Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylanis an American singer-songwriter, artist and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when his songs chronicled social unrest, although Dylan repudiated suggestions from journalists that he was a spokesman for his generation. Nevertheless, early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements. After he left...
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth24 May 1941
CityDuluth, MN
I never did use earphones until into the Eighties or Nineties. I don't like to use earphones. I've never heard anybody sing with earphones effectively. They just give you a false sense of security. A lot of us don't need earphones. I don't think Springsteen or Mick do. But other people more or less have given in. But they ought not to. They don't need to. Especially if they have a good band.
Up north, you could find these radio stations with no name on the dials that played pre-rock 'n' roll things - country blues. We would hear Slim Harpo or Lightnin' Slim and gospel groups, the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. I was so far north, I didn't even know where Alabama was.
There are degrees of happiness. You go from one to the other and then back again. It's hard to be completely happy when those around us are suffering and groaning from hunger.
Some of the old folk singers used to phrase things in an interesting way, and then, I got my style from seeing a lot of outdoor-type poets, who would recite their poetry. When you don't have a guitar, you recite things differently, and there used to be quite a few poets in the jazz clubs, who would recite with a different type of attitude.
Once you think you know the song, then you have go and see how other people have done it.
You have to work out where your place is. And who you are. But we're all spirit. That's all we are, we're just walking dressed up in a suit of skin, and we're going to leave that behind.
A lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there's no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness.
I can picture the color of the song, or the shape of it, or who it is that I'm trying to appeal to, in the song, and what I'm trying to, almost, reinforce my feelings for. And I know that sounds sort of vague and abstract, but I've got a handle on it when I'm doing it.
Up on Housing Project Hill It's either fortune or fame You must pick one or the other Though neither of them are to be what they claim
When asked what his songs were about: Some are about 10 minutes long, others are about 5 or 6.
I don't want no pickle. Just want to ride my motorcycle.
What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content.
Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. 'I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,' I said that.