John Lennon Reportedly Called a Bob Dylan Song ‘Pathetic’ and ‘Embarrassing’
John Lennon took early inspiration from Bob Dylan, and the two men formed a slightly uneasy friendship. Over the years, though, Lennon’s opinion of Dylan shifted. In the late 1970s, he was dismissive of the American musician’s work. In an audio diary, Lennon spoke about the Dylan album and song he disliked.
John Lennon took inspiration from Bob Dylan
The Beatles first discovered Dylan’s music in the early 1960s, and Lennon said this affected his songwriting.
“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 just try to express what I felt about myself which I’d done in me books,” Lennon 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.”
John Lennon insulted a Bob Dylan song on a tape recording
As time went on, Lennon became more dismissive of Dylan’s songwriting, noting by the 1970s that he had stopped paying as much attention to his music. In a 1979 audio diary, however, Lennon allegedly gave a scathing critique of Dylan’s 1979 album Slow Train Coming. The album was the first following Dylan’s conversion to Christianity and contained heavily religious themes.
“I was listening to the radio and Dylan’s new single or album or whatever the hell it is came on,” he said, per Rolling Stone. “‘Everybody’s got to be served.’ I mean, what was it? ‘You’ve got to serve someone’… ‘You’ve got to serve somebody.’ So he wants to be a waiter now? A waiter for Christ.”
Lennon took particular issue with Dylan’s song “Gotta Serve Somebody.” According to the former Beatle, the song’s “backing was mediocre … the singing really pathetic and the words were just embarrassing.”
He took digs at other musicians
Dylan was not the only musician Lennon insulted on the audio recording. He also swiped at Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, writing them and Dylan off as “company men.”
“So here we sit, watching the mighty Dylan and the mighty McCartney and the mighty Jagger slide down the mountain, blood and mud in their nails … [They’re] all company men in various disguises, but basically company men.”
According to voice analysis expert Dr. Phil Harrison, the audio diary is more than likely an actual recording of Lennon’s thoughts.
“All you can do in terms of forensic phonetics is to say there are similarities,” he said. “And there were. It appeared to be dead-on everywhere I looked. I’m personally sure that it is the right voice, but it’s not something I would say as a legally binding statement. But I can’t see how it couldn’t be the voice of John Lennon. I would be very surprised if this was a forgery.”
