"Song for Bob Dylan" is a song written by David Bowie for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. The song parodies Bob Dylan's 1962 homage to Woody Guthrie, "Song to Woody". Yet while Dylan opens with "Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song," Bowie addresses Dylan by his real name saying, "Hear this, Robert Zimmerman, I wrote a song for you."
In the song, Bowie also describes Bob Dylan's voice "like sand and glue" which is similar to how Joyce Carol Oates described it upon first hearing Dylan: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying."
Read more about Song For Bob Dylan: History and Recording, Composition and Analysis, Other Releases
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“They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car.
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar.
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“In winter, when the fields are white,
I sing this song for your delight—”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“My beloved is like a roe or a young hart:”
—Bible: Hebrew The Song of Solomon (l. II, 9)
“For all the boredom the straight life brings, it’s not too bad.”
—Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon)
“It pays to know who your friends are but it also pays to know you ain’t got any friends.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)