The deep cut that David Bowie thought was better than ‘Space Oddity’
Read More
Credit: Alamy
Did Bob Dylan hate David Bowie?
As with the many musicians emerging in the late 1960s and ’70s, David Bowie was greatly inspired by the songwriting prowess of Bob Dylan. As he looked to make his own way in the musical world, few parallels could be drawn between the two musicians’ established styles, but Bowie appeared to share Dylan’s fearless creativity, and strands of Dylan’s lyrical influence can be heard in some of the Starman’s early material.
Just as Dylan became popular in the American folk scene, he alienated his loyal fans by grabbing an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Similarly, Bowie moved restlessly through different phases in his career, retiring his Ziggy Stardust alter ego at the height of popularity and ditching his commercial sound for something a little more experimental in the late 1970s for the revered Berlin Trilogy.
At a glance, it would appear that America’s songwriting genius and Britain’s creative chameleon should have had a lot to say to each other, but sadly, there was an air of bitterness between the two.
The Bowie devotees among us may be familiar with an obscure Hunky Dory cut titled ‘Song for Bob Dylan’. On the surface, the song might feel like a nod to Dylan as a guiding light – after all, Bowie had Dylan’s ‘Song to Woody’ in mind when naming the track – but on closer inspection, ‘Song for Bob Dylan’ was something of a swipe.
In the mid-1960s, Dylan became uncomfortably posited as the spokesman for a generation and wanted to step back to obscurity and focus on his family. “I found myself stuck in Woodstock, vulnerable and with a family to protect,” Dylan wrote in Chronicles. “If you looked in the press, though, you saw me being portrayed as anything but that. It was surprising how thick the smoke had become. It seems like the world has always needed a scapegoat—someone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire. But America wasn’t the Roman Empire and someone else would have to step up and volunteer…Now it had blown up in my face and was hanging over me. I wasn’t a preacher performing miracles. It would have driven anybody mad.”
In an interview with Melody Maker in 1976, Bowie said: “It was at that period that I said, ‘OK, Dylan, if you don’t want to do it, I will.’ I saw that leadership void”. Bowie’s song responds by directly referencing ‘Song To Woody’ and assumes Dylan’s throne.
Over the 1970s, the pair met on several occasions, with Dylan collaborating with Bowie’s guitarist Mick Ronson for Rolling Thunder in 1975. It’s also alleged that Dylan had wanted Bowie to produce 1983’s Infidels before Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler was brought in. If this is true, Dylan’s bitterness toward Bowie couldn’t have been too potent or grudging, but it certainly showed earlier on in the 1970s.
In a 1976 interview with Playboy, Bowie was asked about a rumoured collaboration with Dylan. “You’re not noted for cordial relationships with other artists,” the interviewer started. “Yet there was the rumour that you flew to Europe to spend a sabbatical with Bob Dylan. What about it?”
“That’s a beaut,” Bowie said, dismissing the rumour. “I haven’t even left this bloody country in years. I saw Dylan in New York seven, eight months ago. We don’t have a lot to talk about. We’re not great friends. Actually, I think he hates me.”
The interviewer quizzed this revelation: “Under what circumstances did you meet?”
“Very bad ones,” Bowie said. “We went back to somebody’s house after some gig at a club. We had all gone to see someone. I can’t remember who, and Dylan was there. I was in a very, sort of…verbose frame of mind. And I just talked at him for hours and hours and hours, and whether I amused him or scared him or repulsed him, I really don’t know. I didn’t wait for any answers. I just went on and on about everything. And then I said goodnight. He never phoned me.”
The interviewer finally asked Bowie whether Dylan impressed him. “Not really,” he replied. “I’d just like to know what the young chap thought of me. I was quite convinced that what I had to say was important, which I seem to feel all the time. It’s been quite a while since someone really impressed me.”
It seems that Dylan wasn’t impressed with Bowie’s verbosity. While it’s unclear why Dylan was quite so rude to Bowie, Dylan was noted to have expressed distaste for some of Bowie’s music, especially 1975’s Young Americans.
Dylan’s bitterness thankfully never boiled into a feud, and Bowie even gave some great live covers of the seminal songwriter later in his career. Listen to Bowie’s 1989 cover of Dylan’s ‘Maggie’s Farm’ during the 1989 Tin Machine Tour below.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.