Bob Dylan is one of the most legendary folk singers ever, with many iconic songs and albums that are still revered today. Through all of his concerts and life changes, one person stood by his side: his best friend Louie Kemp. The relationship between Kemp and Dylan will be explored in Kemp’s new memoir.
Dylan and Me: 50 Years of Adventures offers an intimate look at the relationship between Kemp and Dylan through Kemp’s perspective. Since meeting in 1953, Kemp kept a tight bond with Dylan both before and after he achieved stardom. The book recounts many different moments in Kemp and Dylan’s life as the latter becomes a big star.
Image Via Rolling Stone
One of these moments was the Rolling Thunder Revue, a concert tour which Kemp was a producer on. A large focus of the book is Kemp planning the famous concert, as well as deciding which songs can be filmed an archived.
But Kemp promises that the book will primarily focus on Dylan:
“This book shows you Dylan’s down-to-earth side. To me, he has always been Bobby Zimmerman and these are all Bobby Zimmerman stories. Bob Dylan is his commercial side. I wanted to show a totally different perspective on him than anyone has ever heard before.”
Books can change the way you think about things; the right strand of words can strike something up inside of you. It’s not unlikely to feel uneasy, dizzy, overwhelmed, inspired, or full after reading the right essay, poem, story, or novel. (Words are, like, insanely cool.)
So, it’s no wonder so many musicians have drawn inspiration from within the pages of the books they read!
Stand up and jam out to these nine incredibly songs inspired by pieces of literature!
Although not their first foray into slipping literary references into their songs, The Cure held nothing back when they wrote this song based on the Penelope Farmer novel of the same name.
Charlotte sometimes crying for herself
Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself
But it’s always with love
With so much love it looks like
Everything else
Of Charlotte sometimes
So far away
Glass sealed and pretty
Charlotte sometimes
Bowie never ceased to draw inspiration from his favorite literary works (Diamond Dogs was influenced heavily by George Orwell’s 1984) and for a large part of his Ziggy Stardust phase he drew from Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.
Hey man, Henry, don’t be unkind, go away
Hey man, I can’t take you this time, no way
Hey man, droogie don’t crash here
There’s only room for one and here she comes
Here she comes
Belle & Sebastian have always been big promoters of book love (i.e. Wrapped Up In Books), see if you can catch all the literary references hidden in this gem!
I’m not as sad as Doestoevsky
I’m not as clever as Mark Twain
I’ll only buy a book for the way it looks
And then I stick it on the shelf again
Dylan has based much of his works off of F. Scott Fitzgerald and various poets, along with basing much of the lyricism on his Blood on the Tracks albums off of popular short stories by Anton Chekhov.
I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside
This sweet little single by Regina Spektor (and one of my personal favorites) was based off the popular children’s book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince.
You have tamed me
Now you must take me
How am I supposed to be?
I don’t have my thorns now
And I feel them sprouting
They’ll grow right through if I don’t watch it
They’ll grow through even if I watch it
And a sunset couldn’t save me now
Listening to The Dandy Warhols is always a good time, and this 2016 song about the infamous J.D. Salinger novel of the same name is no exception!
Stop look around keep your head down and let the words stop it pass on by you
Words that are somewhere in told are cold if it’s not fun then it’s funny to show
With the advice like this what else could you want if a body need a body I know
Are you a Bob Dylan fan? Does ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ strike a chord in your heart? Is ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’ the greatest moving on song you know? If you answered ‘yes’ to these then you should know about the following news. Especially those folks in Minnesota.
Young Bob | Image Via Pinterest
The musician, songwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature winner has an old collection of essential writings… more specifically, his handwritten poetry from high school on display in Minnesota. Does it get any cooler? There are pages of scribbled poetry that go back to about 1956 along with the photo above, recordings, and more all on view for visitors to Minnesota’s Historical Society at the Gale Family Library from February 13th.
Image Via Twin Cities
Twin Cities Pioneer Press describes the work that is now owned by Minnesota Historical Society for the time being. “The writing in these pages is fairly immature, but you can already see his ballad style that will develop later,” Minnesota Historical Society librarian Patrick Coleman explains. “It portends his future as a Nobel laureate.”
Image Via Star Tribune
Some have seen the poetic pages before, but also included in the exhibit are original song recordings and additional song lyrics. I wish these pages could go global so everyone had the chance to see them, they’re incredible.
From inspiring a whole generation of musicians, to winning Grammys, a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and more… these poems symbolize the things you could do and the places you could go. Let them inspire you!
If you didn’t know (I didn’t), Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Between Dylan being a literal rock star and the normal influx of interest in newly awarded Nobel Laureates’ work, one publisher is counting on the hype and being very presumptuous with their pricing.
Yesterday, Simon & Schuster released a special edition of Dylan’s twenty-three page Nobel lecture, with one hundred signed and numbered hardcover copies available for the low, low price of $2,500. Which, if you do the math like I did, ends up being a measly $108.70 per page. Next-day shipping is included and I’m not sure if I’m surprised by that or not.
The lecture is also available as a much more mundane $16.99 copy, for those who don’t have the extra $2483.01 lying around for Bob Dylan’s autograph and the pretty packaging.
Image Via Brooklyn Vegan
Dylan won the Nobel Prize in October of 2016 and did not attend his award ceremony, which was held in December. The Nobel Foundation released his acceptance speech on June 5th, as the speech must be delivered within six months of the ceremony for the honoree to receive their cash prize (about $900,000).
Talk about cutting it real close, Bob.
Dylan’s speech touches on his major influences, musicians including Buddy Holly and Leadbelly, and books “that have stuck with me ever since I read them way back in grammar school,” including Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Odyssey.
And in a hilarious and absolutely relatable turn of events, Andrea Pitzer of Slatesuggested that Dylan’s analysis of Moby Dick originated from SparkNotes. Gotta give a shoutout to the 76-year-old rock star because not only did he not even show up to his own ceremony where he would be awarded almost a million dollars, but he less than half assed his acceptance speech, which in turn is now being sold for more than double my rent.
, and 
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