When Graham Nash was talking about The Beatles song ‘A Day In The Life’, he made the excellent point that The Beatles did a lot with a little. “Their incredible simplicity and their incredibly melodic structure is stunning to this day,” he said, “With all due respect, within this western scale of music, there’s what? Twelve notes? Are you kidding me? The Beatles were unbelievable, and I think we all knew it.”
His assessment of The Beatles is fair, but it’s not just them who were able to make extraordinary music with limited resources. Bob Dylan was one of the best songwriters who has ever hummed a tune. His songs were made up of simple chord progressions but touched the hearts of millions as the way he wrote about the world, love, hate and everything in between was truly mesmerising.
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Bob Dylan – Heaven’s Door Whiskey – 2018 – John Shearer(Credits: Far Out / Heaven’s Door Whiskey / John Shearer)
Music » From The Vault
The one recording Bob Dylan treasures more than any other: “The highlight of my career”
Dale Maplethorpe
Sat 1 February 2025 16:50, UK
When Graham Nash was talking about The Beatles song ‘A Day In The Life’, he made the excellent point that The Beatles did a lot with a little. “Their incredible simplicity and their incredibly melodic structure is stunning to this day,” he said, “With all due respect, within this western scale of music, there’s what? Twelve notes? Are you kidding me? The Beatles were unbelievable, and I think we all knew it.”
His assessment of The Beatles is fair, but it’s not just them who were able to make extraordinary music with limited resources. Bob Dylan was one of the best songwriters who has ever hummed a tune. His songs were made up of simple chord progressions but touched the hearts of millions as the way he wrote about the world, love, hate and everything in between was truly mesmerising.
When you have relatively simple songs that move so many, it’s a given that people are going to end up covering your music. Some people did this well, meanwhile, others weren’t so good. An artist who was exceptional when it came to covering the work of Bob Dylan was Jimi Hendrix, whose versions of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘All Along The Watchtower’ are still celebrated today.
“All those people who don’t like Bob Dylan’s songs should read his lyrics. They are filled with the joys and sadness of life,” said Hendrix, “I am as Dylan. None of us can sing normally. Sometimes, I play Dylan’s songs and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them. I have the feeling that ‘Watchtower’ is a song I could have come up with, but I’m sure I would never have finished it.”
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