By Tony Attwood
From my perspective, as a person born a few years after Dylan, but still old enough to appreciate his music from the moment he first made it public by releasing it on records, there has been no one to replace Dylan. By way of example perhaps I could say that, for what it is worth, I run this blog on Dylan, but no other music blogs: it’s just Bob’s music I feel I want to write about.
In fact my other two blogs I look after are both about the football (soccer) team I was introduced to from the age of about eight by my father. And I guess it is probably the same in most countries – once you get to support a team, you stay with them for the rest of your life.
And yes of course there have been millions of singers in all the years since Dylan, and many of them have offered music I have enjoyed. Music that is incredibly varied – and to show that I might say it ranges from Frank Zappa to Paul Simon. Or perhaps the reverse. But it has always been Bob that I have come back to, and Bob’s music that I wish to explore.
There have been some bands that I have really come to love – I recently mentioned Airborne Toxic Event for example, and their music can be found here – but I am not suggesting that they are somehow the inheritors of Bob’s tradition. Far from it in fact, they are just a band I like.
But it leaves the issue – what happens after Bob finally stops touring and stops writing songs and stops making records? What then? What do we get next?
Some would suggest that this is it, we have had Bob and we have all his compositions and recordings, and of course the record companies will make all the money they can out of his passing, but that’s it. Maybe his songs will continue in the genre and like some of the classics of the 1930s will still be remembered. A bit like Irving Berlin in fact – we all remember White Christmas and some will also remember “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and maybe “God Bless America” but beyond that you need to be a real fan.
But there is a problem in discussing this because although I can recall some songs of the 1930s (before my time I hasten to add but I would immediately think of of “I’ve got rhythm” for example) it is the song I remember not the composer, and there are only a few such songs I can still quote.
So that leaves me pondering what happens to Bob’s legacy. All the songs he has recorded will have been released. There might perhaps be one archive of songs that either he was working on at the time of his passing, or which he worked on but then decided not to release for some reason, and then that it is. All we have is the legacy – the songs, a few films, some concerts …
And then maybe in 30 years time (long after Bob has and I have passed on in our separate ways) someone is writing a history of modern song what then? Do they just write about Bob, or note that he was the greatest songwriter of the day, with other musicians placed below him?
Will people still remember “Don’t think twice” but not quite remember who wrote it, in the same way that seemingly most people in the West know “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” but don’t actually know it was written by Irving Berlin?
Such questions are difficult to resolve not just because we can’t read the future, but actually because much of the time we can’t read the past. I know that I remember “White Christmas” and I guess that most older people in my country do, because it is played quite a lot on radio stations every Christmas. But do they remember who sang it AND who wrote it?
These are not the sort of questions most of us contemplate especially in relation to popular music today, since it seems to have splintered into so many different fragments. I remember Bob’s compositions, because his music has been a part of my life from my early teenage years, and I remember music of the 1930s and 1940s because my father would play it regularly on the piano and we had some 78 rpm records in my house.
But what happens now with the music of today? What songs of today will live on and somehow have an impact of some sort on future generations?
I found a website that was headlined “18 Songs That Bring Generations Together” and I have to admit that although I know ten of them that leaves nearly half that actually I don’t know. So not very influential on me, in that case. And it was interesting to see that there were no Dylan songs in the list.
But maybe that is the point of Dylan compositions. They are not everyday songs that everyone knows. Mind you the list also doesn’t include “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby which is the song that virtually every radio station in the UK plays regularly in the run up to Christmas each year.
Which brings me back to Bob. What songs of Bob’s will linger on and be known by my grandchildren? Are there any? Maybe not because Bob hasn’t written those types of song, so even “Don’t think twice” and “Blowing in the wind” will be simply a part of history rather than something to be remembered by each generation. As for “Desolation Row” – that I think will be archive material, not seen as relevant to the years to come.
If so, it seems sad, although I doubt there is anything I can do about it.