The weirdest man in music, according to Roger McGuinn
It often feels strange that some of the musical greats are still alive today. It’s a blessing, don’t get me wrong, and 80-something isn’t such an outlandish age to live to, but it feels culturally dissonant that The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn knows who Kylie Jenner is, or Bob Dylan has heard of the six-seven meme.
Through their beloved music, these country-rock icons spoke to completely different experiences of culture, one without phones and suffocating globalisation, one where surveillance capitalism was just a dystopian theme in a George Orwell book. Now, as they exist within our landscape of cultural codes, the dissonance between past and present becomes even more pronounced.
No more obvious was this made than when McGuinn was asked in 2025 to discuss his friendship with the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ star, and he immediately grasped at the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory.
“If you’ve ever seen The Big Bang Theory, Bob is like Sheldon. [laughs] It’s like… he’s out there. He thinks in abstractions. And social graces are different,” McGuinn shared with Guitar Player.
The show’s protagonist, Sheldon, is a brilliant, albeit socially challenged, theoretical physicist, providing most of the comedic hook, line, and sinkers. It’s a bizarre comparison from a coveted musician who once shared the limelight with Dylan.
McGuinn went on, “He doesn’t really have a conversation with you; he talks in abstractions a lot. I love the guy like a brother. But… he’s a little… challenging to have a friendship with.”
An element of Dylan’s eccentric social behaviour is his tendency to flip on friends easily; the camera obscura of the limelight can do this to any star, but Dylan’s weird temperament meant McGuinn never knew where he stood, whether they were on Dylan’s Rolling Thunder tour, or just hanging out as neighbours, shooting hoops at McGuinn’s new house.
McGuinn isn’t exactly saying anything new here. Dylan’s personality is so multi-faceted, so mysterious, that the experimental 2007 music biopic about his life, I’m Not There, directed by Todd Haynes, utilised six different actors, including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere, as a distinct part of his sprawling public persona (Dylan allegedly favoured Blanchett’s imitation the most).
McGuinn knew how to deal with Dylan’s weirdness: Listen and take stock of the praise. He can religiously recount the gold stars Dylan has thrown his way: “He liked me when we were hanging out together in Malibu. He liked me on the Rolling Thunder tour. He liked me when I did the 30th anniversary thing at Madison Square Garden with him. He was happy about my performance at that. I remember he told Tom Petty and George Harrison, ‘Wow, Roger really stole the show!’ He was very positive about that.”
Plus, McGuinn is aware it’s nothing personal. Dylan’s weirdness touched every part of his life: It takes a very strange kind of mind to write the 11-minute 1965 masterpiece, ‘Desolation Row’. The epic, abstract poem, which sees classic characters like Albert Einstein and Cinderella “sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet”. Maybe McGuinn was on to something with that curious The Big Bang Theory comparison…
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