Bob Dylan – Rocking while Thinking As the god-father of rock music, a cro-cultural icon for the time, Bob Dylan ushered in a new era on the folk-rock in 1960s.In addition, Dylan is anextraordinary poet, whether singing a folk song or exploring rock and roll, he can always demonstrated the rare ability to reach and affect listeners with thoughtful, subtle lyrics.He is not only an idol, but also a legend who gives the soul to rock.Bob Dylan, whose real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, was born in1941, inDuluth, Minnesota.At an early age, Dylanhad a natural ability for writing poetry - according to his mother,he was “a prodigious writer of poetry throughout his youth”.The radio had the greateffect on young Dylan, too.His first idol was Hank Williams and he can mimic his voice livingly.However, when he heard he listened to the music of Little Richard, Buddy Holly, he changed his idea and decided to become a rock-n-roll star.In the early 1960s, Dylan visited his musical idol, Woody Guthrie, and was deeply influenced by Guthrie – his early works are mostly folk songs.During this period, Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech, I have a dream.Dylan, who was only 22 at that time, published one of the most claic ballads Blowing in the Wind in his 1963 album, The Freewheelin\' Bob Dylan.
“How many roads must a man walk down, before they call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand? How many years can some people exist, before they’re allowed to be free?” With Dylan’s raw and husky voice, the song is pervaded by intense anti-war feeling, and it poses a series of philosophical questions about peace, war and freedom.He alsoimplies in the song what he believesis man\'s greatest inhumanity to man: indifference.\"Some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong”, he declared in his album’s liner notes.Dylan produced many anti-war songs, except the one mentioned, there are also A Hard Rain\'s a-Gonna Fall, The Times They Are a-Changin\' and so on.He brought his thoughts upon social problems into these epic songs, as he said, “I like America, just as everybody else does.But America will be judged”.All these songs together cemented Dylan’s reputation as both a folk musician and a civil libertarian, an anti-war fighter.
Later on, the succe of the Beatles and Rolling Stone made America the haven of rock and roll, folk music was influenced inevitably.In 1965, his album Bringing It All Back Home is a leap, featuring his first recordings with electric instruments.Before Dylan’s talent was fully reviewed, Elvis Presley, who is known as “the Hillbilly Cat”, has given the reasons forrock music’s existence and the Beatles established its important position in music industry.However, Dylan changed rock music by enhancing its inner value, he is the man who proved that “rock and roll can be said”.
Dylan’s claic rock songs such asLike A Rolling Stone,Subterranean Homesick Blues, Rainy Day Women and Positively Fourth Street invented a new expreing way of rock.Take Like A Rolling Stone, for example.The lyrics addre a woman, once well-to-do and sheltered, who now lives a bohemian lifestyle and the words “rolling stone” is exactly about the lo of innocence and the harshne of experience.Unlike conventional chart hits of the time, this hit single expreed resentment and a yearning for revenge, but it still lists number one on the list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.And this song also demonstrates Dylan’s succeful transition from political folksinger to alienated rock musician.Dylan’s music made rock music become a power, a way of expreion, what’s more, a cultural phenomenon.His music – mysterious, elusive and fascinating – speaks to an entire generation and inspires many other musicians to follow his lead in self-expreion, he represents the changes of the times and the spirit of resistance.In music history, only the famous rock band, the Beatles, can be compared with him.Dylan has woncountle prizes and is the very first musician of his genre to win the Pulitzer Prize for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power”.
Throughout his life, Bob Dylan is indeed uninhibited and unrestrained, he would rather others call him poet than musician, “I consider myself a poet first and a musician second.I live like a poet and I\'ll die like a poet”.Dylan’s distinctive way of singing with a nasal twang, poetic lyrics and particular musical themes have produced some greatest songs ever written and consequently make him one of the most popular and influential musicians.
