Springsteen: Bob Dylan is the father of my country.

[G_j]

https://m.facebook.com/notes/bruce-springsteen/bruce-springsteen-on-bob-dylan/10153975861571824/?ref=bookmark¬if_t=close_friend_activity

Congratulations to Bob Dylan on being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The following is a passage from Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography.

Bob Dylan is the father of my country.
Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were not only great records, but they were the first time I can remember being exposed to a truthful vision of the place I lived. The darkness and light were all there, the veil of illusion and deception ripped aside. He put his boot on the stultifying politeness and daily routine that covered corruption and decay. The world he described was all on view, in my little town, and spread out over the television that beamed into our isolated homes, but it went uncommented on and silently tolerated. He inspired me and gave me hope. He asked the questions everyone else was too frightened to ask, especially to a fifteen-year-old: “How does it feel... to be on your own?” A seismic gap had opened up between generations and you suddenly felt orphaned, abandoned amid the flow of history, your compass spinning, internally homeless. Bob pointed true north and served as a beacon to assist you in making your way through the new wilderness America had become. He planted a flag, wrote the songs, sang the words that were essential to the times, to the emotional and spiritual survival of so many young Americans at that moment.
I had the opportunity to sing “The Times They Are A-Changin’” for Bob when he received the Kennedy Center Honors. We were alone together for a brief moment walking down a back stairwell when he thanked me for being there and said, “If there’s anything I can ever do for you...” I thought, “Are you kidding me?” and answered, “It’s already been done.”

From Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright (c) 2016 by Bruce Springsteen. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

[mcar]

1. Nicely said

Of course.

[anamandujano]

3. Agree.

[spooky3]

2. "Bob pointed true north." Perfect.

[spanone]

4. K&R...

[panader0]

5. Class acts--both of them.

[bora13]

6. nice

very nice.

I was able to ask one question of Dylan as he stood in his bus doorway stuck in traffic
outside Bill Graham Civic in SF. He was shaking fans hands through the window opening.

It was , "How does it feel? and I didn't need an answer.

[spike jones]

7. Bruce Springsteen also said

Bruce Springsteen also said, "The first time that I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother, and we were listening to, I think, WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind, from "Like a Rolling Stone."
Spike says,
I started listening to folk music after The Day The Music Died and all there was on the radio was bubble gum and teen angel music. Of course you had to buy the albums because in the south folk music was not on the radio, so the first time I heard Dylan was 1963 on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album. I was 18 years old and upon hearing Masters Of War, Don't Think Twice, Oxford Town, Hard Rain and the rest, I knew that I wanted to hear everything the guy would write. And I have. I have owned and worn out all his vinyl albums, his tapes several times and now have all his CD's.( All his studio albums with some live and repackaged ones) Never been interested in hearing him sing other people's songs.

I got busted for pot in the army and had to tell my parents that I was a long time stoner. While home on leave, I was playing Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 when Mom walked through the room and said, " So that's what he is singing about."

I met him once in Seattle. It was after he had played and I was walking around outside the stadium. At a big dark bus several people were standing all wondering who was in the bus. In a few minutes out stepped Dylan with a towel around his neck. We all gathered around him and took turns speaking to him. I had for several years sent him birthday cards which were picture cards of NW Washington mountain scenes with Just Happy Birthday and Thanks For The Music written on them. I always wondered if he actually received them. When I got a chance to speak to him that night I said, "Thanks for the music." He jerked his head toward me with a stern look, and then smiled and nodded. So I knew he had been reading the cards, and I think he probably alearted security