The two songwriters that would last forever and why Bob Dylan was desperate to be like them
It didn’t seem as though Bob Dylan had any predecessors. The legendary singer-songwriter was a force completely unto himself when he appeared in the early 1960s New York folk scene. Although his protest songs are what got him noticed, it was his poetic ability to write from the heart that kept Dylan popular and acclaimed. It was something that never changed, even as his style and approach to music did over the years.
Becoming the “voice of a generation” was never a choice. Dylan was merely in the right place, at the right time, and, most importantly, saying the right things. At a time in the cultural landscape when phones were treated with the utmost contempt and a new breed of listener didn’t want to be sold an American dream but hear the truth behind it, Dylan would become a bastion of songwriting brilliance.
Over the decades, he would continually put himself first when it came to songwriting. He never tried to appeal to a mass of people or a particular part of the market, Dylan would simply sit down and begin the process of unburdening his heart and lightening his mind as he expressed himself through his art. Though he didn’t decide to become such a pivotal voice, he did decide to let his voice be heard, and he earned that technique from two prominent songwriters.
On 2009’s Together Through Life, Dylan decided to collaborate on nearly every song with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Dylan had toured with the Dead in 1987, with Hunter co-writing two songs from Dylan’s Down in the Groove a year later. The only song from Together Through Life that Dylan wrote on his own was ‘This Dream of You’, which took inspiration from the pre-rock New York pop scene.
“Those ’50s and ’60s records were definitely important,” Dylan told Bill Flanagan in 2009. “That might have been the last great age of real music. Since then, or maybe the ’70s, it’s all been people playing computers. Sam Cooke, the Coasters, Phil Spector, all that music was great but it didn’t exactly break into my consciousness.”
Dylan was just coming into his own when those artists were putting out their best-loved material. Instead of leaning into pop, however, Dylan chose to focus on folk music and classic blues as his chosen genres. In his view, there were certain singers and writers who were worth taking after, most of whom didn’t work in the Brill Building or appear on Columbia Records.
“Back then, I was listening to Son House, Leadbelly, the Carter family, Memphis Minnie and death romance ballads,” Dylan claimed. “As far as songwriting, I wanted to write songs like Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson. Timeless and eternal.”
Those two legendary names don’t just offer us a glimpse into the type of listener a young Dylan was, but of the man he wanted to be. Guthrie and Johnson are perhaps two of the most honest songwriters the 20th century had the pleasure of hearing. While Guthrie would express himself more cleanly and abruptly than most can dream of through a range of punchy and poetic lyrics, Johnson would allow the blues to emanate from his every breath. It gave Dylan a blueprint to follow: open your heart, let your soul wander and cultivate with your mind, and there’s a good chance everybody will want to hear you.
“Only a few of those radio ballads still hold up and most of them have Doc Pomus’ hand in them. ‘Spanish Harlem’, ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’, ‘Little Sister’ … a few others,” Dylan explained. “Those were fantastic songs. Doc was a soulful cat. If you said there was a little bit of him in ‘This Dream of You’ I would take it as a compliment.”
Check out ‘Save The Last Dance For Me’ down below.
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