You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine:
The Music of Bob Dylan
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It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Bob Dylan on the popular music of the last half-century. From his beginning as a folk singer in the early 1960’s to his current status as a senior, but still creative, citizen of popular music, Dylan has “gone his own way,” pioneering several genres of pop music, demonstrating that a vocalist’s expressivity is as important as a conventionally good voice, and writing many songs that are part of the rock & roll canon.
In this project we will explore music from different periods in Dylan’s career, read critical analyses of his work, and concentrate on several questions.
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This project is meant for students who are interested in popular music and who would like to listen to, think about, and discuss the songs of arguably the most influential musical figure of the 20th century,
Class Schedule
We will meet Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM until noon.
Broadly speaking, Dylan’s music fits into four periods, which we will roughly match with the four weeks available during Interim. These periods are listed below along with their most important albums.
- Folk Period (1962 – 65): Bob Dylan, Free-Wheelin’ Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’
- Rock & Roll (1965 – 66): Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Royal Albert Hall Concert, Blonde on Blonde
- Country, Americana and Intimacy (1967 – 75): John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Basement Tapes, Blood on the Tracks, Desire
- Rolling Thunder, Religion, and Return to his Roots (1975 – 2006): Rolling Thunder Review recordings, Infidels, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Times, Bootleg Series
With the exception of the mornings on which we view videos, students will have both listening and reading assignments for each class. After a short quiz at the beginning of class, we will spend our time listening to, discussing, and analyzing Dylan’s music, paying attention to the questions listed above.
Music
Dylan has released over fifty albums since 1962, ten of which are on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” — a number matched only by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. We obviously cannot study every song Dylan has recorded, but we will listen to a significant number of them — probably 25 or so each week. Most of these songs will be selected from the albums listed above.
We also will listen to music, such as Woody Guthrie’s, that has influenced Dylan, and to important covers of his music. (You cannot truly appreciate Blowin’ in the Wind without hearing Peter, Paul, and Mary or All Along the Watchtower without hearing Jimi Hendrix.)
Most of the Dylan catalog is on Spotify (www.spotify.com), so we will use this music streaming service as our source. All students in this project who are not already signed up on Spotify will be required to sign up for a free 30-day trial.
Reading
- Clinton Heylin. Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited
- Sean Wilentz. Bob Dylan in America
Two of the books I was planning on using appear to be out-of-print. There will be a fee of $20 to off-set copying cost.
The cost for books for the project should be less than $100.
Videos
We will devote a few class periods to three outstanding films that have been made about Dylan.
- Martin Scorsese (Director): Bob Dylan – No Direction Home (2005)
- D. A. Pennebaker (Director): Bob Dylan – Don’t Look Back (1967)
- Todd Haynes (Director): I’m Not There (2007)