“Working for all these leeches”: The albums Bob Dylan thought he failed at
For any musician with a long career, inconsistencies in their discography are more than normal, especially for someone like Bob Dylan, whose artistry has always been about avoiding polish and refinement. In his mind, there were moments when his delivery didn’t meet his own standards, and there are two albums he felt he could have done better.
Since day one, Dylan’s self-criticism has bled into the core of almost every facet of his artistic expression, manifesting in an off-kilter demeanour that sits somewhere between humble and egotistical. While some may argue he has earned every right to be this way, especially considering his monumental impact on music and culture, others would label it dismissive.
However, although there are countless examples of rude Dylan in action, not to mention other reasons why he seems somewhat callous to the outsider, these have also been balanced out by moments of gracious self-reflection. After all, it’s natural for artists to challenge their own work, but even more natural for them to feel like some of their projects aren’t as good as they’d hoped.
In Dylan’s world, this could stem from several factors. For instance, as someone who has always pushed expectations to pander to commercialism further away, some songs or records come across as overworked attempts at going against the grain, leaning too strongly on experimentalist tropes to draw people in. Others fall short because their message became misconstrued, which was the case with Self Portrait, which left many wondering whether Dylan had completely lost it.
Part of the reason for this, however, was that Dylan didn’t even want to release the album at all. Working on the album not long after he’d been in a motorcycle accident, Dylan later realised he’d made a mistake, feeling as though he was doing the exact thing he said he never would: moulding his style to suit someone else. “When I woke up and caught my senses,” he told Rolling Stone, “I realised I was just workin’ for all these leeches. And I didn’t wanna do that.”
At the same time, he said he had felt pressured to be a societal mouthpiece and a “leader“, which he never appreciated, despite many viewing his music and approach as the ultimate signifier of someone who knew exactly how to guide during uncertain times. Dylan never enjoyed the push to fill such big shoes, which made records like Self Portrait feel like scams.
Similarly, Infidels felt, to Dylan, like it became unnecessarily overworked, though likely because he felt inclined to make it as good as it could possibly be, which became counterproductive and incidentally made it worse. As he recalled to Paul Zollo, “[Jokerman]. That’s a song that got away from me. Lots of songs on that album got away from me. They just did. They hung around too long. They were better before they were tampered with. Of course, it was me tampering with them.”
Still, despite these brief fallbacks, it speaks volumes that Dylan’s reputation as one of the best and most forward-thinking lyricists and storytellers remains intact, and his slip-ups remain mere one-offs in an otherwise perfect discography. Dylan might disagree with such a deduction, but the prophecy rings true, with his authentic demeanour epitomising the ultimate form of artistic integrity.
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