Steve Earle’s profound love for Bob Dylan
Steve Earle primarily became known for being a country music singer-songwriter in the 1980s, although he regularly dipped his toes into the cool lakes of rock, bluegrass, folk and blue. As with anyone remotely interested in writing songs on the acoustic guitar, Earle is a mega-fan of Bob Dylan.
“It’s all about Bob for me,” Earle said last year. “I define myself as a post-Bob Dylan songwriter.” In fact, on Earle’s songwriting course, he had a module “originally called ‘The Moment In 1965 When John Lennon Wants To Be Bob Dylan And Bob Dylan Wants To Be John Lennon And Rock ‘N’ Roll Becomes Art.’” Earle believes that it was the lyrics that transcended guitar music to high art. So who better to do it than folk’s own poet, Bob Dylan?
Earle noted that, like with many of us, when asked about our favourite song of a particular artist, it is likely to change with time. He said: “Those things change for me. Ask me again next year. Right now, it’s ‘Just Like A Woman.’ It’s been ‘Just Like A Woman’ a lot over the years”.
Recalling his first memories of Dylan, Earle’s first Dylan record was Highway 61 Revisited. And he was pushed onto the acoustic guitar like Dylan because his father wouldn’t let him have an electric one. Whilst, Earles is a great fan of Townes Van Zandt, he doesn’t love him anywhere near as much as Dylan.
Earle wrote, “I’m always quoted that Townes Van Zandt was the best songwriter in the world – that was something I said when I asked for a sticker for a Townes record that was coming out. That was a bumper sticker. It was marketing. Bob’s never had any trouble promoting Bob. Townes always shot himself in the foot. Townes’ response to that was: ‘I heard what you said and that’s very nice’”.
Giving particular praise for Dylan’s seventh studio album Blonde on Blonde, Earles noted, “That record – there’s a lot to take on. There’s a lot of songs. I always gravitated towards ‘Just Like A Woman.’ It’s one of those songs where everything he’s learned pushing past a decimal point comes back and gets applied to what’s a more traditional pop song form.”
Dylan had moved away from the political songs of his earlier days and wrote some of his best tunes from a more emotional perspective. Discussing this, Earles said, He used to refer to the political songs he wrote in that period as ‘finger pointing songs’. Some of his emotional songs, his relationship songs, are finger pointing songs too. ‘Just Like A Woman’ is talking about her, and it’s about the end of a relationship, but it also talks about him a little bit, and how he feels.”
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