{"id":145,"date":"2025-05-24T16:35:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T16:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/05\/24\/bob-dylan-turns-84\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T16:35:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T16:35:31","slug":"bob-dylan-turns-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/05\/24\/bob-dylan-turns-84\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Dylan Turns 84"},"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, to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young<\/a> must give way to knocking on heaven's door<\/a>. 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 not dark yet<\/a>, but getting there. But it is a beautiful fade-out from a world that cannot last.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Johnny Rivers, Positively Fourth Street<\/a>.<\/span><\/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, Chronicles<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mary Travers interviews<\/a> Bob Dylan. Not a cover but interesting to the true Dylan aficionado.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joan Baez, Hard Rain<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

Arlo Guthrie, Percy's Song<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Byrds, Chimes of Freedom<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

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

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

But nothing touches the original<\/a>. This is the bard at his incandescent best. Mid-'60s. Blonde on Blonde<\/em> album.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, Bro Inky from my boyhood sends us to Powerline where Scott Johnson offers some excellent Dylan commentary<\/a>. If you say it is better than mine, I won't argue with you.<\/span><\/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, to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young must give way to knocking on heaven's door. … Continue reading “Bob Dylan Turns 84”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","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\/145","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=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}