BOB DYLAN | The Gospel of Bob

By David D. Robbins Jr. | Their Bated Breath

Bob Dylan is the greatest songwriter on the planet. Period.

Call him the voice of a generation. Or the Poet Laureate of Rock n Roll. Just know that he views those superlatives as shackles. It’s the burden of expectation he’d eventually learn was better answered with more music and obtuse off-stage answers. It’s better to think of Dylan as the ultimate shape-shifter. A chameleon. A kind of music escape artist as apt as Harry Houdini. He’s an old-world trickster, donning any guise that helps him create music. Dylan has played the hobo traversing the rails, a beatnik’s vessel for peace, a street-wise Shakespeare, a carnival showman, a bullshitter of the first order, a scorned savior with a thorn in his side, a waiting lover, a clown, a caustic wretch, and an angel warning of a wave large enough to drown the…