Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits

By Jochen Markhorst

Independently Published – £8.13

The song can hardly be ruined; it remains a beautiful song in every rendition. Many covers approach the original and some surpass it – ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ seems to have a timeless, indestructible power.

(‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’)

Brooding, hypnotizing and magical – as an Orpheus in top form.

(‘Mr. Tambourine Man’)

[…] ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ is one of the rare Dylan songs of which no cover can match the power of the original – the song is inseparable from it’s creator.

(‘Like A Rolling Stone’)

As with all of Jochen Markhorst’s eleven books on Bob Dylan, one will always invariably come away with having learnt something a little more about the world of Sir Bob.

Whether it’s Dylan, the man and the artist himself.

Or something to do with his colossal catalogue of nigh unsurpassable work.

There’s always that little something extra to embrace, or ponder upon, or be somewhat surprised about as a direct result of Markhorst’s almost tireless investigation and idiosyncratic envelopment of his subject.

With regards Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, there are a number of such instances, although of particular interest and perhaps something of a clarification, is the light shed on the book’s seventh and ninth songs, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.’

I already knew the former was Bruce Springsteen’s favourite song of all time (‘’Dylan was a revolutionary – the way that Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind’’), but particularly revealing is the latter’s (none) relation to that other Bard, William Shakespeare: ‘’…but a none demonstrable influence on the style of his lyrics, as the Beat Poets have, or a demonstrable artistic soul affinity, as with Kafka or Rimbaud, or even appropriations to poetically convey a story, as from Ovid or Junichi Saga – no. Dylan’s Shakespeare references are actually little more than glitter dust. Like the otherwise empty twelfth night here. Which Dylan, unconsciously associating or consciously scattering glitter, amplifies some more with the subsequent, Shakespearian complexion. Shakespeare uses this word more than fifty times (three times in Twelfth Night, by the way) […]. In short, Dylan’s Shakespeare love is real, but is limited to shimmering on the surface. Or, as the Supreme Bard would say, ‘’Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs’’ (Romeo And Juliet, Act I, sc. I).

Dylan’s Shakespearelove is indeed real, as the following wholly exemplifies: ‘’You travel the world, you go see different things. I like to see Shakespeare plays, so I’ll go – I mean, even if it’s in a different language. I don’t care, I just like Shakespeare, you know. I’ve seen Othello and Hamlet and Merchant of Venice over the years, and some versions are better than others. Way better. It’s like hearing a bad version of a song. But the somewhere else somebody has a great version.’’

Absolutely. And with the possible exception of Jimi Hendrix, no none has really done a great version of the astounding ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’

I would thus, have to agree with Markhorst in that ‘’no cover can match the power of the original – the song is inseparable from it’s creator.’’

Just as this book is inseparable from that of the author’s previous titles.

David Marx