Is Bob Dylan the Greatest American, Artistic Genius of the 20th Century ?

[gtopa1]

"Ballad in Plain D"	"My Last Farewell to Stirling"	[1]
"Ballad of Hollis Brown"	"Pretty Polly"	[2]
"Blind Willie McTell"	"St. James Infirmary Blues"	[3]
"Blowin' in the Wind"	"No More Auction Block"[4][5]	[6][7][8]
"Bob Dylan's Dream"	"Lady Franklin's Lament"	[7][9]
"Boots of Spanish Leather"	"Scarborough Fair"	[7]
"Buckets of Rain"	"Bottle of Wine"	[10]
"Chimes of Freedom"	"Chimes of Trinity"	[7]
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"	"Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone)"	[7][11]
"False Prophet"	"If Lovin' is Believing"	[12]
"Farewell"	"The Leaving of Liverpool"	[13]
"Farewell Angelina"	"Farewell to Tarwathie"	[14]
"Girl from the North Country"	"Scarborough Fair"	[7][9]
"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"	"Lord Randall"	[15][6][7][16]
"Hard Times in New York Town"	"Down On Penny's Farm"	[17]
"I Shall Be Free"	"We Shall Be Free"	[18]
"I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You"	"Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" (Barcarolle)	[19]
"John Brown"	"Mrs. McGrath"	[20]
"Lay Down Your Weary Tune"	"The Water Is Wide" / "Oh Waly, Waly"	[21]
"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"	"Mary Hamilton", "Child Ballad 173" [clarification needed]	[22][23]
"Masters of War"	"Nottamun Town"	[7]
"Obviously Five Believers"	"Me and My Chauffeur Blues"	[24]
"Percy's Song"	"The Wind and the Rain"	[25]
"Pledging My Time"	"It Hurts Me Too"	[26]
"Restless Farewell"	"The Parting Glass"	[27]
"Song to Woody"	"1913 Massacre"	[28]
"Things Have Changed"	"The Observations of a Crow"	[29]
"The Times They Are a-Changin'"	"Farewell to Sicily"	[30]
"Troubled and I Don't Know Why"	"What Did the Deep Sea Say?"	[31]
"Walls of Red Wing"	"The Road and the Miles to Dundee"	[32]
"When the Deal Goes Down"	"Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)"	[33]
"With God on Our Side"	"The Patriot Game"	[34]

[th]

Dylan song​

[/th][th]

Original tune​

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Notes and links​

[/th]​

 

[Meathead]

Quite a few of his songs I heard first by local folk/pop group The Seekers. I liked his songs but I preferred them done like these:









Tell me the difference between these two:



- YouTube

As a singer I didn't particularly like Dylan especially after he went electric.

So who?

Woody Guthrie

Pete Seeger

Joan Baez.............................................who helped Dylan no end. And wonderfully so.

Malvina Reynolds





Please don't get me wrong; I liked Dylan but he wasn't my first contact with a lot of his songs. As a folkie I must admit a lot of his tunes I think came from a folk base and he adapted them.

NOT that there's anything wrong with that.

AI says:


It's impossible to give an exact number for how many of Bob Dylan's songs were old folk tunes, as he drew from a vast tradition, but his early work in New York's folk scene was heavily influenced by artists like Woody Guthrie and incorporated many traditional folk elements and melodies into his original compositions. He eventually grew beyond the constraints of the genre, but folk tunes formed the foundation of his early career.

I did not like his songs much after he went electric: prove me wrong!!!

Greg

You forgot Guns and Roses:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

 

[gtopa1]

My first hearings:








Dylan's singing just didn't do it for me though I liked him up to a point.

Greg

 

[August West]

Let me guess--- you're a Bob Dylan fan?

Me, I can take him or leave him, but I always liked having him around. Folk guitarists only take me so far, but Bob had a distinctive voice, and I have to say that while I have no idea of his politics, I thank him for that! Far better than having Bruce Springsteen or the like ramming his politics down my throat!

Actually, if there were only one folk/country acoustic guitarist out there I could listen to, it might be Harry Chapin.

How is it being rammed down your throat? I`m not a Springsteen fan so I don`t listen to him. Why do you? I classify Harry Chapin in the same category as Jim Croce. Dull and completely uninteresting and the music world never needed them.

 

[citygator]

I was never a fan of Bob Dylan and never got the hype. I think it was generational and you had to really connect to what he was saying back when he was saying it. I have no issue with people who do connect with him though. Love is love.

 

[OODA_Loop]

Hardly.

 

[gtopa1]

You forgot Guns and Roses:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Noy a group I listened to. lol

Greg

 

[toobfreak]

How is it being rammed down your throat?

Because if you are at one of his live concerts or buy a live DVD expecting to hear tunes, instead he rams his far left radical political views down the audiences throats.

 

[Muhammed]

View attachment 1164198

That must be his interpretation of the myriad novel pathogenic organisms in his bloodstream that he caught from that 11 year old Russian hooker.

 

[protectionist]

Yes he plays several instruments, but he plays them all poorly at a very basic level. Then when he tries to sing it gets worse.

Nobody ever said any thread would be 100% free of cluelessness (if not weirdness)

 

[protectionist]

 

[protectionist]

Tastes differ. Personally, I think he's singing the same song over and over occasionally changing the lyrics slightly, but then again there are people who saw their first love while there was his song playing somewhere in the background. Apparently, I'm not one of them.

OMG! This post shows how far wrong posts can be in this forum. This one is abut 100 light years off the mark. Some posters are doing a great job of showing how much they don't know.

A few aspects of Bob Dylan's goldmine of songs are >>

• more diverse than any singer I've ever heard. Musicologists have been noting this for 6 decades
• that diversity spreads over hundreds of songs and 63 years of recording

 

[protectionist]

Let me guess--- you're a Bob Dylan fan?

Me, I can take him or leave him, but I always liked having him around. Folk guitarists only take me so far, but Bob had a distinctive voice, and I have to say that while I have no idea of his politics, I thank him for that! Far better than having Bruce Springsteen or the like ramming his politics down my throat!

Actually, if there were only one folk/country acoustic guitarist out there I could listen to, it might be Harry Chapin.

I wonder how many of Bob Dylan's songs and guitar work posters have really heard. Girl From the North Country & Don't Think Twice It's All Right have extremlely fine fingerpicking.
In others, like Chimes of Freedom & Mr Tambourine Man, the guitar is quite simple soft strums, but the idea is simply to provide a background for the poetry and messages.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Inventing ‘rap music’ (oxymoron) is not a virtue. What’s more, beat poetry devolved into that disaster.
Dylan borrowed heavily from Leonard Cohen and Woody Guthrie.
I’d put Tom Waits in the same category with Dylan though Waits admits Dylan was big influence on him.

 

[protectionist]

Subterranean Homesick Blues was the first "rap song" ever and it was fantastic.
I don`t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Yes, that's true, but "It's All Right Ma...I'm Only Bleedin" * which is on the same album ("Bringin It All Back Home) released in 1965, is also the first rap song.

* 2nd video in the OP.

 

[protectionist]

If that's rap, then he can't rap worth a shit either. Just add it to the list of things he sucks at.

• rapping
• singing
• piano
• acoustic guitar
• electric guitar
• harmonica

You're making a fool out of yourself.

 

[protectionist]

View attachment 1164198

You're in the wrong thread.

 

[protectionist]

Quite a few of his songs I heard first by local folk/pop group The Seekers. I liked his songs but I preferred them done like these:









Tell me the difference between these two:



- YouTube

As a singer I didn't particularly like Dylan especially after he went electric.

So who?

Woody Guthrie

Pete Seeger

Joan Baez.............................................who helped Dylan no end. And wonderfully so.

Malvina Reynolds





Please don't get me wrong; I liked Dylan but he wasn't my first contact with a lot of his songs. As a folkie I must admit a lot of his tunes I think came from a folk base and he adapted them.

NOT that there's anything wrong with that.

AI says:


It's impossible to give an exact number for how many of Bob Dylan's songs were old folk tunes, as he drew from a vast tradition, but his early work in New York's folk scene was heavily influenced by artists like Woody Guthrie and incorporated many traditional folk elements and melodies into his original compositions. He eventually grew beyond the constraints of the genre, but folk tunes formed the foundation of his early career.

I did not like his songs much after he went electric: prove me wrong!!!

Greg

He went electric in 1965. In 1979, he won a Grammy for "Gotta Serve Somebody". That song, on the album "Slow Train Coming," marking the beginning of his Christian music period, still remains in the top ten of all his songs.

 

[protectionist]

Inventing ‘rap music’ (oxymoron) is not a virtue. What’s more, beat poetry devolved into that disaster.
Dylan borrowed heavily from Leonard Cohen and Woody Guthrie.
I’d put Tom Waits in the same category with Dylan though Waits admits Dylan was big influence on him.

Every great artist in every genre, "borrows" some style from other artists who preceded them. But nobody wrote all those incredible lyrics to all those songs but Bob.
I speculate there are many people who toss ideas around who havent really heard many of the Bob Dylan repertoire. Ot sank their minds into the depths of the songs/poems. If this is the case, definitely click on the videos in the OP, and Post # 31.

 

[the watcher]

You're in the wrong thread.

No, everyone else is.