Bob Dylan is a man that needs no introduction, He was a poet with a guitar who brought poetic interest back to the younger generations. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24th 1941, no one saw him coming. Dylan started his music career upon dropping out of college and moving to New York, After reading his musical icon, Woody Guthrie's partially fictionalized autobiography, “Bound for Glory”, where he changed his name and began performing in Greenwich emulating his idol. He was given a 5 year contract by Columbia Records in 1961 and Bob Dylan released his first album in 1962 which consisted of mostly cover songs and only two original works. This was just the beginning of the rolling stone that is Bob Dylan, and how he forever changed and left such an influential impact on popular music.
Bob Dylan's second album, released in 1963, shone as the metaphorical light on the path, presented as one of the most original and poetic works of art in American music history, which included two of the most memorable folk song, “Blowin' in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall”. This is the beginning of using music as a means of Mass Communication. “Blowin' in the Wind” asks rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom. And as of 2004's, Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of all Time, it was ranked number 14. With an opening line of “How many roads must a man walk down?” asking the ultimate question, that in its self is widely interpretable. Speaking to such an audience symbolically, presenting such a simple device. He covers an infinite range of topics not just peace, war and freedom, but a variety of basic rules of life. Work, marriage and to the younger generations, sex, drugs and even the standard model of going to school to go to u...
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Callaway, J., 2013. The language and influences of the early Bob Dylan. Oxford Dictionaries. Available from: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/05/bob-dylan/
Cott, J., 2006. Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews. Wenner Books.
Krerowicz, A., 2013. Bob Dylan's Influence on The Beatles. Aaron Kreriwucz. Available From: http://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/1/post/2013/02/bob-dylans-influence-on-the-beatles.html
Marniucci, S., 2011. Bob Dylan's influence on the Beatles showed the times they were a changin'. Examiner. Available From: http://www.examiner.com/article/bob-dylan-s-influence-on-the-beatles-showed-the-times-they-were-a-changin
Scorsese, M., 2005. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Paramount Pictures.
Pennebaker, D.A., 1967. Don't Look Back. Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
In Dylan’s Chronicles Volume One, he says, “folk songs are evasive – the truth about life, and life is more or less a lie, but then again that’s exactly the way we want it to be. We wouldn’t be comfortable with it any other way.” He goes on to also confirm the ambiguity of folk music, saying that “[a] folk song has over a thousand faces and you must meet them all if you want to play this stuff. A folk song might vary in meaning and it might not appear the same from one moment to the next. It depends on who’s playing and who’s listening” (71). One of the characteristics that Bob Dylan possesses, and that has helped him be such a successful folk artist, is his ability to recognize this ambiguity. His ears were and still are immune to the literalness of time, and upon hearing something new, he can apply what he does not know to his listening, instead of confining his interpretation to what knowledge he already has. This is the basis for what folk music taught Dylan in some of his most formative years, that “[i]f you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that’s still well and good” (35). Even old folk legends are unclear in their origin and factuality, such as the widel...
When first reading the reader is met with a dedication before the story begins, “To Bob Dylan.” Though it seems like a silly dedication by a simple fan of his work it is actually apparent once reading the story that the influence of Bob Dylan added an extra layer. Joyce Carol
After being labeled the king of folkie/protest, Dylan began to rebel against the rebellion. Dylan’s fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, likely refers to his romantic and whimsical side, or anything that rebels from his folk label. This album is also unique in its experimentation with free form poetry in the lyrics. In February 1964, Dylan embarked on a trip across the U.S. to “find enough inspiration to step beyond the folk-song form, if not in the bars, or from the miners, then by peering deep into himself” (Another Side of Bob Dylan). He wrote the songs for this album in the back of the minivan, and recorded 14 of them in one night at the studio.
Bob Dylan recorded the song ‘The Times They are changing’ that was written in 1963, just before the public began to disapprove of Americas involvement in the Vietnam war, In the lines of this song bob Dylan says “There is a battle outside and its raging, it will soon shake your windows, rattle your wall “referencing to the Vietnam war. He goes even further saying “Come mothers and fathers, throughout the land, and don’t criticize, what you can’t understand, your sons and daughters are beyond your command. Dylan is trying to express the frustration and anger at how many parents sons and daughter were sent off to war.
Edwards, Christopher. "Down The Foggy Ruins Of Time: Bob Dylan And The Concept Of Evidence." Teaching History 140 (2010): 56-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 May 2014.
...um and Luhrssen). Dylan’s music was a factor in the revolution that took place in the 1960s for thousands of people. Not only was Dylan a major influence on American society, but also on other musicians of that era (the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and the Rolling Stones) and eras to come.
Bob Dylan was considered one of the greatest influences on popular culture of all time, and though influential, Bob Dylan’s rise to idol status in popular culture was more brought about by historical factors, his life was affected by many historical events including, The Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination and the civil rights movement, to name a few. His songs became known as protest songs, despite Bob Dylan’s apparent lack of understanding for the meanings the public attached to his writing.
middle of paper ... ... to American History. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. Goodman, Dean. “Dylan fans get tangled up in academic views,” Reuters (1998): February, p. PG.
In 1959 he left for college, but instead of consentrating on his studies he devoted himself to his music. He sang wherever he could, his performance style, a nasal tone with annunciation problems sometimes drew applause while other times critisism, yet this would later became his trademark sound. It was also around this time when he began performing with a guitar and harmonica. It was during his performing days in Dinkytown that the young Bob Zimmerman first began using Bob Dylan as his stage name. No clear reason can be assertained for the choice of Dylan. Whatever its source, the name gave him a public image distinct from his Jewish heritage, enhancing his already growing career.
"Rock and Roll's Influence." The Impacts of Rock and Roll Music on American Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
Kidder, Rushworth M. Dylan Thomas: The Country of the Spirit. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984. 94, 187-190, 197.
he stands as a legend. But he knows there is more to it than just
Robert Allen Zimmerman, A.K.A. Bob Dylan, was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Mississippi to Abram and Beatty Zimmerman. At a young age it became very apparent that Dylan had an amazing musical gifted. By the age of nineteen Dylan could play the harmonica, piano, and guitar. While growing up, his friends and siblings would have classified Dylan as a “loner”. Though Dylan kept to his-self as a child, he had very big dreams and ambitions. Dylan longed to be more successful than one of his heroes, Elvis Presley. In a way Dylan achieved his goal. He became iconic. Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard were just some of the artists who gave Dylan his drive. He would later go on to schoo...
Dylan calls on the American government to 'Please heed the call' which shows that in the beginning, respect and persuasion will be used. The next two lines begin 'Don't'; which indicates a stronger will and mind set. 'For he that gets hurt/Will be he who is stalled,'; illustrates that if there is resistance to young people's ideas against the war in Vietnam, the idea of free love and the distaste for accepted social structures, that peace may not be an option. Dylan goes as far as to say 'There's a battle outside/And its ragin/it'll soon shake your windows/and ra...
The war polarized the country and music reflected that polarization. “Rock music was forever linked to the ferment of social change and widespread dissent against American actions and social conditions that violated the nation’s professed beliefs” (McGovern, n.d.). Protest songs such as “Ohio”, by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and “Fortunate Son”, by Creedence Clearwater Revival, said what protesters felt. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were vocal in their opposition to war and various social issues. Bob Dylan’s influence as a writer of social commentary became very clear with his Blowin in the Wind” and “The Times They are a Changin”. He wrote, “Don’t criticize/what you can’t understand/Your sons and daughters are beyond your command/Your old road is/Rapidly aging/Please get out of the new one/If you can’t lend a hand” (Dylan, 1963). Songs such as these became anthems and rallying points for a group who was weary of war, and would no longer be ignored (Gilmore, 1990). Rock had become the voice of the discontented. “An LSD crazed Jimi Hendrix played “The Star Spangled Banner” on a screaming guitar, war policies were denounced, hatred of various US officials was voiced, the war and the draft were mocked” (Repellent, 2010). All of these statements were decidedly against everything that previous generations believed. In a very strong, very loud, very public voice, music of the period questioned evil,injustice, violence, and