Today is Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday. And what an eventful seven decades he’s had. He has starred in Hollywood movies; presented a hit radio show; held an exhibition of his paintings; published a memoir and a book of freeform prose; and won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a special Pulitzer Prize and dozens of Grammys. Oh, and he writes songs too.
His most celebrated period was, of course, the 1960s. Dylan’s early protest songs earned him the title ‘spokesman for a generation’, while his forays into surrealist rock ’n’ roll later in the decade saw him become a figurehead for the burgeoning counterculture movement. In the space of just ten years, he released an incredible nine albums, almost every one a classic. The songs he wrote during this time – Blowin’ In The Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Mr Tambourine Man, Like A Rolling Stone, All Along The Watchtower – are as famous as they are fantastic.
In between all this, Dylan found time to enrage folk purists by ‘going electric’, invent the modern music video with the promo for Subterranean Homesick Blues and introduce the Beatles to drugs. How wise this last act was depends on whether you think The White Album is a psychedelic masterpiece or a chemically-addled car crash.
By the middle of the decade Dylan’s fame had reached ridiculous, Beatlemania-style heights. His concerts in particular were chaotic affairs: the screams of teenage girls declaring their love for the singer matched only by the booing of those who disapproved of his new direction. Meanwhile, his reluctance to embrace his position as leader of the youth underground had journalists baffled. He took to toying with the press, as seen in an amusing example from the 1965 documentary film Dont Look Back. At an interview in England, Dylan – possibly stoned and holding a giant lightbulb – is asked to reveal his ‘real message’. “My real message?” the singer smirks, “Keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb.”
A motorcycle accident towards the decade’s end allowed Dylan to disappear from public view and regroup. His 1970s were mixed: a few lacklustre albums, and then one of his all-time greatest, Blood On The Tracks. Largely dealing with his divorce from first wife Sara Lownds, its songs were a mixture of tender romance and angry vitriol. Its highlight, Idiot Wind (“you’re an idiot babe: it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe”), remains the bitchiest thing this side of America’s Next Top Model.
Enter the Eighties, and another typically unexpected move for Dylan: he became a born-again Christian. His subsequent religious albums were critically panned for their evangelical lyrics and synthpop production values. He then starred with Rupert Everett in Hearts Of Fire, a loosely-plotted drama about two rival rock stars. Whether it was actually any good is uncertain, since almost nobody went to see it. Perhaps the promotional pictures – Dylan in fingerless leather gloves and New Romantic earrings – put them off.
Although Dylan never publicly renounced his faith, by the Nineties his music had largely left behind religious themes. He won three Grammys for 1997’s Time Out Of Mind, which began a run of acclaimed albums. All the while Dylan continued to perform to adoring audiences around the globe: his so-called Never Ending Tour, which started in 1988, sees him play an average of 100 shows a year.
In recent years the famously grumpy Dylan has shown his lighter side. In 2008 he starred in a commercial for lingerie company Victoria’s Secret, raising his wrinkled brow at semi-naked supermodel Adriana Lima. His most recent album, 2009’s Christmas In The Heart – his 34th – is a collection of yuletide classics: the video for its lead single Must Be Santa features Dylan in fake wig and top hat, sucking on a cigar. He even dances.
Today, Dylan’s influence looms as large as ever: see Laura Marling’s troubadour persona, the folk-rock of Mumford & Sons or even Eminem’s soul-baring lyrics for proof. And let’s not forget Adele, whose Transatlantic success was triggered in no small part by her outstanding cover of Make You Feel My Love, a Dylan track.
So what next for the former Robert Allen Zimmerman? “Someday I’ll wake up and decide that I have had enough,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “And if and when that happens, I won’t have any problem with walking away. I’ve fulfilled every single thing I wanted to do. I feel like there’s nothing left for me to prove.”
It’s a statement few could argue with. In a career spanning half a century, there have been just as many troughs as peaks. But if he retired tomorrow, Dylan’s back catalogue alone would be testament to his singular, unparalleled talent. The word genius gets bandied around far too frequently these days; in Dylan’s case, it doesn’t do him justice. Happy birthday Bob!
Posted In Features, May 23 2011.
Words - Adam Kay