{"id":14124,"date":"2026-05-23T16:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/?p=14124"},"modified":"2026-05-23T16:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:19:18","slug":"saturday-night-at-the-oldies-bob-dylan-turns-85-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2026\/05\/23\/saturday-night-at-the-oldies-bob-dylan-turns-85-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Night at the Oldies: Bob Dylan Turns 85 Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can one get tired of Dylan? That would be like getting tired of America. It would be like getting to the point where no passage in Kerouac brings a tingle to the spine or a tear to the eye, or getting to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young<\/a>\u00a0must give way to\u00a0knocking on heaven’s door<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The scrawny Jewish kid from Hibbing Minnesota, son of an appliance salesman, was an unlikely bard, but bard he became. He’s been at it a long, long time, and his body of work is as vast and as variegated as America herself. We old fans from way back who were with him from the beginning are still finding gems unheard as we ourselves enter the twilight where it’s\u00a0not dark yet<\/a>, but getting there. But it is a beautiful fade-out from a world that cannot last.<\/p>\n

Our boy’s been covered, and covered some more. Here are some outstanding specimens:<\/p>\n

Johnny Rivers,\u00a0Positively Fourth Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite. It was obvious that we were from the same side of town, had been read the same citations, came from the same musical family and were cut from the same cloth. When I listened to Johnny\u2019s version of \u201cPositively 4th Street,\u201d I liked his version better than mine. I listened to it over and over again. Most of the cover versions of my songs seemed to take them out into left field somewhere, but Rivers\u2019s version had the mandate down \u2014 the attitude and melodic sense to complete and surpass even the feeling that I had put into it. It shouldn\u2019t have surprised me, though. He had done the same thing with \u201cMaybellene\u201d and \u201cMemphis,\u201d two Chuck Berry songs. When I heard Johnny sing my song, it was obvious that life had the same external grip on him as it did on me. Bob Dylan,\u00a0Chronicles<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mary Travers\u00a0interviews<\/a>\u00a0Bob Dylan. Not a cover but interesting to the true Dylan aficionado.<\/p>\n

Joan Baez,\u00a0Hard Rain<\/a><\/p>\n

Gary U.S. Bonds,\u00a0From a Buick Six<\/a><\/p>\n

Peter, Paul, and Mary,\u00a0Too Much of Nothing<\/a><\/p>\n

Arlo Guthrie,\u00a0Percy’s Song<\/a><\/p>\n

Byrds,\u00a0Chimes of Freedom<\/a><\/p>\n

Jimi Hendrix,\u00a0All Along the Watchtower<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen Stills,\u00a0Ballad of Hollis Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

McGuinn, Harrison, Clapton, Petty et al.,\u00a0My Back Pages<\/a><\/p>\n

Marianne Faithful,\u00a0Visions of Johanna<\/a><\/p>\n

But nothing touches\u00a0the original<\/a>. This is the bard at his incandescent mid-’60s best. From Blonde on Blonde.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can one get tired of Dylan? That would be like getting tired of America. It would be like getting to the point where no passage in Kerouac brings a tingle to the spine or a tear to the eye, or getting to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young\u00a0must give way to\u00a0knocking … Continue reading “Saturday Night at the Oldies: Bob Dylan Turns 85 Tomorrow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dylan","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14125,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14124\/revisions\/14125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}