Bob Dylan and the Beatles, a tale of envy, affection and intense rivalry

Bob Dylan and the Beatles watched each other closely. Jim Windolf is fascinated by the parallels in their stories, the obvious moments they influenced each other and the unconcealable tensions at the times they met, all mapped out in his book ‘Where The Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and Changed the World’. He talks to us here from New York about what he discovered when writing it, which touches on …

… deep-end Dylan and Beatles fans: which can be “crankier”?

… the Chaplin-like comic timing of Dylan’s early shows and the humour of the Beatles’ early stage act

… the song Lennon and Dylan wrote, recorded and then lost – now possibly in the Dakota archive  

… the theory that 4th Time Around refers to the four Beatles songs clearly derived from Dylan

… first impressions of each other - “Teenybop music!” “Folk crap!” – and how both acts were crowd-pleasers who could feign indifference

… when the two superpowers met at the Delmonico, Warwick and Savoy hotels

… Dylan in ’66: “girls still scream at me … but in a different way”

… the night Bob, Paul and Dana Gillespie saw John Lee Hooker at Blaises

… how Lennon’s I Want You was a direct response to Dylan’s song of the same title

… the 15 Dylan songs played in the Get Back sessions

… Bob’s touching low-key visit to Lennon’s childhood home

… and the failed attempts by Bob and McCartney to collaborate.

Order copies of ‘Where The Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and Changed the World’ here:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/where-the-music-had-to-go/jim-windolf/9781399627849

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