Bob Dylan - Great songwriter or plagiarist?

TheRoadDog

"While Bobby Z's outright theft of Snow's lyrics is indeed plagiarism, whether his later work falls under that category is a matter of debate. There's a very fine line between what constitutes plagiarism and the thing called “pastiche” which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as, “a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work,” or, “a musical, literary, or musical composition made up of selections of different works.” A good portion of Dylan's canon falls under both of those definitions and accounts for much of his genius."

Opinions?

BrettPGH

I don't really know, I've never heard the accusation leveled against Dylan before...

I do know that Zeppelin stole every blues hook they could get their hands on. But I still love them.


For me it becomes more of an issue with comedy. Joke thieves are a serious problem in the industry. Many of them even make it big. Dennis Leary owes all his success to Bill Hicks. Robin Williams stole every joke he's ever heard.

hausofnichele

Yeah I've never heard the accusations about Dylan before - only Zeppelin. Hmmmm interesting...

california_peach

It's it pretty common in blue and folk music to lift from or build on what past artist have done. His version on House the Rising Sun and the Yardbirds version of the song came out at about the same time. The versions are told from a different perspective, one is a from the POV of a girl/prostitute and the other from the POV of a boy/gambler. Both are covers of a classic blues standard, but you can't call that plagiarism.

Or is this based on what Joni Mitchell said about everything about Bob Dylan being fake? I always thought that was a, well d'uh statement. Yes, he created a persona that is probably not who he really is, but artists do that ALL the time.

And what are you quoting in your post, that might help us get the full picture if we could see the original article?

fbmandy55

I don't really know, I've never heard the accusation leveled against Dylan before...

I do know that Zeppelin stole every blues hook they could get their hands on. But I still love them.


For me it becomes more of an issue with comedy. Joke thieves are a serious problem in the industry. Many of them even make it big. Dennis Leary owes all his success to Bill Hicks. Robin Williams stole every joke he's ever heard.

I've never been a huge fan, though I love a handful of his songs. I certainly expect influence from any artist but there is an obvious point when it's mroe than just influence.

This one should be punishable by death in my book:

hausofnichele

It's interesting to think that back in Dylan's days there was no internet and no google or wikipedia or heavy media scrutiny surrounding artists. So back then I think some artists were able to 'get away' with ripping off of others and today they are renowned genuises and legends. As with Zeppelin's case, I still regard them as musical legends and pioneers despite the number of blatent plagiarisms that appear in their music. You can't argue that they weren't extremely influential or good players - so that still counts them as one of the greatest rock bands in history. I believe the same can be said for Dylan -- regardless of whatever he may have stolen from others he is still a great songwriter. Art imitates art all the time and everyone is influenced by something or someone somewhere. Outright stealing lyrics is pretty bad but as for songs that are cut from the same cloth as others before him - I'd like to think that it was done because he was deeply affected by certain music and not because he had the mindset of being a theif.

hausofnichele

I don't really know, I've never heard the accusation leveled against Dylan before...

I do know that Zeppelin stole every blues hook they could get their hands on. But I still love them.


For me it becomes more of an issue with comedy. Joke thieves are a serious problem in the industry. Many of them even make it big. Dennis Leary owes all his success to Bill Hicks. Robin Williams stole every joke he's ever heard.

I've never been a huge fan, though I love a handful of his songs. I certainly expect influence from any artist but there is an obvious point when it's mroe than just influence.

This one should be punishable by death in my book:

WOW. Never saw that comparison of "Friday" before. She certainly wishes she were Paul McCartney!