Bob Dylan Said He Envied The Beatles, but Not for Their Fame or Success
Bob Dylan and The Beatles were two of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s. Dylan’s work greatly influenced the Beatles, and the American musician complimented their music. He also said that he envied the British band. This had little to do with their music or immense popularity, but instead related to their easy access to a studio.
Bob Dylan met The Beatles in the 1960s
Dylan met The Beatles in New York in 1964. They were in a hotel suite together, and Dylan introduced the band to marijuana. Ringo Starr tried it first, and his bandmates eagerly awaited his reaction.
“He said, ‘The ceiling’s coming down on me,’” McCartney said, per the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “And we went, Wow! Leaped up, ‘God! Got to do this!’ So we ran into the back room — first John, then me and George, then Brian [Epstein]. We all had a puff and for about five minutes we went, ‘This isn’t doing anything. Are you feeling … ggggzzzzz!’ and we started giggling uncontrollably.”
Dylan spent more time with the band over the years. He became particularly close with George Harrison, who recruited him for The Traveling Wilburys.
Bob Dylan said he envied The Beatles
The Beatles spoke about Dylan’s influence on their music, but he said he felt envious of them. They were the biggest band in the world, but Dylan’s jealousy stemmed from their proximity to their studio.
“I don’t know where I’m gonna be doing the next album,” he told Rolling Stone in 1969. “Sometimes I envy the Beatles … they just go down to the studio, and play around … I mean, you’re bound to get a record. You know what I mean? Bound to get a record. Their studio is just a drive away … boy, I’d have an album out every month. I mean, how could you not?”
Dylan lived in Woodstock, New York, and had to travel to record.
“I would come to New York if I wanted to use the studio, because it’s all here … if you need a good engineer, or if you need a song, or somebody to record it, an artist … whereas, some place like up in the country there, in the mountains, you could get a studio in, but that doesn’t guarantee you anything else but the studio,” he explained. “You can get violin players, cello players, you can get dramatic readers … you can get anybody at the drop of a hat, in New York City. I imagine it’s that way over in London, where the Beatles make their records. Anything they want to put on their record, they just call up and it’s there. I’d like to be in that position.”
The American musician influenced John Lennon’s songwriting
Though Dylan envied The Beatles, they looked to him as inspiration. John Lennon said that by listening to Dylan’s music, his own writing evolved.
“I started thinking about my own emotions – I don’t know when exactly it started, like ‘I’m a Loser’ or ‘Hide Your Love Away’ or those kind of things – instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself which I’d done in me books,” he told Rolling Stone in 1971. “I think it was Dylan helped me realize that – not by any discussion or anything but just by hearing his work – I had a sort of professional songwriter’s attitude to writing pop songs; he would turn out a certain style of song for a single and we would do a certain style of thing for this and the other thing.”
