Donovan’s favourite Bob Dylan song
Bob Dylan isn’t only one of the general public’s most beloved artists, but he’s a true musician’s musician, too. He’s respected and revered by his peers and is admired by new names, decade after decade. It’s tough to find a songwriter who won’t sing Dylan’s praises or at least give credit to his name for some dose of inspiration, no matter how big or strong. Donovan is one of his many fans, but when it comes to his favourite Dylan song, the reasoning goes back even further to the lineage of his inspirations.
Asking any Dylan fan for their favourite track is a tough question. With such a lengthy discography and so many different eras that each had its own unique sound and vibe, it feels impossible to select just a single song. But for Donovan, the answer is easy.
But his favourite Dylan track isn’t really because of Dylan at all. Instead, it’s a golden string that ties the Scottish folk star, the American musical troubadour and their mutual inspiration together.
He picked out the 1962 track, ‘Song To Woody’, because of the idol that gave the song its name. “I particularly like this song because I was so influenced by Woody Guthrie before I heard Bob’s first record,” he told Mojo. When he heard about Dylan, it was like finding a kindred spirit. He recalled, “I was 16 and living rough on the road with my best friend Gypsy Dave. I went home for a bit and Gyp wrote to me and said he’d found a record of a new American folk singer who was doing what I was doing, singing Woody Guthrie songs and wearing a cap and a harmonica harness.”
From across the pond, Dylan was straying down the same path as Donovan, inspired by the same musical legend and imbuing his music with the same poetic observation. It would have been easy for the Scottish artist to become bitter or see him as a rival, but instead, he saw him as a brother in arms.
“I was already kind of committed to the mission before I heard Bob, but ‘Song To Woody’ confirmed to me that I was not alone in wanting to bring true poetry and new, meaningful, social lyrics back to popular culture,” he explained.
On the other side, Dylan also saw himself reflected in Donovan. “He was a bit curious and a little amazed that there was another Guthrie disciple arising out of Europe,” he remembered but instantly set the record straight as he declared, “We were no threat to each other.”
Captured on film, there’s a moment where the two artists finally meet and come together, playing each other songs and allowing their mutual respect and admiration to come to life. “The famous scene in Don’t Look Back where we’re both playing our songs, you’ve got to look closely,” Donovan said of the 1967 film. “Bob turns to me, and I sing To Sing For You. Notice he takes not one drag of his cigarette all the way through… he’s listening,” he recalled of the moment, adding, “What people miss is that he listens all the way through to my song, acknowledges that it’s good, but not with too many words.”
But even though Donovan became a Bob Dylan fan, his love for the new wonder kid of folk always began with his love for Guthrie, the elder folk legend. He joked, “When they used to say I was the British Bob Dylan, I used to quip, ‘No, I’m the Scottish Woody Guthrie’”.
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