Category: Music

HURRICANE  AND JOEY:  TWO CINEMATIC NARRATIVES FROM DESIRE     When the album Desire was released in early 1976, many Dylan fans were delighted that, in two of the songs, Dylan appeared to have reverted to the role that made him famous – that of a ‘protest singer’. Both songs were based around the lives...

   It is a commonplace that Bob Dylan made possible the emergence of a whole generation of singer-songwriters. It is not surprising, therefore, that a number of them have chosen to pay ‘tribute’ to him in song. Not all of the references to Dylan have been complimentary, however. Writing a song about the greatness of...

1963 was the year Bob Dylan ‘made it’. At the beginning of the year he was still a little-known folk singer with one album to his name – a rather startling collection of blues and folk covers with a couple of derivative originals – which had sold very poorly. By the end of the year...

  How do you sing when you are 80 years old? In his first ‘live’ show since the pandemic curtailed the Never Ending Tour, Bob Dylan makes an immaculate demonstration to the world of exactly how much his foray into the singing styles of Sinatra and the other crooners has embellished his late performing style....

 …The poet, therefore, is truly the thief of fire. He is responsible for humanity, for animals even; he will have to make sure his visions can be smelled, fondled, listened to; if what he brings back from beyond has form, he gives it form; if it has none, he gives it none. A language must...