The one era of pop music that Bob Dylan “never got over”
Bob Dylan was never meant to be trapped in one particular sound for the rest of his life.
He maintained his status as a lonesome troubadour who was more than happy to quote his heart whenever he got in front of a microphone, but not everything that he did was specifically catered to being the most radio-friendly thing on the charts. But those songs are still in the public consciousness for a reason, and while they are memorable, that doesn’t mean that Dylan always has fond memories of his early days.
Then again, the extremely early days of Dylan when he wanted to be the next Woody Guthrie are probably what he wants to run away from the most. The core part of any artist is to find their own identity underneath everything else, and there was no point in trying to make sequels to tracks like ‘This Land is Your Land’ when he was capable of making masterpieces all on his own.
Everything from ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ to ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ was a masterstroke of songwriting, but there was always going to be some questions when it came to his voice. Because whereas most people were interested in hearing Dylan’s take on life and what made him tick, many other suits were wondering whether he could take some vocal lessons or get someone else to sing his songs.
And that’s when acts like The Byrds came in. There was nothing inherently wrong with Roger McGuinn taking the bits and pieces of Dylan’s classics and transforming them into jangly pop songs, but Dylan was never exactly comfortable hearing his music be performed in that way. There were occasional moments where someone would make the song their own, like Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of ‘All Along the Watchtower’, but by the time that Neil Young was making his own stab at folk-pop hits like ‘Heart of Gold’, Dylan needed to move on.
He was at the epicentre of a lot of the musical movements when living in Woodstock, but he started to be treated less like a person as the years went on. As far as everyone else was concerned, he was a musical prophet looking to impart some wisdom, but Dylan figured the only way for him to keep his sanity was to get as far away from his copycats as he could.
And looking back on his time in the spotlight in 1985, Dylan admitted that the era of being treated like a well of great songs did a number on him, saying, “I needed to lay back for a while, forget about things, myself included, and I’d get so far away and turn on the radio and there I am, but it’s not me. It seemed to me somebody else had taken my thing and had run away with it, you know, and I never got over it.”
Which probably explains why he eventually tried to make albums like Self Portrait sound a bit more ramshackle in the 1970s. He knew that he wasn’t someone who needed to be looked up to like some musical God, so the idea of him deliberately shooting himself in the foot and making something that was less polished than before helped the rest of the world realise the kind of artist they were dealing with.
This was someone who only wanted to live their lives the way that they saw fit, and if it meant sacrificing a bit of his credibility, Dylan was fine with that. He knew how talented he was, and had he not been able to take a step back during this era, perhaps he wouldn’t have had the ability to open himself up a bit more on songs like ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ a few years down the line.
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