# Happy Birthday Bob Dylan



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Born 24 May 1941. His songs were part of my teenage years.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

One has to look long, far, and wide for a topical song as good as this: _Hurricane_. My province of Nova Caesarea is revealed during one of its least attractive episodes. What a song!


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Dylan is still where it's at--nothing has changed: _Things Have Changed_ proves this.


----------



## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

Happy Birthday to the man who made it possible to marry intelligent lyrics with timeless hooks and who showed to the world that you don't have to have a glass-shattering voice to be considered a singer:angel:


----------



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Some great unseen photos and the story behind them

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/25/bob-dylan-75-unseen-photos-daniel-kramer


----------



## Stand The Thankless Vigil (May 23, 2016)

I shouldn't like Dylan, but I do. My favorite selection offered for your enjoyment - "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts."


----------



## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

I love Bob Dylan. I especially like his _Live 1975_ album, even better than his studio ones. Out of the studio albums though I'd have to choose _Highway 61 Revisited_, _Blonde on Blonde_, _Blood on the Tracks_ and _Desire_.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I have most of Bob Dylan's albums on CD. Couple of my favorites are John Wesley Harding and New Morning.

EDIT: Oops, forgot Self Portrait is another favourite of mine.


----------



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Dylan is kind of a paradox for me. He plays the outsider yet is in the top five most popular artists of our generation.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Harding_(album)

"In an interview with Toby Thompson[3] in 1968, Dylan's mother, Beatty Zimmerman, mentioned Dylan's growing interest in the Bible, stating that "in his house in Woodstock today, there's a huge Bible open on a stand in the middle of his study. Of all the books that crowd his house, overflow from his house, that Bible gets the most attention. He's continuously getting up and going over to refer to something."

I like this aspect about him and it really endears me to him. I just don't feel the draw yet, but maybe I will later in life, which would be fine by me. Maybe it's because I have the ground covered by people influenced by him, as well as reading the great poets, and not being particularly interested in a straight rock and roll style of music, nor straight folk (Joni Mitchell however, give me any day, I find her harmonies more interesting).

I think Dylan influences the world and attitudes more than people would think. One might posit a poet tunesmith more influenced by George Herbert, Longfellow, or others and see how that might have mixed things up a bit. I think Dylan could be so accepted perhaps because his frame of mind really isn't that different than the common man, where as a songsmith influenced by 19th Century poetry would be.

Is Dylan a bit influenced by some of Hollywood that came before him? I'm sure all these questions have been hashed out before.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm not a regular Dylan listener, but despite that fact, I've collected quite a few of his albums over the years from Freewheelin', and Bringing It All Back Home, 70s classics Blood On The Tracks and Slow Train Coming, and his 80s classics Oh Mercy, and Infidels.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

In my view, Dylan is the pre-eminent lyricist of our time, deriving much of his approach to telling a story or describing a scene from the same literary roots as drove or characterized the great 19th-century American authors, particularly Melville: the King James Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Whitman also is a powerful influence on Dylan. The King James and Shakespeare provide examples of unorthodox (for popular music lyrics) ways of expressing/describing events and personae; Whitman provides the example and rationale for the hyperbole. Songs like _Idiot Wind_ and _When the Ship Comes In_, and of course _All Along the Watchtower_ provide perfect examples of this "inflated" and hyperbolic language of Dylan that makes his songs so uniquely wonderful.


----------



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

He is without a doubt my male desert island artist. Female would be Joni Mitchell. Jazz would be Ornette Coleman. Classical would be Glenn Gould. I know, I digress!


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Barbebleu said:


> He is without a doubt my male desert island artist. Female would be Joni Mitchell. Jazz would be Ornette Coleman. Classical would be Glenn Gould. I know, I digress!


Not a bad foursome to sail off with!


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

After Dylan, would be Neil Young, nearly as much the poet as Dylan.

A shame the two didn't ever perform together.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The albums_ Live at Budokan _ (great solos and typical atmosphere) and _Time Out Of Mind_ (dark and fragile) have been my favourites so far.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Florestan said:


> After Dylan, would be Neil Young, nearly as much the poet as Dylan.
> 
> A shame the two didn't ever perform together.


Young's archival release, Massey Hall 1971 is a stunner.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Florestan said:


> After Dylan, would be Neil Young, nearly as much the poet as Dylan.
> 
> A shame the two didn't ever perform together.


We can fix that: 1992 tribute concert, _My Back Pages....._

https://www.theguardian.com/music/v...-my-back-pages-30th-anniversary-concert-video


----------



## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Dunno how I missed this about old Bob. Incredible songwriter. Lately I've been listening to what we Bobcats call ModBob. The later years. Anything from Time Out of Mind through to Tempest. Skipping the Sinatra stuff. Tempest has some really intense songs. Angry and descriptive, the usual Bob stuff when he's on great form. I have several favourite songs from this 19 year period that's really still all the one period. My top five? Gee, ya made me blush!

Impossible to choose only five! :lol:

But there are songs which stack up easily against, or with, anything he ever wrote:

Love Sick
Standing In the Doorway
Trying to Get to Heaven
Not Dark Yet
Highlands (all from Time Out of Mind)
Mississippi
Summer Days
Lonesome Day Blues
Highwater
Honest With Me (Love & Theft)
Spirit on the Water
Nettie Moore 
Ain't Talkin' (Modern Times)
Narrow Way
Long and Wasted Years
Pay in Blood
Scarlet Town
Tin Angel
Tempest (Tempest)

All these, plus Cross the Green Mountain, Tell Old Bill, and more. He's gone into a grizzled old countrified civil war gent mode, snarling and twirling his angry cane at the world, while also singing some gorgeous ballads, like the exceptional Nettie Moore, which might be the best song I've heard from anybody, in a long time. I wonder when (or if) we'll ever get a new album of original songs. He's written so many already it seems churlish to want more. I'm not a fan of these nostalgic late night crooner stuff he's thrown at us recently. But who can blame him, right? He's seventy fricking five! And still touring. Incredible!


----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Happy Birthday Bob. Thank you. And keep on keepin' on.


----------

