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David Remnick
A Unified Field Theory of Bob Dylan
He’s in his eighties. How does he keep it fresh?
The New Yorker, 2022
What's inside?
Now in his 80s, Bob Dylan returns yet again to the deep roots of American song.
Recommendation
By the time Robert Zimmerman, a Jewish kid from small-town Minnesota, arrived in Greenwich Village in 1960, he was already Bob Dylan and already immersed in the folk and blues of the American songbook, especially the work of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and the Stanley Brothers. Dylan released his first album in 1962, the precursor of a tremendous creative streak that included protest hymns such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and apocalyptic songs, including “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” both from 1963. Sometimes, he wrote multiple songs a day (as depicted in the 2024 film, A Complete Unknown, covering his career up to 1965). Dylan, born on May 24, 1941, may have slowed in his 80s, but, as David Remnick reports in the New Yorker, the Literature Nobelist isn’t done. He continues tapping American vernacular music in songs and books. Dylan – who sold his songwriting catalog for $400 million and his master recordings for $200 million – says he’s, “just extending the line.”
Summary
About the Author
Author David Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire.
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