The artist Paul Simon said there was “nobody better” than
It’s impossible for songwriters like Paul Simon to see music as any kind of competition.
Anyone could try their best to outlast anyone else’s time on the charts, but the beauty of all great songwriters is finding a piece of their soul everyone can relate to, rather than throwing every single trend into their music and praying one of them sticks. It’s about the person underneath, and the best writers of Simon’s generation always knew how to reach deep within themselves before going into pop territory.
Then again, Simon did have a bit of stiff competition before he even set out on his solo career. Simon and Garfunkel had already carried on the strength of his fantastic material, but there was no sense in comparing him to what The Beatles were doing by any stretch. That was practically what musical Gods sounded like in his mind, and when he eventually struck out on his own, the playing field had opened up a lot more for songwriters of his ilk.
This was the era when people like James Taylor and Cat Stevens were mainstays on the charts, and even if not everyone got the most chart action, it’s easy to hear the raw craftsmanship on display in the finest songwriters of the day. Jackson Browne was making the kind of music that made people’s hearts ache, and while Joni Mitchell went down a more jazzy road, her music was still among the most sophisticated for anyone that was once under the “folk-rock” banner.
But even for as much as music changed, Bob Dylan was always the mainstay in everyone’s lives. Simon had his way with words that suited him fine, but Dylan was constantly moving on to what the next phase of his artistry was going to be. He was not going to switch up styles the same way that people like David Bowie did, but there was always room for him to work with a different template in mind.
Throughout his career, the person that turns up on Bringing It All Back Home is much different than the jilted lover of Blood on the Tracks, but they’re all practically characters in the anthology of his work. And even when he was getting to his late-period renaissance on records like Time Out of Mind, Simon had to admit that he had never seen someone that still sounded better than ever at his age.
When talking about the album Love and Theft, Simon always came back to how much Dylan could transform his writing into different musical shapes, saying, “Dylan frequently reinvents himself, and at a very sophisticated level. Nobody ever did it better. That’s his real genius. He’s still interesting. “Love and Theft” is a fascinating record.” Because when you think about it, that’s the biggest commonality between any longstanding rock and roll artists.
There are certainly acts that have made their legacy out of being a one-trick pony like AC/DC, but even if Dylan can get everything he can done with a guitar in his hand, the fact that everything from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan to Rough and Rowdy Ways sounds so different comes down to the kind of person that he keeps changing into every time he takes the stage.
That doesn’t always make for the most engaging person to talk to, but that shouldn’t discount the kind of music that Dylan has been able to give us over the years. It’s hardly the most stable career in music history by any stretch, but when looking beyond the filler material, his discography paints the picture of someone who lived his life being as human as he possibly could.
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