Mick Jagger Once Defended Bob Dylan’s Singing After a Journalist Insulted It

While Bob Dylan is widely regarded as one of the best songwriters of all time, his singing voice is a bit more controversial, though Mick Jagger likes it. When discussing Dylan with a reporter, The Rolling Stones’ Jagger had to defend the American musician. While Jagger admitted that Dylan might not be one of the best singers of all time, he said that his voice had a distinct feel to it.

Mick Jagger has complimented Bob Dylan in the past

Jagger said that he first began listening to Dylan in the early 1960s, when Dylan was still a protest singer.

“I was playing Bob Dylan records at my parents’ house when he was still an acoustic folk singer, but he was already very important and his lyrics were on point,” he told The Guardian. “The delivery isn’t just the words, it’s the accentuation and the moods and twists he puts on them.”

Roughly a decade later, Jagger knew Dylan well enough to sit in the studio with him while he recorded.

“His greatness lies in the body of work,” he said. “I was at a session for Blood on the Tracks [1975] and really enjoyed watching him record ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,’ with this incredible depth of storyline, surrounded by all these boring people from the record company who he had sitting in the control room. I couldn’t record like that.”

Mick Jagger once defended Bob Dylan’s singing voice

While discussing his status as an aging musician in an interview, Jagger once brought up Dylan. He believed that Dylan continued to put on solid, entertaining shows as he got older.

“He’s over 60, and I quite like watching his shows. I think it’s quite fun,” Jagger said. “And I enjoy watching him performing.” 

The interviewer mentioned that while she enjoyed Dylan as a performer, she did not like his voice. When discussing his singing, she pulled a face to indicate her dislike. Jagger pushed back against her.

“It’s a funny voice, it’s like a voice that’s never been one of the great tenors of our time, but it’s got a timbre, a projection, and it’s got a feeling to it,” he said. “You were talking earlier about as you get older that your voice takes on a different resonance, different pitch, and so on. So, there’s something to be said for that.”

Is his voice really all that bad?

Dylan’s songwriting is rarely questioned, but his singing voice has long been the subject of debate. People describe it as too nasally, too gravelly, and altogether unpleasant to hear. Dylan has acknowledged this.

“Critics have been giving me a hard time since Day One,” Dylan said in his speech accepting the MusiCares Person of the Year award. “Critics say I can’t sing. I croak. Sound like a frog. Why don’t critics say that same thing about Tom Waits? Critics say my voice is shot. That I have no voice. [Why] don’t they say those things about Leonard Cohen? Why do I get special treatment? Critics say I can’t carry a tune and I talk my way through a song. Really? I’ve never heard that said about Lou Reed. Why does he get to go scot-free? … Slur my words, got no diction. Have you people ever listened to Charley Patton or Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters? … ‘Why me, Lord?’ I would say that to myself.”

Jagger was right; Dylan is not the best tenor of his time, and nobody would describe him as such. Still, his voice imbues his songs with a level of emotion and meaning that make his writing come through more clearly. For this reason, covers of his music rarely have the same poignancy as his version. While he may not have the range of other artists, his voice fits his music.