“The father of my country”: Bruce Springsteen’s three favourite Bob Dylan songs
There is an undeniable kinship between America’s two favourite blue-collar troubadours, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. When Dylan first heard his New Jersey counterpart, he joked, “He had better be careful, or he might go through every word in the English language”.
Beyond their mutually verbose nature, they also both strived for unbridled sincerity. In Springsteen’s book, he was never trying to sound like his hero or emulate his style. He just looked to capture the true heart of America in the same clear-eyed spirit. And the early comparisons he faced would’ve run on a little longer if he had his way.
Reflecting on his career during an appearance on the American talk show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Springsteen discussed the impact that the early comparison had on his career. He told the host, “I became self-conscious about the Dylan comparison, so I moved away from [that style of songwriting] quickly.”
This was a stylistic choice that The Boss still laments to some degree, “Looking back, I kind of had my own Dylan-Esque style,” he added. “And I kind of wish I had never moved away from it so quickly.”
Springsteen later described this early style as “a lot of fun”, filled with “joy” and a “reasonable amount of depth”. He was “uninhibited” in his youth and he was steadfast on putting the world to rights. Dylan had predicted that a songwriter would follow in his footsteps and see things as they really are with “power and dominion over the spirits” and perhaps that was Springsteen.
The Boss would certainly be honoured to think so. After all, Dylan was the man who made him a writer in the first place. “I was very influenced by Dylan,” he said in his memoir. “I always say he’s the father of my country. He initially provided me with a picture of a country that I recognised. One that feels real, feels like the truth”.
Whilst chatting about that new record, the Born to Run star discussed the impact Dylan had on him as a songwriter and eulogised his influence on American music. When pressed to pick his three favourite Dylan songs, Bruce began to squirm as he struggled to distil the vast back catalogue of the folk luminary down to just three tracks.
He first started with Dylan’s iconic “great American song”, the iconic ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, with Springsteen describing it as a “history and culture changing piece of music”. Also, adding that it is simply a “fantastic rock and roll song”.
It’s hard to argue with Springsteen’s confirmation of the track as a cultural touchstone for all who’ve heard it since its release. It not only deals with a very personal subject – rumoured to be centred on the story of Edie Sedgwick, Dylan’s former girlfriend and devotee of Andy Warhol – but delivers a universal truth. The songwriter had an uncanny ability to create anthemic moments from real-life infractions, and with ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, Dylan effortlessly provides a vision of being aimless in a world full of arrow-peppered targets.
Elsewhere, the songsmith punted for Dylan’s near-eight-minute epic ‘Visions of Johanna’ from the heaven-sent 1966 release of Blonde on Blonde. Springsteen praised the soaring epic simply, describing it as “a big song for me”.
While ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ may provide a somewhat tangible line of understanding, ‘Visions of Johanna’ remains a total obscurity. We may never know who the mythical “Louise” is or what the titular visions truly are. In truth, Dylan always found that to be an easier way to work, later telling Rolling Stone: “It’s easier to be disconnected than connected. I’ve got a huge hallelujah for all the people who are connected, that’s great, but I can’t do that.”
Lastly, The Boss championed the lesser-known Dylan number ‘Ring Them Bells’, taken from his 1980s return to form record Oh Mercy. The song is a stirring piano ballad that provides a very reverent for some of Dylan’s most poignant poetry of the period.
Few people would like to admit that the 1980s produced one of Dylan’s best songs, but that shows how much of a fan Springsteen is. Not only is the track blessed with a harmonic richness that few other Dylan songs possess, but it is also perhaps the first moment he truly stepped into the deepening waters of his spirituality. Buoyant and bountiful, the track reaches places Dylan rarely stretched his hand out to find.
Springsteen also crowned his favourite Dylan album while he was at it and even pronounced his favourite lyric. The album he went for was John Wesley Harding, which features tracks like ‘All Along The Watchtower’ and ‘As I Went out One Morning’. Once again, in a squirming panic, Springsteen kept his praise simple; under frantic pressure, he said, “I like all of it!”
As far as the lyric goes, Bruce was instantly spellbound by the narrative hook of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ with the introductory line, “Once upon a time you dressed so fine / Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?” It is an iconic intro that has an undeniable likeness to some of the lines that Springsteen crafted thereafter. Bruce described hearing the lyric and being “instantly hooked and into that song so intensely.”
Bruce Springsteen’s favourite Bob Dylan songs:
- ‘Like A Rolling Stone’
- ‘Visions of Johanna’
- ‘Ring Them Bells’
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