‘Forever Young’: the “genius” song Bob Dylan wrote for his children
Following his widely revered masterpiece Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan entered a creative nadir of sorts. Certainly, few could deride Dylan’s output of the late 1960s and early ’70s, but following his early folk material and mid-’60s folk-rock transition albums, a drop-off was tangible. This slump could be attributable to Dylan’s near-fatal motorcycle accident in 1966, one month after Blonde on Blonde. Following the accident, he opted to curtail touring commitments and spend more time with his family.
Dylan’s emphatic return to commercial success came in the mid-1970s with the arrival of Planet Waves. The 1974 release became Dylan’s first album to reach number one on the US Billboard chart, and although its follow-up, Blood on the Tracks, eclipses it in retrospect, the album was home to some of Dylan’s finest work.
Most famously, Planet Waves was home to the prevailing hit ‘Forever Young’, marking Dylan’s reunion with The Band, with whom he previously toured between 1965 and ’66 and recorded The Basement Tapes. The album’s standout moment appears in two forms: on side one as the more popular ‘Slow Version’, and on side two in the ‘Fast Version’.
The lyrics in the ‘Slow Version’ are given the sentimental tone they’re due as Dylan sings: “May you grow up to be righteous/ May you grow up to be true/ May you always know the truth/ And see the lights surrounding you/ May you always be courageous/ Stand upright and be strong/ And may you stay/ Forever young”.
The above-quoted second verse alludes most precisely to the song’s primary target, Dylan’s children. Between 1966 and ’69, Dylan had four children with his then-wife Sara Lownds, including his youngest, Jakob, who followed in his father’s footsteps to become a musician, and their eldest, Jesse, who became a film director and production executive.
In the liner notes for Dylan’s 2007 compilation, Dylan, Bill Flanagan wrote of ‘Forever Young’: “[The Band] got together and quickly knocked off an album, Planet Waves, that featured two versions of a blessing from a parent to a child. In the years he was away from the stage, Dylan had become a father. He had that in common with a good chunk of the audience. The song was memorably recited on American television by Howard Cosell when Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight crown for the third time.”
Over the years, ‘Forever Young’ has been immortalised by innumerable tribute covers, most notably by Joan Baez, Diana Ross, Susan Anton, Meat Loaf and The Pretenders. Chrissie Hynde, the frontwoman of The Pretenders, once told Harvey Kubernik of the song: “It’s got such a beautiful lyric. I just love it. He’s the pride of our generation. The song is genius.”
Listen to the beautiful ‘Forever Young (Slow Version)’ below.
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