The songwriters Bob Dylan considered his “favourites”
Bob Dylan doesn’t seem much like a man full of compliments. He may be one of the most prolific artists and greatest songwriters to have ever walked the Earth, but especially these days, he much prefers to keep himself to himself.
The days of all-star rock and roll are long gone – he’s not one for interviews nor many public appearances, and the shows he plays are always intimate, compared to the calibre of which he really should be drawing in. This is not to say that Dylan has sold out by any stretch of the imagination; he’s just someone, in all of his 84 years, who is done with the pretence of glitz and glamour, and knows exactly what he wants.
Cumulatively, all of this means that, particularly within more recent years, we’re not likely to ever find out much about the inner workings of Dylan’s brain and his outlook on music as it stands now, so we largely have to rely on winding back the years to provide an insight into that kaleidoscopic mind. In that sense, heading back to 1984, the master writer did give a rare glimpse into his lyrical muses – but not quite in the effusive way you might think.
Never one to be drawn on explaining a truly expansive answer, Dylan was asked at the time on songwriters that impressed him, to which he simply replied: “I think there are lot of good songwriters, though what I’ve done I’ve done all alone, but there’s a lot of other good songwriters… of my era.”
Hardly giving much away from that statement, when pressed to provide examples, he managed to force out, “Randy Newman writes good songs, Paul Simon’s written some good songs; I think ‘America’ is a good song, I think ‘The Boxer’ is a good song. I think ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ is a good song. I mean, he’s written a lot of bad songs too, but everybody’s done that.”
Despite his virtuosity with words, in a strange turn of events, it seemed the only descriptor Dylan could muster in that moment was “good”, which is not exactly the highest compliment to pay his songwriting contemporaries. In that sense, his real hero must have been a true god when he classed them as “great”, adding: “Let’s see… some of the Nashville writers… Shel Silverstein writes great songs. Really. Like he’s one of my favourite songwriters.”
Indeed, it was perhaps telling that the person Dylan regarded in the top realm at the time was someone considered principally a writer first, and for whom the music came second. Silverstein may ultimately have had two Grammys to his name for penning everlasting hits such as ‘A Boy Named Sue’, but in the eyes of Dylan, awards and musicality could only be made possible if the lyrics were set in stone. Words were everything.
This is something that you can imagine has never wavered in Dylan’s view of the world, as well as his own fame. Let’s be honest – he’s not exactly known for having the most startling voice, but instead has cultivated a career through being one of the most idolised songwriters of his time. He may not say much, but at least we know where his priorities lie.
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