“My inspiration”: Bob Dylan’s favourite lyric ever written
Is Bob Dylan the greatest songwriter of all time? I’m not sure I’d be so bold as to assert that, but he is certainly in the top one.
In fact, he is so good at the craft that he has single-handedly affirmed that if you’re a brilliant songwriter in pop music, then you don’t have to be all that stellar at anything else. Sure, his bristling singing might be singular and affecting, and his string plucking has a certain dogeared charm, but it’s the art that goes on before they enter the mix where Dylan truly stands alone.
He has consistently achieved the highest virtue in art: creativity that positively shapes the zeitgeist. People might rival him when it comes to poetry, but how many of those esteemed peers can say that they truly grabbed society by the lapels with their art and shook it like a second-hand Skoda trundling over a cattle-grid?
This makes the inspiration behind his lyricism all the more interesting. If Dylan opened the Pandora’s box of elevated pop culture with his pioneering work, then who handed him the key? Well, as part of HMV’s ‘My Inspiration’ campaign, Dylan was asked to pick the lyric or verse that has had the greatest bearing on his life.
In typical fashion, the Bard of the Downbeats, harked back into timeless history and came forward clutching a humble verse from the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. His offering is folk music at its purest.
Known most commonly as Rabbie Burns, the Scottish poet and lyricist lived from 1759-1796. Nevertheless, despite the many years between them, the ties between Burns and Bob are myriad. Not only is the national poet of Scotland known for his dialectal authenticity, he was also the progressive ‘Voice of his Nation’. And yet, alongside his pointed civil commentary, is a prettiness that certain stuffy cynics have even called sentimentalism.
However, it is this very coupling of everyday emotions and a sense of profound human grandeur that Dylan loves about his verse ‘A Red, Red Rose’, and he’s been taking inspiration from it ever since he first came across it.
Who is Bob Dylan’s favourite lyricist?
In brief, he was moved by the words. And as he has said himself, “The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?” At the root of that for Dylan was ‘A Red, Red Rose’.
You can read the lyrics in full below, but Dylan picked out the first two verses, in particular, as his favourite:
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
It is a simple tale of everlasting love (luve), and it’s not afraid to be candid about that. Like Dylan himself, the lyrics seem self-aware in their declaration that they might be gushing, but what else is there to wax about if not the depths of devotion? With this mindset, Burns found a way to ensure that his verses connected with the masses without ever dumbing down or losing his sense of self, right down to the colloquial use of gang and luve.
While Dylan has never revealed much more about his love for Burns or ‘A Red, Red Rose’, it is likely that he would have discovered him when he first got to New York City – where a statue of the Scottish bard stands in Central Park – and he was throwing himself into the literature strewn around the beat cafes. It was during this period that he realised the humblest tales could have mighty implications.
“Ishmael survives,” Dylan said simply about the narrator’s fate in Moby Dick. “…That’s the whole story. That theme and all that it implies would work its way into more than a few of my songs.” That knack of condensing a dense 700-page novel down to its most emotive crux typifies Dylan’s style and the works that move him.
And therein lies the link between Dylan and the verse. Through nothing other than bold introspection extolled for all to see, Burns’ love has lived on through the ages. I’ll be damned if Dylan’s doesn’t, too. Both men are folk poets to their core, using rhyme and melody to impart messages that never fail to be memorable. That’s why they’re so timeless.
In fact, as part of the HMV series, Paul McCartney was asked to name his big lyrical inspiration, too. He opted for Dylan himself and the beauteous track ‘She Belongs To Me’ from 1965. Once again, it seems McCartney resonated with Dylan’s ability to turn to the tired subject of love and revitalise it in a way that made it clear why so much has been written about it.
Meanwhile, David Bowie picked out a line from Syd Barrett’s ‘Gigolo Aunt’ and Liam Gallagher, rather hilariously, went with a verse from Oasis’ own hit ‘Supersonic’.
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