The poet Bob Dylan hilariously hated being compared to: “Why did you call me moronic?”
Bob Dylan has really cashed in on being deemed poetic. In his cultural legacy that looms large over music, he’s often positioned as a kind of God, existing on this higher tier of artistry that class after class of new talent strives towards. As Baez sang, Dylan “burst on the scene already a legend” as he was almost instantly revered as the new mouthpiece of a generation or the new prophet for the poetic cause. But after one night spent sulking over a misunderstanding, perhaps he isn’t quite as well versed as the zeitgeist has made out.
There is a question to be raised as to how much of Dylan’s legacy is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. When he emerged, he launched all kinds of lies about his origin, telling crowds that he’d run off and joined the circus as a kid and had lived the life of a Beatnik. He has forever evaded the press that might pry too much into his personal life or past, instead preferring to exist behind a sheen of smoke and mirrors or behind the art he chooses to put out. It’s made him an incredibly hard man to pin down or ever understand, but it’s also, somehow, made him a God.
“You burst on the scene already a legend, the unwashed phenomenon, the original vagabond,” Joan Baez sings on her track ‘Diamonds and Rust’, daring to point out the fact that Dylan seemed to emerge and instantly be handed these titles. There is no denying that he has the talent to back it up, as his songwriting has always attested to. But with this sly little dig, his ongoing falsities about his true nature and a scattering of anecdotes, there’s a lingering suggestion that maybe the man isn’t quite as literary as he’s led the world to believe or is much more mortal and normal that he wants anyone to know.
One night in Rome, his keyboard player Ian McLagan caught a moment when that mask of literary godliness perhaps slipped. The musician was waiting backstage when Dylan emerged donning “a black drape jacket with a white high-collar shirt”. It was a grand image, reminiscent of the artists and poets of the 18th Century during the Romantic period when writing poetry was a noble trade, and the men who did it were revered and dressed as gentlemen.
“You’re looking very Byronic tonight,” the musician said to his then-boss, paying him a major compliment by likening him to Lord Byron, the famed 18th-century poet. But in response to his praise, Dylan then allegedly went on and sulked all night through the gig and for several days longer on the road. Bringing a frosty atmosphere to their tour bus, McLagan was confused as to why the musician seemed to hate this connection between himself and the poet, wondering if maybe he had a particular dislike for the romantic era or something.
Eventually, Dylan decided to confront his bandmate over a week after this incident; “Hey, Ian, at the show in Rome, why did you call me moronic?”
A mishearing? perhaps. A slip in his act as the poetic mouthpiece? Maybe. A funny story that pierces the cool image Dylan would love his fans to believe? Certainly.
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