phrase things in an interesting way, and then, I got my style from seeing a lot of outdoor-type poets, who would recite their poetry. When you don't have a guitar, you recite things differently, and there used to be quite a few poets in the jazz clubs, who would recite with a different type of attitude.