Comments on: Distinguishing Dylan and Springsteen: One Theory

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:19:18 +0000

LOVE Springsteen! LOVE Dylan! I’ve been through Springsteen, and I am satisfied. I cannot envision a time when I will “go through” Dylan, and my thirst for more cannot be quenched. I forever find myself needing more Dylan.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:10:58 +0000

Dylan writes brilliant lyrics for the head, Springsteen writes brilliant lyrics for the heart. ’nuff said.

By: Servat

Servat — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:51:37 +0000

This is such a great discussion and I really think that even though you don’t have to choose, I see it as a matter of justice to say what I am about to say. Although he’s been out there for more than three decades and has a great reputation and a vast base of supporters, Bruce Springsteen remains for me one of the most under-rated artists ever. People tend to place Dylan above Springsteen because he came first. And certainly without Dylan we’d probably not be talking about Springsteen. That doesn’t make Dylan better. If you listen to Springsteen’s two first albums, you can see the influence from Dylan and the 60′s. What is amazing is how he goes on to break with it in the 70′s and 80′s. I’m sorry, my friend, but Dylan did never do such a master love album as Tunnel of Love, one of the greatest ever on the subject. Highway 61 Revisited is a master-piece, but it comes short of Born To Run, which is a milestone for music. Not only it is an incredible heir to the 60′s heritage, but it breaks with it in a unique way. Thunder Road leads the way, but then come Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Night, Born To Run and Jungleland. Dylan could have never written such songs. Dylan making music on a piano or working through every note of a 2 minutes 30 seconds piece of saxo? Are you kidding? At the same time, no other music career is as large as Springsteen’s. He goes from Born in the U.S.A to Highway Patrolman, moving through Thunder Road, One Step Up, The River… There is so much more of Springsteen than there has even been of Dylan.

By: Warren

Warren — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:54:59 +0000

“Bruce never makes you look into an abyss, he wouldn’t know an abyss. He is never on the razor’s edge of despair or disintegration because he is honest in having no experience of these conditions.”

Are you kidding? If you’re going to compare the two be familiar with both artists music. Listen to the Nebraska album. Is this not the “abyss”?

“Maybe you got a kid, maybe you got a pretty wife the only thing that I got’s been both’rin’ me my whole life
Mister state trooper, please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me

Or from Darkness on the Edge of Town:

“They’re still racing out at the Trestles
But that blood it never burned in her veins
Now I hear she’s got a house up in Fairview
And a style she’s trying to maintain
Well if she wants to see me
You can tell her that I’m easily found
Tell her there’s a spot out ‘neath Abram’s Bridge
And tell her there’s a darkness on the edge of town

Everybody’s got a secret Sonny
Something that they just can’t face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag ‘em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town

Some folks are born into a good life
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don’t seem to matter much to me now
Tonight I’ll be on that hill ’cause I can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town”

Bruce has created a cast of characters, a community. His music has dealt with teen-age innocence, personal despair, political anger. Bruce’s catalog is the greatest story I have ever followed. Dylan due to the time period in which he came out and his writing skills will always be the most influential, but I would take Bruce Springsteen’s writing any day. I enjoy Dylan, but Springsteen speaks to me on an emotional level.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:23:15 +0000

good reads. I am a fan of both. I have never been tired of Dylan. Always inovative and original. I can never invision a day when I do not look forward to listening to Dylan.
I was a huge Springsteen fan. In the beginning he seemed to be everything I wanted in a songwriter, but he has become stale to me. That is not to say he is stale. I have become more demanding as a listener, and Springsteen doesn’t fulfill that musical need I have as an older music lover. I’m sure to new Springsteen fans he is everything he was to me to them. It is almost as if I “went through” Springsteen. As I’ve grown older, Springsteen appears calculated, contrived, and somewhat phony. I almost feel juvenile listening to him. I don’t want to feel that way. I just do. He is obvious in his intentions as a songwriter. It was kinda cool being kicked in the ass as young adult by Springsteen…That “Oh, I get it Bruce!” feeling…”Play that one again!” Now, his songs are “yes, yes I get it already. I get it.”
It would be as if Dylan never got out of folk and kept writing “protest songs”. It would be predictable and tireing.

By: stephen thomas

stephen thomas — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:38:02 +0000

in my opinion dylan should and im sure will always be remembered as the most important songwriter, musician, call it what you like, of the 20th century,he is without doubt unique,i will on occasions listen to springsteen but to compare them,i think is ridiculous,dylan is simply in another sphere(on his own)

By: Jack Garvey

Jack Garvey — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:12:49 +0000

My brother liked Dylan and Springsteen. Iliked Springsteen and Dylan’s Hurricane.

By: Bill Altreuter

Bill Altreuter — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:40:32 +0000

Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day, in the context of “Chronicles”. One of the reasons that memoir is so much better than anything else written about that Greenwich Village at that time is that it is written by a guy who was doing something quite different from what everyone else was doing. Even though Dylan was mining many of the same sources, the processing that the raw material went through was a unique genius. Everybody was listening to folk songs, everybody was ready poetry, but Dylan was inventing something new, and everybody else was working within existing forms. The difference between Dylan and Springsteen is the same as the difference between Dylan and Phil Ochs, and I say that as an admirer of all four, and with all due respect.

If there’d been no Bob Dylan, there would have been no Bruce Springsteen. The artists that depend on Springsteen as a fountainhead are a pretty derivative group: Melissa Etheridge, Thin Lizzy, Meatloaf. I’d venture to say that after Chuck Berry no other rock’n'roll artist has been as great an influence. American music sounds different today because of Bob Dylan.

By: roy frowick

roy frowick — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:54:04 +0000

If you play the vinyl album “Darkness on the Edge of Town” at 45rpm as I did by accident one day a long time ago, you will find yourself listening to a big chunk of Phil Spector’s catalog, mostly the Crystals.

If you play Blonde on Blonde at 45rpm, you will essentially be listening to a preview of Slow Train Coming.

I don’t know what that means in the larger scope of things. However I do love and need both these artists in my life for different reasons at different times.

By: Martin Grossman

Martin Grossman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:04:23 +0000

I liked Bruce for about two years back in the 70s. The first LP was derivative of Dylan, but not with the punch or expansiveness. “Born to run” had some good moments but I found myself tired of it after about the third play. Dylan makes us think. Bruce tells us what he thinks and wants us to think the same way. Dylan is an original. Bruce is less interesting because his vision is more narrow and predictable. Dylan higher highs and perhaps lower lows. Bruce puts on a good show. Dylan isn’t about the show, but the art. Think Norman Rockwell vs. Picasso.