The icon that impacted Bob Dylan’s life forever: “Like a streaking comet”
If you were to open your notes app on your phone and begin to jot down a list of the most influential songwriters of all time, it would be incredibly surprising for you to press enter twice without seeing the name Bob Dylan typed by your own fingers. What Dylan has done for music is unfathomable in the grand scheme of the sonic landscape we now find ourselves in.
You might be listening to your favourite artist of the 21st century and noticing their introspective lyrics, well, without Dylan, this likely never happens. It was he who pioneered personal poetry over pop-driven hooks and songs about hot rods and meeting a cute girl at a diner. Dylan was the artist who then rejected folk and began a new era of rock music. It was he who became a Nobel Prize winner for his lyrics, and it was Dylan who has simply refused to ever look back for longer than he is contractually obliged to.
It feels truly baffling, then, that he was truly inspired by a whole range of musicians, just like us typing away on our phones trying to think of a new musical hero to add to our list. Of course, Dylan has been open about his appreciation for some artists. His love affair with the work of Woody Guthrie has long been documented, and he has a sincere appreciation for the sounds of Leonard Cohen, too. Even The Beatles, who learnt so much from Dylan, can be credited with teaching him a thing or two. But another star shaped Dylan’s world: Jerry Lee Lewis.
Star is the right word, too. Dylan was speaking with Bill Flanagan in 2017 when he showered Lewis with an incredible amount of praise. “Jerry Lee Lewis came in like a streaking comet from some faraway galaxy,” Dylan added with aplomb, showing how the alien attraction of Lewis made him one of the most coveted artists of the day. “Rock and roll was atomic-powered, all zoom and doom. It didn’t seem like an extension of anything, but it probably was.”
He’s not the only songwriting giant to cite Lewis as one of the most formidable influences; John Lennon was notably a gigantic fan, and once famously fell to his knees in front of the rocker, kissing his shoes. “That’s the music that inspired me to play music,” Lennon explained to Rolling Stone in 1971 as he noted the impact of Lewis. “There is nothing conceptually better than rock and roll. No group, be it the Beatles, Dylan, or Stones, have ever improved on ‘Whole Lot of Shakin’’ for my money. Or maybe I’m like our parents: that’s my period, and I dig it and I’ll never leave it.”
The truth is Lewis did arrive like an otherworldly presence. As the United States began to enter into the Cold War, only just out of the destruction of World War II, the need for escapism was impossible to ignore. Music, movies and eve comic books would provide it. For kids like Bob Dylan, it was essential, as he told Flanagan: “Rock and roll made you oblivious to the fear, busted down the barriers that race and religion, ideologies put up,” Dylan once said. “We lived under a death cloud; the air was radioactive. There was no tomorrow, any day it could all be over, life was cheap. That was the feeling at the time and I’m not exaggerating”.
Whether Jerry Lee Lewis’ tarnished legacy stands the test of time, let alone up to the legends of Bob Dylan, is up for debate. However, it cannot be argued that his powerhouse performances inspired generations of future musicians. Maybe Lewis was like a comet from outer space, and with his impact, he extinguished a certain unbearable section of musical life, leaving the way for the evolution of rock as we know it. And, if that is the case, then Bob Dylan was the splash of water and oxygen that was left behind.
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