portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

MAESTRO Speaks! Bob Dylan on his place in the pantheon!?


Bob Dylan, The Rolling Thunder Revue, 1975 © Ken Regan. 

"I don’t consider myself a songwriter in the sense of Townes Van Zandt or Randy Newman. I’m not Paul Simon. I can’t do that. 


My songs come out of folk music and early rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s it. I’m not a classical lyricist, I’m not a meticulous lyricist.


I don’t write melodies that are clever or catchy. It’s all very traditionally documented..."

[Bob Dylan]


I’m sorry!? Does anyone have a clue as to what he means here? If he ain’t one of the finest songwriters who ever lived I’ll eat my fedora!



 . . . . . . . . Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,

The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,

Let me forget about today until tomorrow. . . . . . . . . 

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