Bob Dylan Essay, Research Paper

Bob Dylan was recognized by his poetry and song writing. He usually wrote songs about

protesting and religious themes. Although the theme of Bob Dylan s work is depressing, it is

necessary to consider how the events in his life affected his music. Also Bob Dylan had other

musicians that influenced him in his early years.

Bob Dylan was born in Duluth Minnesota on the date of May 24th 1941. By the time he

was ten years old he was writing poems and had taught himself to play guitar. He later changed

his name from Robert Allen Zimmerman to the famous name Bob Dylan. In 1962 Bob visited

his big early influence Woodie Guthrie in the hospital. Finally Bob Dylan got to meet him and

become friends with his lost idol who was slowly dying of Huntington s disease in Morristown,

New Jersey, Dylan had written him a song called song to Woody. A famous quote from this

song is Bout a funny old world that s coming along. Seems sick and it s hungry, it s tired and

it s torn, it looks like it s dying and it s hardly been born.

After he graduated high school in the early 1959 Dylan found himself playing folk music.

This is also the time he began to write his legendary folk songs. In the 1960s Bob Dylan had

turned the themes of his music to protest what many people consider the wrongs of society. In

his songs he writes about the luckless, the abandoned and forsaken, as he put it in chimes of

Freedom. He condemned the Ku Klux Klan in The Death of Emmett Till and the John

Birchites in Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues. In Masters of War he damned the war

makers. And in Blowing in the wind, he created probably his most famous song, though Dylan

once stated that he wrote that song just for his friends. In fact, this anti racist, antiwar anthem is,

in its deepest sense, a subtitle plea for awareness. ( How many times must a man look up/

Before he can see the sky? / Yes n how many ears must one man have/ before he can hear

people cry? ) Dylan had the characteristics of a biblical prophet, but also he had a sense of

humor and irony ( Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues ). One soon started to notice

that he was a beginning to write songs that saw the world as consisting not just of heroes and

villains but mostly cowardly people caught up in all-to-human situations. In the song Who

killed Davey Moore? Dave Moore was a boxer who got killed by another boxer in the ring.

Dylan sings about the death of the boxer Dave Moore and dramatizes the excuses (in a way that

echoes the rhyme who killed Chock Robin?) Given by the referee, the fighter s manager, the

gamblers, the sportswriters and the crowd.

In 1965 Bob Dylan married Sara Lowndes and later had four children together.

In 1966 Bob had a fatal motorcycle accident, suffering from several broken bones, some

broken vertebrae, a concussion and lacerations of his face and scalp. For months he was forced

to recuperate in his home in Woodstock with his wife. Bob had written a song about her and the

evidence shows that Dylan felt she saved his life and by the care she gave him. In the song If

not for you Bob writes about how is wife being there for him when he was recuperating and

what he would do if she were not there. If not for you my sky would fall/rain would gather

too./without your love I d be nowhere at all, /I d be lost without you. During his long

recuperation, he spoke to no one in the press. However, in May 1967, Dylan broke his silence

and told the New York Daily News; What I ve been doing mostly is seeing only a few close

friends, reading little about the outside world, poring over books by people you never heard of,

thinking about where I m going and why am I running, and am I mixed up too much, and what

am I knowing, and what am I giving and what am I taking. And mainly what I ve been doing is

working on getting better and making better music, which is what my life is about. His next

album would deeply reflect how he had changed. It was entitled Nashville Skyline. Bob

Dylan s fans were shocked. They had been expecting the old Dylan back but instead they had a

person who was now singing country. The album was a bust and showed little future.

In 1971 he published his first book Tarantula and did little to help his slumping career.

Confused about his future Dylan agreed to compose the score a new movie called Pat Garrett

and Billy the Kid. The movie was a failure but the soundtrack was a huge success.

In 1967 to 1974 he wrote songs about legends, myth s, bible and ghosts on the album

John Wesley Harding. In this album according to the Rolling Stone press he presents two

characters in his songs whom in some way, seem to represent two different parts of his

personality needing and looking to be reconciled for example the joker and the thief in All

along the watch tower.

In 1973 Dylan had his first US #1 Hit Knocking on Heaven s Door. This song went

on to become one of Dylan s greatest songs.

Dylan and Sara (his wife) had separated and this made it possible for his next album to

what it was. They called the album Blood on the Tracks. It was Dylan s most mature effort

ever recorded. The songs were well written and gave an excellent perception of how he felt

inside. He was clearly very upset about his separation with Sara. The album had some of his

greatest songs, such as Tangled Up in Blue, Idiot Wind, Simple Twist of Fate and Shelter

From the Storm. Dylan s greatest album to date.

In 1977 Dylan and Sara divorced and in 1978 he acted in the movie Renaldo & Clara

and that same year converted to Christianity. In 1985 he performed at Live Aid and Farm

Aid and contributed to We Are the World.

In 1970 Dylan received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Princeton University. In

1988 Dylan was introduced to the R&R Hall of Fame. In 1991 Dylan received a Grammy

Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1997 Kennedy Center Honors Dylan for achievement in

the arts. President Clinton stated, He probably had more impact on people of my generation

than any other creative artist. In 1998 he was the winner of three Grammy awards in major

categories for Time Out of Mind : The album of the Year, Best Male Contemporary Rock

Vocal Performance, and Best Contemporary Folk Album. In 2000 Dylan is awarded The Polar

Music Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music for his indisputable influence on the

development of 20th century popular music as a singer-songwriter. They also nominated Dylan

for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997, 1998 and 1999.