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24/05/2006

Dylan – exploring what it is to be human

If he were English, Dylan would today, his 65th birthday, start to qualify for an old age pension. Though he shows no sign of retiring, it’s opportune to try sum up Dylan’s lifework.

Bob Dylan has made a towering contribution to music. He stands head and shoulders above any contemporary – it belittles his art to even compare him with any other rockpop musician. He bears comparison with the great musicians of all time, in all genres - Dylan’s peers are not rocker contemporaries like Neil Young, Van the Man or the Stones, but the timeless greats in all of music – Mozart and Bach, Miles and Coltrane, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.

Quite apart from his music, Dylan is the foremost writer - in any genre - in the English language since Shakespeare. Like his forebear from Stratford upon Avon, Dylan takes as his canvas life itself – he explores what it is to be human.

Dylan has repeatedly changed the culture of the Western world since the early 1960s. He’s the patron saint of music for grown-ups. And he’s still creating great art.

Congratulations and thanks, Mr Zimmerman: long may you continue to change the lives of those you touch.


Gerry Smith

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