{"id":290232,"date":"2025-11-29T19:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T19:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/290232\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T19:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T19:54:12","slug":"the-early-beatles-song-bob-dylan-felt-was-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/290232\/","title":{"rendered":"The early Beatles song Bob Dylan felt was perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bob<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Bent Rej \/ Apple Corps LTD)<\/p>\n

Sat 29 November 2025 16:00, UK <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a testament to just how titanic Bob Dylan<\/a>\u2019s songsmith stature is in the popular music canon that a thumbs-up for even the lauded likes of The Beatles counts for something.<\/p>\n

They were worlds apart way back in the early 1960s, when the world wasn\u2019t quite prepared for the countercultural explosion that awaited. In August 1963, Beatlemania was beginning to rumble in earnest with the UK release of \u2018She Loves You\u2019, a gloriously euphoric rush of Merseybeat pop that stood as their strongest single yet and practically rubbed its hands in anticipation of the national chart conquer to come.<\/p>\n

Over in New York that same month, Dylan was cementing his presence amid the Greenwich Village folk revivalism with the stirring protest poem \u2018Blowin\u2019 in the Wind\u2019. The two practically inhabited different universes: Dylan charting a course of stirring acoustic strumming amid the engulfing Civil Rights struggle, the young troubadour would be heralded by the folk community as the most important voice since Woody Guthrie.<\/p>\n

Then 1965 happened. As well entrenched in music lore, Dylan plugged in his guitar, \u2018went electric\u2019, and triggered accusations of heresy by the folk purists, incensed at his supposed commercial sell-out. The fact is, rock and roll was just as essential a formative lightning strike to the young Dylan as much as anyone else in his generation, as well as harbouring a quiet admiration for the pop numbers unleashed by the new Fab Four hit factory from across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

The road to \u2018Subterranean Homesick Blues<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Like a Rolling Stone\u2019 was paved with some help from Liverpool\u2019s finest, once stating, \u201cI dug what The Beatles were doing, and I always kept it in mind from back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having crossed paths in 1964, Dylan had introduced the band to marijuana and the subsequent shift in direction across Help! and Rubber Soul\u2019s more mature and introspective moments. Likewise, The Beatles\u2019 electric whirlwind prompted Dylan to shake off expectations of the lonesome poet act and grab a slice of pop, albeit in his own idiosyncratic fashion, for himself.<\/p>\n

The hook was stuck in Dylan upon first hearing the early Please Please Me number \u2018Do You Want to Know a Secret\u2019, primarily written by John Lennon but gifted to lead guitarist George Harrison as vocalist. \u201cThe radio was on from beyond a wall, and the sound was coming through in static,\u201d he recalled on 2004\u2019s Chronicles: Vol 1. \u201cThey were so easy to accept, so solid. I remembered when they first came out. They offered intimacy and companionship like no other group. Their songs would create an empire. It seemed like a long time ago. \u2018Do You Want to Know a Secret\u2019. A perfect \u201950s sappy love ballad, and nobody but them could do it. Somehow, there was nothing wussy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t wrong. In several dizzying months, The Beatles would be beamed to middle America on their The Ed Sullivan Show debut, and US, then global, domination would continue. Even today, The Beatles still sit as a monolithic institution, for better or worse. Dylan, too, would sail to the celebrated peaks of the 20th-century music behemoth, often compared by his fans as possessing a more profound and culturally essential lyrical pen.<\/p>\n

Apples and oranges, however. When asked by NME in 2015 as to his favourite Fab Four moment, Dylan shot straight for The Beatles at their most pop frothiest. \u201c\u2019I Want to Hold Your Hand<\/a>\u2019\u2026They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid\u2026 I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

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Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Bent Rej \/ Apple Corps LTD) Sat 29 November 2025 16:00, UK It\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[15737,96,128,10447,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-290232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bob-dylan","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-beatles","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}