Bob Dylan‘s significance for the music industry based on the selected songs and focussing on the years 1965–1975

Table of Contents

Introduction

Biography of Bob Dylan

Influence on the music industry before 1965

Analysing Like a Rolling Stone: The invention of folk rock

Electric Dylan controversy

Redefining what can be said: A lyrical point-of-view

Tangled Up in Blue from Blood on the Tracks: Decoding a Bob Dylan song

Conclusions

Bibliography

Attachment

Introduction

Bob Dylan has released thirty-eight studio albums, which, until today, have sold over 120 million copies around the world.¹

On October 13, 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature ‘‘for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition‘‘.² Sara Danius, the Swedish Academy‘s permanent secretary, drew parallels between his work and that of ancient Greek poets and stated that Dylan ‘‘is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition‘‘.³ Besides that, he has been awarded the French Legion of Honor, a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, a doctorate from Scotland‘s University of St. Andrews, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.⁴ When Bruce Springsteen introduced Bob Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, he said: ‘‘When I was 15and I heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ I heard a guy who had the guts to take on the whole world and who made me feel like I had to too.‘‘⁵

This paper should provide a better view on the influence Bob Dylan had on the music industry, focusing on the years 1965 – 1975, while answering the questions of why he became an important figure in music. For this term paper, it’s important that the reader listens to the two analyzed and described songs Like a Rolling Stone from from the album Highway 61 Revisited and Tangled Up in Blue from the album Blood on the Tracks at least once, to be able to comprehend the conclusions and thoughts. Furthermore it is not necessary to be familiar with technical terms, since they will all get described within the paper.

However, this term paper can only cover the most important facts in a compressed way, due to the maximal length of twelve pages. In addition, the two songs could only be analyzed briefly by picking out parts from the lyrics and covering the most important and interesting facts.

Nuances regarding the subject, such as other musicians, songs and genres Dylan had influence on between 1965 to 1975, as well as a detailed view on his other albums, had to be left out.

Biography of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, born as Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, is an American singer-songwriter who has been active in the music industry for more than five decades. Dylan‘s musical genres are considered to be folk, blues, rock, gospel, country and pop standards.⁶

His paternal grandparents emigrated from Odessa, Russia to the United States, while his maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews who emigrated to the United States in 1902.⁷ Bob Dylan started making music and played in a band when he was in high school. In his Nobel Prize lecture, Dylan remembered that, at the age of 17, he went to a Buddy Holly concert and described that day as one of the most influental days regarding his career as a musician:

‘‘He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn‘t know what. and it gave me the chills.‘‘.⁸ Therefore Bob Dylan’s first major influence, before be became a real musician, was Buddy Holly, just a few days before his plane crashed, known as The Day the music died.⁹

Influenced by blues and country music through radio stations in his youth, as well as folk singers like Dave Van Ronk and Fred Neil, Dylan started playing at small clubs around Greenwich Village.¹⁰ While being able to play at different clubs during 1961, Dylan was able to befriend with the singer Carolyn Hester, which lead to a feature with Bob Dylan on her third Album.¹¹ Dylan caught the attention of the album‘s producer John Hammond, who signed him to Columbia Records. His self-titled Album has been released in 1962 at the age of 20.¹² However, the release of the 1963 album ‘‘The Freewheelin‘ Bob Dylan‘‘ has been considered as his breakthrough in the music industry. Through the years Bob Dylan would become known as a ‘‘protest‘‘ singer, due to songs like Blowin‘ in the Wind (1963), The Times They Are a-Changin (1964) and Hurricane (1976) , although he never saw himself as a protest singer in any form. ¹³ After a motorcycle accident in 1966, that has been considered as very impactful in Dylans life, he refused to tour for eight years.¹⁴ Influenced by politics, philosophy, social and literary, he would keep making music for more than six decades and has toured with his Band since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed as the The Never Ending Tour, followed by many awards and prizes. The magazine Time 100 described him as an ‘‘Master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit oft he counterculture generation.‘‘.¹⁵

Influence on the music industry before 1965

Bob Dylan was the name of Dylan’s debut studio album, released on March 19, 1962 and published by Columbia Records. The album hasn’t been considered a widely success and only sold 5,000 copies in the first year. ¹⁶ However, he already earned a reputation among other musicians as a strong songwriter and powerful talent, even when his first album only contained two original songs.¹⁷ Then, one year later on January 13, 1963, Dylan released his album The Freewheelin‘ Bob Dylan with eleven out of thirteen original compositions. On this album, Dylan dealed with stories about the civil rights movements throughout the country, while also opening up on his anxiety about the fear of a nuclear warfare. ¹⁸ Especially because of this album, Dylan had been considered as a major artist, not only in the folk circuit, but as a musician in general.¹⁹ In 1964, Dylan released The Times They Are a-Changin, his third studio album. It is an acoustic folk album with only his original compositions, that deals with racism, poverty and social change, but without so much of the humor from his previous album. ²⁰ While the title track is one of Dylan’s most famous songs, the album itself hasn’t been marked as a big leap forward from The Freewheelin‘ Bob Dylan by fans and critics. ²¹ However many say that Dylan was able to capture the spirit of the social and political turmoil at this time.

Bob Dylan’s fourth and last studio album before 1965 has been called Another Side of Bob Dylan and was released on August 8, 1964, just 7 month after his last album. Dylan changed his style with this album significantly; He moved away from his socially conscious style, which included a reflection of politics and civil rights movements, and wrote more graceful, poetic and layered tracks, such as It Ain’t Me Babe and Chimes Of Freedom.²² The music genre of the album was still considered as folk and Dylan wrote deeper and more personl lyrics than ever before, tried out more things with his instruments, e.g. using a piano to his acoustic guitar and harmonica, and with his music overall, providing a steppingstone for his upcoming experimenting albums

Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965. Despite of the criticism for moving away from his old style, Another Side of Bob Dylan has been widely accepted, not just by his folk fans, but by the music industry overall.²³

Analysing Like a Rolling Stone: The invention of folk rock

Highway 61 Revisited is Bob Dylan’s sixth studio album and was released on August 30, 1965, 5 month after his last album Bringing It All Back Home. Highway 61 Revisited combined the two music genres folk rock and rock and roll. After Dylan‘s first experiments with electric instruments on the last album, Dylan hired for Highway 61 Revisited a full rock and roll band, including guitarist Michael Bloomfield.²⁴ The first track is called Like a Rolling Stone, a six minute long song that has been considered by the Rolling Stone magazine as the greatest song of all time: ‘‘No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time.‘‘²⁵

To understand why this song gets praised so much, it is important to know its roots in the music genre. Folk music, in its earlierst form, includes traditional folk music, reaching back to the earliest times when humans began to make music in communities. In the 19th century europe, academics tried to preserve old traditional music by collecting ballads and notes that reach back as far as to the 16th century.²⁶ American folk music has no origin, can not be pinned down to one exact time or musician. Therefore, american folk music includes numerous music genres and contributed to the development of country, jazz, rock and roll and more. From early on, folk music has been from and for the people, without entertainment or profit purposes.²⁷ Then, in the 20th century, folk music experienced a revival, called the American folk-music revival, due to musicans like Woody Guthrie and Oscar Brand. ²⁸ The revival had its peak in the 1960s, which lead to folk rock, a fusion of folk music and rock and roll, pushed forward by Bob Dylan and a band called the Byrds ²⁹, who famously covered Dylan‘s Mr. Tambourine Man. This movement should have been a response to the musicians who came over from Britain, such as the Beatles and the Who, who had a big influence on the folk community.³⁰ Coming back to Bob Dylan’s single Like A Rolling Stone, it was Dylan’s first song that included rock and roll, together with electric instruments, stepping out of his iconic acoustic folk sound at this time and opening the door for him being a rock star.³¹ Besides that, the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 has been marked as the day in which Dylan went officially electric. Like A Rolling Stone had been released five days earlier, which lead to an audience that had no idea what to expect and to one of the biggest controversies for Dylan himself.³²

Electric Dylan controversy

Bob Dylan was 24 years old when he played at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965 and for the first time, he had an electric guitar in his hands. He wanted to present a sample of new electric songs, some from his old album, some from the at this time upcoming album Highway 61 Revisited. The booing from the fans started when Dylan played the song Maggie’s Farm from Bringing It All Back Home, but the situation got uncomfortable for him when he started playing Like a Rolling Stone, a mixture of booing and chants of ‘‘Sellout!‘‘ almost drowned the music. ³³ Dylan saw nothing wrong with his music, especially because other musicians used electric instruments in the past.³⁴ While some people stated different reasons for why the fans were booing, for example due to bad sound quality and the short duration of the songs, some people were undeniably upset about the way Dylan played his songs.³⁵ The problems came with the expacations from his folk fans.

At this time, Dylan had a reputation as a protest singer and has been considered by some people as the Voice of a generation, a title, that he never liked:

‘‘You feel like an impostor when someone thinks you’re something and you’re not.‘‘³⁶ said Dylan in an interview. At this time, Dylan did what not a lot of other musicians did in the past, he changed his style completely and did not bother to have any excuses for this, especially because he always liked to experiment with his music. That’s why the Newport Folk Festival was so important, Dylan pushed electric rock, combined with his poetry, more than anyone before and may have lost a lot of his once original folk fans, but gained a big group of rock and roll fans as well, which lead to all of his three albums from 1965 and 1966 being in the Top Ten of the charts.³⁷ When Dylan played a concert on May 17, 1966, right before he started to play Like a Rolling Stone, someone in the audience shouted ‘‘Judas!‘‘, to which Dylan replied: ‘‘I don’t believe you, you’re a liar.‘‘, he turned around to his band and said ‘‘Play fuckin‘ loud!‘‘. ³⁸

[...]

¹ Cf. Bob Dylan, 2017, The Nobel Lecture, p. 25.

² Laura Smith-Spark, 2016, Bob Dylan wins 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.

³ Laura Smith Spark, 2016.

⁴ Bob Dylan, The Nobel Lecture, p. 25.

⁵ Andy Greene, 2015, Bob Dylan Recorded ‘Like a Rolling Stone‘ 50 Years Ago Today.

⁶ Cf. Mick gold, 2005, Bob Dylan.

⁷ Cf. Mick gold.

⁸ Bob Dylan, The Nobel Lecture, 2017, p. 2.

⁹ Cf. History.com Editors, 2010, The day the music died.

¹⁰ Cf. Mick gold.

¹¹ Cf. Mick Gold.

¹² Cf. Bruce Eder, 2016, Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan.

¹³ Cf. Ben Corbett, 2017, Bob Dylan Timeline.

¹⁴ Cf. Ben Corbett.

¹⁵ Cf. Jay Cocks, 2014, Bob Dylan, the folk musician.

¹⁶ Cf. Mick Gold, 2005, Bob Dylan.

¹⁷ Cf. Todd Leopold, 2015, Bob Dylan, in the beginning.

¹⁸ Cf. Mick Gold, 2008, The Freewheelin‘ Bob Dylan.

¹⁹ Cf. Ben Corbett, 2017, Bob Dylan Timeline.

²⁰ Cf. DesolationRow, 2006, Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-Changin‘.

²¹ Cf. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, 2016, The Times They Are A-Changin‘.

²² Cf. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, 2016, Another Side of Bob Dylan.

²³ Cf. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, 2015, Another Side of Bob Dylan.

²⁴ Cf. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, 2015, Highway 61 Revisited.

²⁵ Rolling Stone Magazine, 2011, 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

²⁶ Cf. Emma, 2018, History of Folk Music.

²⁷ Cf. Kim Ruehl, 2018, The History of American Folk Music.

²⁸ Cf. Kim Ruehl.

²⁹ Cf. Kim Ruehl, 2018, Folk Rock 101.

³⁰ Cf. Kim Ruehl, Folk Rock 101.

³¹ Cf. History Editors, 2009, Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

³² Cf. History Editors.

³³ Cf. Ben Corbett, 2018, Bob Dylan Goes Electric.

³⁴ Cf. Ben Corbett.

³⁵ Cf. History Editors, Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

³⁶ Ed Bradley, 2004, Bob Dylan gives rare interview.

³⁷ Cf. Richie Unterberger, 2010, Folk-Rock: An Overview.

³⁸ Cf. Uncut, 2005, Bob Dylan – Liket A Rolling Stone.