The Beatles song Bob Dylan called an “out of body experience”
“I think a great song has the sentiments of the people in mind,” said Bob Dylan when discussing the art of songwriting, “When you hear it, you get a gut reaction and an emotional one at the same time.” He firmly believed that when you have a great song, the means by which it is played don’t matter; instead, the song should just take a life of its own.
He was open in discussing The Beatles in this way, praising some of their tracks as having such an effect. When he spoke of one track in particular, he said that it wouldn’t matter who was playing the song, so long as an understanding of the track was on display, it would be recognised for its greatness.
The Beatles and Bob Dylan had careers that overlapped and contorted. It seems that their influence on one another was constantly weaving in and around the other’s music, as he took from them, they took from him, and they worked together at various points.
For instance, when The Beatles first came to America and played on The Ed Sullivan Show, everybody in America started a band and wanted to be the next big thing. Bands in the US even named themselves after things that sounded British in a bid to replicate the Beatles; their influence was undeniable.
“It transformed America,” said Steve Van Zandt, the guitarist for the E Street Band, when discussing the moment The Beatles first appeared on American television, “On February 8, there were no bands in America; on February 9 we had Ed Sullivan and on February 10, everybody had a band in their garage. It was literally overnight.”
During the same interview, Steve Van Zandt spoke about the artist who ended the British Invasion (no prizes for guessing who). “The floodgates opened,” he said, “Until the summer of ’65 when the Americans took the charts back with the folk-rock of The Byrds and Bob Dylan.”
Even The Beatles were obsessed with the music that Bob Dylan was making. Dylan helped John Lennon step away from writing meaningless pop songs and be more introspective with his lyrics, to the point that many people have described The Beatles album Rubber Soul as just Lennon doing Dylan.
“I’d have a separate ‘songwriting’ John Lennon who wrote songs for the sort of meat market,” said Lennon, “And I didn’t consider them, the lyrics or anything, to have any depth at all. Then I started being me about the songs… not writing them objectively, but subjectively.”
The feeling was mutual; Dylan was and still is a big fan of The Beatles and believes some of their songs have otherworldly powers. In that same interview where he discussed the art of songwriting, he referenced their song ‘Taxman’ as an example of a tune that transcends execution and represents genius simply in its being.
“A great song follows the logic of the heart and stays in your head long after you’ve heard it, like ‘Taxman’, it can be played with a full orchestra score or by a strolling minstrel, and you don’t have to be a great singer to sing it,” he said, “It’s bell, book, and candle. Otherworldly. It transports you and you feel like you’re levitating. It’s close to an out-of-body experience.”
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