Bob Dylan is a pretty inspiring guy. Many credit him with pioneering folk rock and incorporating electric instruments into the once traditionally acoustic folk genre. He also touched the lives of many of his contemporaries, and many of those contemporaries wrote songs about him. Let’s look at just a few songs that were written about Bob Dylan!
1. “Talk To Me” by Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan’s friendship is far from simple. They worked together on occasion and were definitely friends for a moment, but their relationship seemed to break down a bit through the years. Naturally, Mitchell decided to deal with it through song.
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“Talk To Me” was released in 1977 and includes a bit of a swipe at Dylan. Specifically, a few lyrics stand out: “Or we could talk about power / About Jesus and Hitler and Howard Hughes / Or Charlie Chaplin’s movies / Are you really exclusive or just miserly? / You spend every sentence as if it was marked currency.”
Dylan is famously a huge fan of Chaplin. And it wouldn’t be too controversial to call Dylan “miserly” in real life.
2. “Diamonds And Rust” by Joan Baez
It’s not exactly shocking that Joan Baez wrote songs about Bob Dylan, but non-fans might be surprised to hear that “Diamonds And Rust” is one such song about her former beau. Baez wrote this folk-rock track in 1974 about an old lover who calls her up, and it’s pretty clear that the lover in question is Bob Dylan. Baez even confirmed it.
“Well you burst on the scene / Already a legend / The unwashed phenomenon / The original vagabond / You strayed into my arms / And there you stayed” hits pretty hard.
3. “Song To Bobby” by Cat Power
Cat Power penned this ode to Bob Dylan back in 2008. “Song To Bobby” references Dylan directly and is a sort of tribute to how much Dylan influenced her. Throughout the song, Cat Power transports the listener (and herself) back to childhood, where she dreamed of being a famous musician like Bob Dylan.
4. “Serve Yourself” by John Lennon
A surprising entry on our list of songs about Bob Dylan, former Beatle John Lennon had a few things to say about the folk-rock icon in the 1980 track “Serve Yourself”. The two legends were connected, at least in some way, for years starting in 1964.
According to Lennon (and the song “Serve Yourself”), Dylan inspired him to start accepting himself as an artist, rather than just a pop star. It was good advice, considering Lennon began to write more introspective and expressive music during his solo career.
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