The album Bob Dylan wanted to carry on throughout the ages: “It’s more of a calling”
Let’s be fair – it’s easy to lose grip of Bob Dylan. He can sometimes seem so contrived and absorbed that it’s difficult to truly know him.
But then again, that was always part of the plan. Whether you’re personally acquainted with Dylan or not, he creates an impression that keeping a level of distance between the outside world and his inner artistic pursuits has always been his aim, even if, at times, that has also come with a notion of arrogance or an illusion of grandeur.
The point to all of this is that Dylan’s perception of himself as an artist is one that has undoubtedly morphed and changed over the years, but has never strayed far wrong from its chasing of greatness and the ultimate sonic elixir, even if that doesn’t resemble any conventional means.
Of course, in terms of his albums which have transcended time, the casual onlooker would point to cuts like The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, or Blonde on Blonde. Yet for the man himself, albums made decades in the past seem more like dated relics now, more than they ever were at the time. In order to have his legacy remembered, he wants something to capture his modern muse.
Fair enough, the word ‘modern’ might be doing a bit of heavy lifting, given that his 2001 album Love and Theft will celebrate its 25th anniversary later this year. However, even still, it marks a special significance in the Dylan songbook, purely for the fact that he felt it was the album that summed up his all-encompassing artistic viewpoint best.
“Hopefully, it would also speak across the ages,” he said of the album around the time of its release. “That’s what I was trying to make happen, because just to make another record at this point in my career… I don’t feel like what I do qualifies to be called a career. It’s more of a calling.” If you were ever to find a quote that harboured the quintessential Dylan, it might just be that.
It’s not because he was particularly effervescent or eloquent – after all, that element of his vocabulary is famously saved exclusively for his songwriting only – but because, when things truly boil down to the crux of the matter, that’s the aim which he has always strived towards across the scores of his career, even if it wasn’t necessarily clear to him at the time.
Naturally, there’s always going to be that slight hint of affectation when someone calls something a calling, particularly when that concerns singing and playing a guitar. But in many ways, there was no other route for Dylan in life. From the second he took the initiative to arrive in New York and perform for an ailing Woody Guthrie in the hospital, things were always destined to be different.
Naturally, there was a lot of time and eras to get through in reaching 2001 from that seminal point in early 1961, but it seems that in all Dylan has learned over the years, he knows more than anyone not to make an album purely for the sake of it. If he was going to take the plunge, it had to be for something that would stand the test of time.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.