Why Bruce Springsteen Once Called Bob Dylan the ‘Father of My Country’
Bruce Springsteen emerged on the rock n’ roll scene in the 1970s. The New Jersey singer had a flare that combined so many aspects of early rock with a new sound that combined an energetic voice with distinct instruments. As a young musician, he was inspired by many popular rockstars of the 1960s, such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen once called Bob Dylan the “father of my country,” showing how influential Springsteen thinks Dylan is.
Bruce Springsteen believed Bob Dylan showed him the truth about where he was from
Bob Dylan was born in Minnesota, but his music had a universal truth that spoke to Americans from working-class families in working towns. Springsteen was raised in a working-class home in New Jersey, and much of that spirit is expressed through his music. While Dylan and Springsteen aren’t from the same town, they share much of the same rigorous spirit that appeals to a vast audience.
In Springsteen’s autobiography, Born to Run, he called Dylan the “father of my country” as he was the first artist to give him a “truthful” vision of where he lived.
“Bob Dylan is the father of my country,” Springsteen said. “Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were not only great records, but they were the first time I can remember being exposed to a truthful vision of the place I lived”.
Springsteen recalled hearing Dylan for the first time
In 1988, Bruce Springsteen was honored to induct Bob Dylan into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. During his speech, the “Thunder Road” singer shared the first song he heard by Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone”. He said his mom didn’t get it, but he knew this was the “toughest voice” he ever heard.
“The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’,” Springsteen explained. “And my mother, who was – she was no stiff with rock and roll, she liked the music, she listened – she sat there for a minute, she looked at me, and she said, ‘That guy can’t sing.’ But I knew she was wrong. I sat there, I didn’t say nothin’, but I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard.”
He went out and bought Highway 61 and said it was all he “played for weeks.” It spoke to him at a young age and made him feel like he had wisdom beyond the age of 15.
“I looked at the cover, with Bob, with that satin blue jacket and the Triumph Motorcycle shirt,” he added. “And when I was a kid, Bob’s voice somehow – it thrilled and scared me. It made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent. And it still does. But it reached down and touched what little worldliness I think a 15-year-old kid, in high school, in New Jersey, had in him at the time.”
Dylan had influence over ‘Born to Run’
Born to Run is the third album by Springsteen and arguably his most famous. While it wasn’t a No. 1 album, its legacy has lasted over 40 years, with iconic songs like “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road”. In a 2018 interview with BBC, Springsteen said the album had three main influences: Duane Eddy, Roy Orbison, and Dylan.
“So, those are the three things that kind of found their way — and inspector records — so, those are the three things that really found their way into Born to Run because I was never really much of a revolutionary musician,” Springsteen said, “But I was an alchemist. I put a lot of things together along with stuff I pulled up out of myself.”
