How Bob Dylan betrayed himself, according to John Lennon
John Lennon was a big Bob Dylan fan. At one point in the early 1960s, The Beatles would even go so far as to call the folk star their “idol”, talking about meeting him for the first time as if they’d met God himself. But as time went on, and strange tensions bubbled between Lennon and Dylan, the former Beatle admitted to feeling let down by his hero as he seemed to let himself down too.
The relationship between Lennon and Dylan is a perfect piece of evidence as to why you should never meet your idols. When the Liverpudlian musician was a new star basking in global fame, Dylan was his in with counterculture. Through his love for Dylan, Lennon developed a love for a more left-field sound, beginning to be inspired by folk and more alternative genres than just straight rock and roll. After meeting the man himself, the folk star’s influence was definitely heard on Rubber Soul and the track ‘Norwegian Wood’. To Lennon, that was merely the result of inspiration or a compliment paid to a man he looked up to. To Dylan, it was a rip-off.
“What is this? It’s me, Bob. [John’s] doing me! Even Sonny & Cher are doing me, but, fucking hell, I invented it”, Dylan responded to the track. In return, he released ‘Fourth Time Around’, parodying the Beatle he thought was parodying him as Dylan sang, “I never asked for your crutch, now don’t ask for mine”. After that, Lennon’s love for the musician was certainly more complex and definitely strained.
But nevertheless, Lennon kept up with what Dylan was doing, still listening and appreciating the music until one strange era in his career. “I must say I was surprised when old Bobby boy did go that way,” Lennon said in 1980, talking about Dylan’s conversion to Christianity and the sudden religious turn in his work.
“I was very surprised,” he continued, seeing the change in faith not just as a strange move for the countercultural icon but as a kind of betrayal of his own messages. “All I ever hear whenever I hear about him is — and people can quote me and make me feel silly, too — but all I ever think of is ‘Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters’”, he explained, quoting a lyric from ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ where Dylan promoted an independent, free-thinking live. For a man who once decried religion to now turn into a devout and preaching Christian, Lennon thought the move was a letdown.
While Lennon himself had a strange relationship with religion, being brought up Christian and then later dabbling in Buddhism and spirituality, he seemed to see Dylan’s turn to making distinctly Christian music as a kind of betrayal. Having once been a passionate protest singer or at the least a countercultural artist who rallied against authority and strict social rules and traditions, Dylan’s newfound and staunch faith seemed to stand at odd to everything he’d ever sung about. Or, at least, that’s how Lennon saw it, further complicating his relationship with his old idol.
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