The Bob Dylan song lost to history by Huey Lewis: “I don’t know”
Most people tend to look over Bob Dylan lyrics the same way that most biblical scholars look at Scripture. While Dylan never claimed to be some divine wordsmith by any stretch of the imagination, his wordplay during his prime was enough to make his contemporaries look like they were making primitive preschool rhymes by comparison. Then again, there are always going to be a few pieces of Dylan lore that will forever be lost to history.
Then again, Dylan was never meant to document every single piece of his recording process. While many people can tell you the date and the time of where he was when making albums like The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the folk-rock icon was always interested in moving onto the next phase of singing and seeing what else is out there other than the typical Woody Guthrie-style guitar songs.
And it’s not like he wasn’t willing to experiment to get what he wanted, either. The whole point behind him making songs with The Band was to give him a bit more of a rock edge, and even though most people didn’t care for him reimagining himself as a born-again Christian during the 1980s, he was still following his muse and doing whatever he could to make sure that he was living his truth before what anyone else said.
But the flavour of the day had begun to rapidly change once Dylan reached the 1980s anyhow. It was now about the biggest stars on MTV, but for all of the massive pop stars like Michael Jackson and Madonna strutting their way through videos, there was always room for normal rock and roll boys. There had been hair metal, but there were also the likes of Dire Straits and Huey Lewis and the News gaining traction,
It’s not like any of those respective acts were even that bad. Mark Knopfler was certain a musical genius whenever he strapped on his guitar, and when listening to him play off the rest of the News, there’s no one else who could rip a harmonica solo quite like Lewis. Then again, even a rockstar on that level was going to be shaking in their boots if they got the opportunity to write with Dylan for a few songs.
Although Lewis was shellshocked that Dylan enjoyed his music, the demos of what the rock legend was working on slipped through his fingers, saying, “He sent me a cassette and a lovely note saying he liked the last record and here’s a song of mine. And not only did I not cut it, I don’t actually know where the cassette is.”
That kind of fumble may have been one of the biggest blunders in rock and roll history, but it didn’t seem to matter much to Lewis. He was already riding high off of ‘The Power of Love’, and while Dylan may have been operating at a lot point in his career, he found that he could eventually work better when having some of his fellow legends in front of him when working with the Traveling Wilburys.
Then again, we could either be looking at one of the most complex or the most unintentionally hilarious pieces of lost media in Bob Dylan’s career. I mean, Dylan had a track record for having a few funny songs in his discography, but nothing could eclipse him writing a song with the same kind of cadence as ‘Hip To Be Square’.
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