"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
Famous quotes containing the words bob dylan, song and/or dylan:
“... Everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“Writing, madam, ‘s a mechanic part of wit! A gentleman should never go beyond a song or a billet.”
—George Etherege (1635–1691)
“I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)