now appreciate that that was a very Bob Dylan thing to do, to turn the tables completely. Bumping into Bob Dylan? What’s that like? It’s like bumping into Willie Shakespeare. I knew I was on hallowed ground, if not on solid ground. I was not worthy to tie the laces of his moccasins, but I caught my balance and challenged him to a chess game. That’s right — a chess game. Bob Dylan had invited me backstage, to

I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. "Mother and Child Reunion" for example, is not a song that you would have normally thought that Simon and Garfunkel would have done. It's possible that they might have. But it wouldn't have been the same, and I don't know if I would have been so inclined in that direction. So for me it was a chance to break out and gamble a little bit … The breakup had to do with a natural drifting apart as we got older and the separate lives that were more individual. We weren't so consumed with recording and performing. We had other activities … there was no great pressure to stay together other than money, which exerted very little influence upon us. … We didn't need the money.

Slight, wiry, his blond, curly hair worn long, Bob Dylan never wears a tie and never lets anyone else make decisions for him. His unshakable independence courses through his songs—some of them wryly irreverent, others harshly critical of what he regards as hypocrisy and cruelty. His voice is acrid but curiously compelling, and he has become the most influential folksinger among today's teenagers—as well as among older dissenters. [...] Now 24, he is less the angry preacher of causes than he was two years ago. His songs have become more warmly personal and more deftly witty. He is cactus on the outside and romantic revolutionary within. He has no ideology except that of inner freedom. He is his own man.

I play with syllables and sport in song

Bob Dylan: I do know what my songs are about.
Playboy: And what's that?
Bob Dylan: Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve.

"My Back Pages"

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke their word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.

Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

Bob Dylan is my brother. I love him same as Bobby Darin [deceased] is my baby. I feel Bob Dylan is my blood brother. I believe if I didn't have a place to stay, Bob Dylan would buy me a house. He sat by my bed; he didn't move for hours. I was in pain that medicine couldn't stop. My tongue was cut out, leg all tore up, bladder punctured. I was supposed to be dead. Six feet under. God resurrected me; that's the reason I have to tell the world about it.

The goat thing, I went out, I was drinking some beers with the writers - writers I couldn't stand, and they didn't like me either. They were all like Harvard, Yale, and [imperious voice] 'We've been studying comedy for seven years, and...we've never been on stage, but we know comedy! Bwahahaha!' So I said 'Listen, I know this is a little out there, but what about a guy...who has Tourette's of a goat?' And these guys just stare at me like 'Man, Breuer's HIGH out of his MIND!' I said 'The more he drinks, the more he starts eating the curtains, and he gets nuts and sings karaoke at the end of the night.' And then about two weeks later, this guy came back, he's like, 'Hey, I've got an idea for that weird goat thing you were talking about.' He said 'What if he only sings 80's?' And I thought that was the DUMBEST...thing I've ever heard in my life! And then, we tried it, and now I've got people drunk out of their minds in a bar trying to 'baa' at me. [drunken voice] 'Hey, man! Yo, yo man, it's the sheep dude right here! [drunken 'baa'ing] I shouldn'ta had that hot dog, man!' Just hammered, baaing at me in the street.

I tried out the unfamiliar syllables. They fit. They cracked in my ears like a fist through ice.

He never wasted a melody. He never wasted a phrase. He and Duke Ellington changed the whole sound. There is no way to describe it because there's nobody on this earth that can do that anymore. What he did to the texture of an orchestration, what he did with a pop song is like writing an original piece. Students will discover him. They'll have to take his music apart layer by layer. That's how they'll know what kind of genius he was.

His mental alertness and oratorical skills were at their best particularly [in his college days] in his rebuttal to the speeches of his opponents. In no time he would notice the fallacies of their arguments, which he would make a target of his satirical and sarcastic remarks in quite a dramatic way in his own repartee. He quipped and gibed so wittily that at times he held the audience spell bound and at times made it roar in laughter.