Music

Born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, Bob Dylan celebrates his 83rd birthday today.

His passport will still say Robert Zimmermann, his real name, but few people still call him by that name, because for posterity Zimmermann has definitely become Dylan. 

As early as 1962, with his eponymous debut album, Bob Dylan became the herald of major political, social and even religious causes (the 1979 album "Slow Train Coming" was steeped in Christian mysticism). One example is the very explicit "Masters of War" on the 1963 album "The Freewheelin", which the artist presented as a manifesto against arms dealers rather than a simple pacifist anthem.

Another emblematic example that flirts with religion is "All Along The Watchtower" in 1967, a song later covered by Neil Young and Eric Clapton as well as U2 and, impressively, Jimi Hendrix. And some lesser-known choruses like "Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)" on "Street Legal" or "Hurricane" on the 1978 album "Desire", which defended the black boxer Rubin Carter. The American singer has never had his tongue in his cheek, and richly deserves his title of "protest singer"!

Despite Dylan's abundant discography and the large number of exegeses that examine his song lyrics on a daily basis, the artist has nevertheless been active in other fields, notably painting and, more rarely, the cinema, with an unexpected role in Sam Peckinpah's film "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid" in 1973.

We also have to congratulate Bob Dylan on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, the first to be awarded to a singer, although it is regrettable that the Swedish jury did not consider Leonard Cohen before him...

With the nasal voice that characterises his musical universe and his folk-inspired harmonica, Bob Dylan will leave a major mark on the history of music, going against the tide of fashions and their vicissitudes.

(Pic: © Etienne Tordoir)

Caption: Bob Dylan at the Schaerbeek stadium in Brussels (Belgium) on 7 June 1984 (© Etienne Tordoir)