The keys to Patti Smith and Bob Dylan’s famous friendship: Art, admiration, respect and a great love of music

 

The keys to Patti Smith and Bob Dylan’s famous friendship: Art, admiration, respect and a great love of music

The pair maintain a powerful bond that speaks to a way of understanding both songs and life from a bygone era

FERNANDO NAVARRO

JUN 23, 2022 - 11:39 COT

Patti Smith and Bob Dylan have known each other since 1975 and it could be said that their friendship has transcended ordinary life and entered the realms of greatness. Greatness in its original sense and not as a cliché is always complex and, as we know, the complex is often reduced, ridiculed and even vilified in a world driven by capital, post-truth and social media noise. The complex is always the enemy of ignorance.

 

Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Santana playing at Einmalige Union in Hamburg, Germany

"Wagon Wheel" and its history of creative change

Dylan’s forgotten demo to Darius Rucker’s chart-topping cover

16 JULY 2025, 

OLIVER D. ROBERTS

Did John Steinbeck steal from the Book of Genesiswhen he wrote East of Eden? Was it plagiarism when the Coen brothers made O Brother, Where Art Thou?, having shaped the story around Homer’s Odyssey? And was it stealing when Darius Rucker covered “Wagon Wheel”? Or, for that matter, was it plagiarism when Bob Dylan recorded a demo using lyrics and tropes from decades-old blues songs?

Salinger blog

Salinger by Randy Mora

Salinger blog

BIOGRAPHY

 JANUARY 30, 2010 | BY SRB

Alan Taylor – 30th January 2010

Recently, while researching a long piece on Bob Dylan, I read that in the 1960s Dylan was offered the part of Holden Caufield in a never-realised film version of The Catcher In The Rye. Anyone who has seen the young Dylan at his most brattish in DA Pennebaker’s rockumentary Dont Look Back will know he had a Caufieldesque hauteur, a lipcurling disdain for showbiz phonies; ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ could Holden’s philosophy set to music (“Because something is happening and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?”). The film never happened, and Salinger’s great interface with rock came not by way of the movies but a murder: infamously, John Lennon’s assassin was obsessed with The Catcher In The Rye.

Nobel panel gives up knockin’ on Dylan’s door

Bob Dylan by Eugenio

Nobel panel gives up knockin’ 

on Dylan’s door

Days after being awarded the literature prize, Bob Dylan has yet to get in touch with the Swedish Academy, or indicate whether he will attend the celebrations

Staff and agencies
Monday 17 October 2016 16.32 BST

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

The Swedish Academy says it has given up trying to reach Bob Dylan, days after it awarded him the Nobel prize in literature.

“Right now we are doing nothing. I have called and sent emails to his closest collaborator and received very friendly replies. For now, that is certainly enough,” the academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius, told state radio SR on Monday.

The future of the Nobel Prize

Bob Dylan

The future of the Nobel Prize 

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

With the awarding of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan many were pleased to see the Swedish Academy embrace a far broader view of 'literature' (and many others were, of course, disappointed, confused, and outraged); see my recent overview and links. 

Regardless of what position one took, it certainly looked like under Sara Danius' stewardship (which also saw last year's genre-stretching selection of Svetlana Alexievich) the Swedish Academy had moved towards a far more wide-ranging interpretation of what the prize could be awarded for. What next ? we wondered -- assuming that rather than returning to the more or less traditional novelists and poets who have dominated the Nobel there would be more 'bold' choices in the future. 

'Dylan towers over everyone' / Salman Rushdie, Kate Tempest and more pay tribute to Bob Dylan

'Dylan towers over everyone' – Salman Rushdie, Kate Tempest and more pay tribute to Bob Dylan

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

Salman Rushdie, Cerys Matthew, Jarvis Cocker, Andrew Motion, Billy Bragg and other artists and writers pick their favourite moments from Dylan’s body of work

Jarvis Cocker: ‘His sense of humour is often overlooked’

I’m very fond of Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right – I got into Bobby Bare’s version first (Steve Mackey and I put it on a compilation called The Trip that we put together in 2006). It’s a great break-up song: he’s making light of it, but one or two little digs show that he is actually a bit upset. My favourite verse goes: “I wish there was something you would do or say / To try and make me change my mind and stay / But we never did too much talking anyway /Don’t think twice, it’s all right.” I think Dylan’s sense of humour is often overlooked – when we did a BBC 6Music Sunday Service to mark his birthday a couple of years ago, a lot of the archive clips were hilarious. A great choice by the Nobel committee.

New Again / Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan
Phobo by Bill Hayward

New Again

BOB DYLAN
BIOGRAPHY

In New Again, we highlight a piece from Interview's past that resonates with the present. 

By SCOTT COHEN
Photography BILL HAYWARD
Published 07/25/12

On July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan plugged in his 1964 Fender Stratocastor electric guitar at the Newport, Rhode Island Folk Festival. Goodbye Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, hello Bob, the rock ‘n roll man. His decision was not well received at the time—although it was Dylan's third consecutive year playing at the folk festival, it was the first time he received heckling from the crowd. Today, however, Dylan's Stratocastor is considered "the Holy Grail" of music memorabilia. In celebration of Dylan's once controversial decision, we've decided to revisit one of our favorite features with Mr. Dylan from February of 1986.

Bob Dylan
Photo by Ken Regan
Illustration by Triunfo Arciniegas

Why I took the slow train to become a fan of Bob Dylan

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

How 1984 marked the start of my career as a poet and my admiration for the Nobel prize-winning songwriter

Simon Armitage
Friday 14 October 2016 19.04 BST

A

s a poet, I’m supposed to be attracted to Bob Dylan as a lyricist. Even as a fellow poet. That’s the received wisdom, and it’s certainly true that I’ve come to Dylan through a series of recommendations and tips, nearly always from other writers. It was the poet Matthew Sweeney who first explained to me that Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were the two albums I shouldn’t be able to exist without. And it was Glyn Maxwell who explained to me that the best of Dylan didn’t stop with Blood On The Tracks. 

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s a poet – and now we know it

Letters
Friday 14 October 2016 18.28 BST

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

At long last something to celebrate (Bob Dylan wins Nobel prize in literature, 14 October). After all the doom and gloom about Brexit and the vacuous rantings of Donald Trump, Dylan’s Nobel prize restores one’s faith in life. What makes Dylan worthy of such an honour is that, like all great literature, lovely musical words resonate with an honesty and intelligence that give us a unique insight into the human condition. As the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, said: “We hoped the news would be received with joy.” And so it should. 

Bob Dylan
Photo by Ken Regan
Poster by T.A.

Women on Bob Dylan

As Bob Dylan becomes the first singer-songwriter to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature, five female artists salute his genius

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

The Observer

Illustration by Malika Favre
Sunday 16 October 2016 09.15 BST

Suzanne Vega, singer-songwriter: ‘I see goddesses and queens and women revered in his music’

Suzanne Vega by Pal Hansen

I am thrilled for Bob Dylan and I think it’s very appropriate that he’s being praised for the literary excellence of his work. The citation credits him with having created “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” and that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s not being honoured as a musician but for the depth and breadth of his vision and the eloquence of the language with which he expresses it. He has every literary device in his songs: character, narrative, style.

Angela Carter / Bob Dylan on tour / 1966

Bob Dylan by Malika Favre

Bob Dylan on tour

by Angela Carter

1966

The Observer
Sunday 16 October 2016 09.15 BST

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

Performing, he’s nothing but a shadow to look at, thin and black-clad and linear, a Beardsley hobgoblin. The little pointy face, so white it is almost blue in the spotlight, is shadowed by a baroque mound of curls. His gestures are harsh, angular and sketchy – insolent, asexual, frequently reminiscent of those of the Scarlet Hex Witch of the comic books. He seems at times to be sending up the overtly sexual writhings of the English pop stars of the new wave (ie Jagger).

Suze Rotolo / The girl on the cover of the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

The cover for the album 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan', released by Columbia Records in 1963,
featuring Suze Rotolo and the Dylan walking in Greenwich Village.Photo by Don Hunstein

The girl on the cover of the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Suze Rotolo obituary

Artist, activist and Bob Dylan's muse who resisted the role of handmaiden

Richard Williams
Monday 28 February 2011 19.21 GMT

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

Triunfo Arciniegas / Diario / Suze
Suze Rotolo / La musa del joven Dylan
Suze Rotolo / Tomorrow is long time

Suze Rotolo, l’italiana di «The Freewheelin’» che fece perdere la testa a Bob Dylan

Suze Rotolo was the girl on the cover of the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan – a long-haired 19-year-old strolling down a snow-covered Greenwich Village street on the arm of a 21-year-old folk singer whose words and music would shortly be affecting the worldview of a generation. Rotolo, who has died of lung cancer, aged 67, was destined to become part of the Dylan legend: the girlfriend who inspired some of his finest early songs, including Boots of Spanish Leather, One Too Many Mornings, Tomorrow Is a Long Time and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.

Suze Rotolo / Tomorrow is a long time

Suze Rotolo

Tomorrow is a long time

Suze Rotolo was just 17 when she fell in love with Bob Dylan, who found her 'the most erotic thing' he'd ever seen. Through the photograph on his Freewheelin' album cover, they came to embody the ideal of the carefree 60s couple. Finally, she is telling her story. Richard Williams met her in New York's East Village

Richard Williams
Saturday 16 August 2008 00.01 BST

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

Triunfo Arciniegas / Diario / Suze
Suze Rotolo / La musa del joven Dylan

Suze Rotolo / The girl on the cover of the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Suze Rotolo, l’italiana di «The Freewheelin’» che fece perdere la testa a Bob Dylan

I

n a Greenwich Village bookstore, a window is filled with a poster that replays a familiar image. A boy and girl are walking down a snow-covered street, arm in arm, lost in some private paradise. He is hunched against the cold. Their heads are together. She is laughing. The photograph was taken 45 years ago, a stone's throw from where the shop stands. It went around the world, touching countless young lives. And now it has come back home.

Bob Dylan

Why Bob Dylan deserves his Nobel literature win

There will be some who doubt Dylan’s right to the Nobel prize in literature. There are others who believe he should get a special Nobel just for being Bob Dylan

Richard Williams
Thursday 13 October 2016 14.24 BST

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

So, to confront the familiar argument, can what he does be called literature? And if he is being judged on literary grounds, should Tarantula, his “novel” of the mid-60s (started and abandoned in 1965, widely bootlegged and finally published officially in 1971), be taken as evidence? His fans know the first line by heart – “Aretha / Crystal jukebox queen of hymn & him” – but few reached the end. There was no music, as Dylan himself must have realised when he set it aside.

Bob Dylan makes no mention of Nobel prize as he takes to the stage

The Chelsea theatre in Las Vegas sees the master songwriter give his first concert since winning the Nobel accolade

Nicky Woolf in Las Vegas
riday 14 October 2016 07.29 BST

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

Newly-minted Nobel laureate Bob Dylan kept cool as a cucumber on stage in Las Vegas, barely speaking a word to the audience in his first public performance since winning the coveted prize.

Bob Dylan’s Secret Archive

By BEN SISARIOMARCH 2, 2016

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BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

TULSA, Okla. — For years, Bob Dylan scholars have whispered about a tiny notebook, seen by only a few, in which the master labored over the lyrics to his classic 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks.” Rolling Stone once called it “the Maltese Falcon of Dylanology” for its promise as an interpretive key.

But that notebook, it turns out, is part of a trinity. Sitting in climate-controlled storage in a museum here are two more “Blood on the Tracks” notebooks — unknown to anyone outside of Mr. Dylan’s closest circle — whose pages of microscopic script reveal even more about how Mr. Dylan wrote some of his most famous songs.

Bob Dylan's manuscript

Pop lyrics aren't literature? Tell that to Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan

BOB DYLAN'S BIOGRAPHY

Yes, lyrics usually work better when set to music – but 60 years of rock and pop have produced words that stand on their own as poetry

Alexis Petridis
Thursday 13 October 2016 15.05 BST

The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius struck a slightly curious note as she announced that Bob Dylan had been awarded the 2016 Nobel prize in literature. It wasn’t apologetic, exactly, but she certainly seemed to be qualifying the committee’s decision in a way that you suspect she wouldn’t have felt the need to had the award gone to Haruki Murakami or Don DeLillo, writers also rumoured to be in the frame. She even offered the press a brief guide on how to approach Dylan’s work, advising them to start with 1966’s Blonde on Blonde, as if afraid people might not have come across it before, a slightly weird way to address one of the most celebrated albums in rock history. It’s hard not to wonder if she would have done the same thing had Ngugi wa Thiong’o got the nod instead.

Bob Dylan's manuscript

Are these the lyrics that won Bob Dylan a Nobel prize?

BIOGRAPHY

In honour of him winning the Nobel prize for literature, we pick out some of Bob Dylan’s greatest lyrics

The Guardian
Thursday 13 October 2016 16.00 BST

Bob Dylan

Who Killed Davey Moore?

“Not me,” says the gambling man
With his ticket stub still in his hand
“It wasn’t me that knocked him down
My hands never touched him none
I didn’t commit no ugly sin
Anyway, I put money on him to win
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Nobel prize in literature won by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan
Poster by T.A.

Nobel prize in literature won 

by Bob Dylan

BIOGRAPHY

Singer-songwriter takes the award for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’

Alison Flood
Thursday 13 October 2016 12.22 BST

Bob Dylan was named the surprise winner of the Nobel prize for literature in Stockholm today “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

Quotes / Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

QUOTES

Equality

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

Greatness

Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon --but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx --the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?

Immortality

For them that think death's honesty won't fall upon them naturally life sometimes must get lonely.

Money

Money doesn't talk, it swears.

Regret

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

Travel and Tourism

Sailing round the world in a dirty gondola oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!