The artist Bob Dylan called “tremendous” for rock and roll
Rock and roll was always meant to be an important movement for teenagers. As much as people liked the idea of catchy tunes on the radio, this was the first time that teenagers had a real voice behind them, and when people like Bob Dylan started rising to prominence, it was clear they had a lot more on their minds than party songs. Dylan wanted to create a world that people could look through in every one of his songs, and that meant a slew of imitators rising up in his wake.
Because as much as Dylan was singular in his folk-rock voice, it’s the nature of the beast for the record company to want more. If Dylan made waves with ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’, surely it would work again when it was being sung by other jangly pop artists like The Byrds, right? Well, yes and no. With no disrespect meant to Roger McGuinn, Dylan was always going to be the definitive singer on his songs, and that remained for every singer-songwriter who came after him.
Outside of Dylan’s role as a songwriter, there were already people springing up behind him trying to make their own original tunes. Having a songwriter who sang their own hits was nothing new at this point, but as soon as James Taylor and Carole King came to the forefront, it was no longer a fad. It was now a legitimate style of music, but as Dylan ploughed forward, he was continuously shocked by what Bruce Springsteen brought to the table.
“I think Bruce has done a tremendous amount for real gutbucket rock & roll – and folk music, in his own way.”
Bob Dylan
After years of seeing him in the spotlight, Dylan called ‘The Boss’ “tremendous” for rock and roll, saying, “I’m not particularly into this American thing, this Bruce Springsteen-John Cougar-‘American first’ thing. I feel just as strongly about the American principles as those guys do, but I personally feel that what’s important is more eternal things. I’m not saying anything bad about these guys, because I think Bruce has done a tremendous amount for real gutbucket rock & roll – and folk music, in his own way.”
But even Dylan had to realise that ‘The Boss’ was never strictly interested in blindly flying the flag for America. There are definitely songs in his arsenal that are hopeful about the health and safety in America like ‘We Take Care Of Our Own’, but it can also be insanely critical of its citizens and politicians, like on ‘Born in the USA’, which only gets funnier the more people prop it up as a patriotic anthem.
There are definitely more hopeful messages in what Springsteen does compared to Dylan, but it also has to do with how they are as people rather than musicians. Both of them have similarities in their own strange way, but whereas Dylan is cut and dry about telling people about the problems with the world, Springsteen is always reminding everyone of ways that things can get better as well.
When listening to Dylan’s music, though, there’s a reason why he gravitated towards people like Tom Petty a lot more than Springsteen. Petty represented the kind of Americanised wit that Dylan resonated with, and while the E Street Band had that blue-collar mentality, the Heartbreakers were always a well-oiled machine that gave faint glimpses of what Dylan had working with The Band back in the day.
But while Dylan would eventually have some fun making lighthearted jabs at Springsteen on Traveling Wilburys’ ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’, it was never meant to be taken seriously. Both of them were looking at their generations through a strange lens, and no matter how different they might have seemed, they always sang from the heart.
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