Korean Job Discussion Forums

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

A silly question for you other fans, let's speculate.

Drugs?

Definitely didn't hurt at various points in his long career.

Cursory reading of various literature?

I would say so.

Strange dreams?

Perhaps.

Trying to sound meaningful while not really saying anything of any significance a lot of the time?

Probably. I would guess this applies to a lot of his songs, since quite a few really have little meaning, but sound nice and clever.

The guy just had, and still has, a gift with words?

I would concur.

No doubt a combination of all of the above and then something else, that makes him uniquely talented to have written so many weird and great songs.

djsmnc · Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Dave's ESL Cafe

I'd be willing to bet that he used his imagination

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

Ah yes, thank you. Forgot to mention, he's a rather creative fellow.

Obviously.

HapKi · Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Location: TALL BUILDING-SEOUL

According to recent news, Dylan heavily copied a 19th century Confederate poet, Henry Timrod, in his recent album "Modern Times."
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/15548169.htm

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

Nope, never heard of Henry Timrod... who has?

Dylan wrote in his biography "Chronicles Vol. 1" that he would read a lot of literature and poetry to help him get the rhythms and some lyrics.

If you have heard enough of his songs over the years, this would be evident.

maya.the.bee · Joined: 12 Sep 2006

i image he's always been a good mimic, taking what he likes from life around him. in his early days he sounded alot like woody gurthie and according to "no direction home", he took bits from other singer/songwriters' acts that he liked.
but artists don't create in a vacuum, there's no way anyone could write while not pulling from the influence of others. and to say he "copied" is rather harsh. the same article says:

Moldy Rutabaga · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Location: Ansan, Korea

Dylan has lyrics in his songs?

All along I thought he just had patterns of vowel sounds.
"oogohhalooohanurrr... toellllmeeehoooiiiahh..."

Ken:>

Ody · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: over here

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

kato · Joined: 28 Aug 2006 Location: Tejas

Isn't he jewish? What kind of jew name is Dylan?

kato · Joined: 28 Aug 2006 Location: Tejas

ah, real name: Robert Allen Zimmerman

TECO · Joined: 20 Jan 2003

The Bible.

Ody · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: over here

seoulsucker · Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:22 pm Post subject:

He gets his lyrics from www.overrated.com.

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

It's possible that his body of work is "overrated" - but that's only because he has written so many excellent songs that have been very highly acclaimed by music and pop culture critics...

His most influencial work was done in the 60s, and the first volume of his "Chronicles" gives insight into the inspiration leading to specific songs. Here's one review of that book:

Eloquent, enigmatic, seemingly intimate and ultimately elusive. Just like the man himself, in fact.

Long before America's great 20th century troubadour published the long-awaited first volume of his life story, there were two questions in the minds of many Bobcats: could he remember, and if so, could he get it down himself?

The triumphant answer echoing through every page of Chronicles, is a resounding 'Yes' to both these nervous queries. As almost every commentator has noted, this is an instant classic of rock'n'roll. Just as Bob Dylan's words and music are seeded into the aural imaginations of almost anyone above the age of 25, so this memoir confirms his place in the unofficial music video of the Sixties and its tortuous aftermath.

In Chronicles you find in microcosm the secret of Dylan's greatness, his ability to play at will in the fields of an Anglo-American oral culture that fuses hillbilly blues with the plangent melancholy of the Celtic twilight. Dylan has always had an innate lyrical gift amounting to genius. Chronicles tells us that he can do prose, too.

Writing like Jack Kerouac, with a twist of Walt Whitman, the boy from Nowheresville (actually Duluth, Minnesota) describes his migration from the Midwest to Manhattan in the frozen winter of 1962. 'I could transcend the limitations', he writes, and he does, coming out of the lonesome prairie to find his voice with 'Blowin' in the Wind', 'Desolation Row', 'Visions of Johanna' and, my favourite, 'Tangled Up in Blue'.

What this book tells us is how, in a few blistering months, he completed the songs for which he will be always remembered. The book is not a formal autobiography, and the man himself slips through our fingers (as he has, so often, in life). Still, it does reclaim some important personal ground for its author, a victim of misrepresentation and gossip. Dylan remains an enigma, but a supremely eloquent one who gives his fans an audience with an American songwriter of genius.
Robert McCrum
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1797455,00.html

Those not well versed in his career and work should also at least check out the Wikipedia article on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan
"...His career accomplishments have been recognized with the Polar Music Prize, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Kennedy Center Honors, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters and Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was listed as one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th century...