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Originally Posted by blastingas10
Youre right, but i wouldnt say that all of his melodies were borrowed. Some, yes. But saying that ALL of them were, thats saying a lot. He wrote so many songs, not every one of them was borrowed. But isnt that what just about everyone does? they take something that has been done and something that inspired them, and they put their own stamp on it.
Lets look at this quote.
"Everything Dylan did was folk norm. The lyrics, the sound was pioneered by people like Woody Guthrie(Who was inspired by the songbook of countless unheard of songwriters in America since the 1800s.). Dylan did NOTHING that hasn't been done ten thousand times over."
If you look at it this way, then who didnt do something that had been done? Everyone was inspired by someone that came before them. I guess Robert Johnson, BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughan were all just doing something that had been done "ten thousand times over." I guess just about every musician has been doing something that has been done "ten thousand times over." This certainly isnt the case. As i said at the beginning of this post, musicians and artists alike take things that have been done and things that inspired them, and they put their own stamp on it.
Folk is where Dylan got his start. He put folk on the map. Dylan Initially modeled his writing style on the songs of Woody Guthrie, but he added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry. Not all of his lyrics were in the folk fashion. He moved away from the protest songs and went on to something different. He referred to them as "finger pointing songs", and he no longer wanted to be a part of it. So, to say that all his lyrics were pioneered by Guthrie is false. Dylan was something in his own right.
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How can you 'pioneer' lyrics? You're missing the point with the Guthrie comparison. My point is, Dylan just fit with the times. He was not better, or worse, and nowhere near as pioneering. And Guthrie got everything he did from Leadbelly(Whom he lived with many years studying from, Dylan would later study Guthrie):
/\ 1942. Then again, being a black man in the 40s doing protest songs doesn't have the same appeal as a scruffy haired young white man in the 60s doing protest songs, does it?
Then again, this style of music dates back to the freaking civil war:
Civil War Music: The Rebel Soldier
Both sides made songs like things, and from what I can tell, there some that date back even to the Mexican American war, and earlier.
Dylan was not doing anything new, really...
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Professor of poetry at the Univeristy of Oxford, Christopher Ricks, published a 500-page analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Former British poet laureate, Andrew Motion, argued that Bob Dylan's lyrics should be studied in schools.
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Just a vanity project to somebody who probably had a boyhood fantasy, and wanted to shock intellectuals all the time. Sometimes highly educated people have self indulgent vanity projects. May I refer you to a book I read just recently called 'Michelle Remembers' written by a credited psychatrist who tried to convince me that a five year old girl was kidnapped by a rape cult that would crawl on 4 legs, and tear cats to pieces with their teeth, transform people into devils, etc.
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Originally Posted by Stu
It's his lyricism. When considering the social and political context of some of his releases, they become hugely significant. He gave a voice to people who felt they didn't have one. His words have the capacity to communicate with everybody on some level, which is one hell of an achievement I say.
Also, he is a hugely influential musician, The Beatles, Byrds, Fairport Convention... All, to name a few, indebted to him in some way or another.
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This is a suitable answer. I can't disagree. Not filled with ridiculous hyperbole like Dylan being the sole harbinger of intellect in rock n' roll.
Dylan shouldn't even be accredited for being an inventor when he was obviously more a preserver. I honestly think he was a regressive preserver more than a progressive reserver, anyway. Again, I think the advantage of Bob Dylan was, as mentioned before with the 60s comment, time and place.