post your thoughts and connections you see between dylan/beatles songs.

norweigan wood/4th time around: this seems like an obvious response by dyan to lennon's norweigan wood. i read somewhere that lennon got fairly paranoid after this one because he thought dylan was mocking him. both are beautiful songs.

the ballad of frankie lee and judas priest/rocky raccoon: i don't know if mccartney was responding to this particular song or what, but there is a definite john wesley harding-era influence on rocky raccoon, it seems. i just bought JWH a few days ago, and it reminds me so much of rocky raccoon that i can't help but think paul was responding to the album in some way. the ballad of frankie lee seems the most similar in that it is repetive strumming and quite a tale.

masters of war/working class hero: both bitter, political songs in a simple minor chord. very similar vocal melody.

these are the big three that come to mind, anyone have any thoughts or your own findings?

Dylan gave the Beatles pot

thus being the kick in the pants john and paul needed.

Isn't there a great bit of audio floating around featuring Bob and John talking about the Mamas and the Papas?

That is the popular story, but I'm pretty sure I've read that the Beatles were smoking hash back when they were in Hamburg. Not that Dylan didn't give them some pot too.

--PunkDavid

regardless of psychoactive substances, does anyone want to talk about more instances where dylan influenced the beatles or vice versa? 'help!', perhaps?

I wish I could help you out here because I swear that I've read quotes or just articles somewhere....I think most of Rubber Soul was heavily indebted to Dylan.

It's hard to nail down a "this song influenced that song" thing with these two bands, but you can see a radical shift in both Dylan and the Beatles about the time that they had their first face to face meeting in late 1964.

Dylan's change is more obvious, as he picks up the electric guitar and incorporates rock 'n roll into his music beginning with Bringing It All Back Home. The Beatles taught Dylan how to have more pure fun with his music, and not merely the high intellectual humor that had previously existed in his work.

The Beatles change is more subtle but none less dramatic. Beginning with Rubber Soul, the Beatles began to develop much more depth in the subject matter of their songs, and left the poppy songs of young love behind in favor of more mature and complex themes. Some of this can be attributed to their own aging and maturing (they were 22-25 by this time ), but Dylan's influence as a writer of important music meant to change and influence people can't be denied.

--PunkDavid

i don't see how it could have been put any better than that. and to be honest, i somehow didn't even make the connection between the beatles meeting dylan, and dylan subsequently plugging in. i mean, i knew it was there, but failed to put 2 and 2 together. wow.

The colors they typed this article in may drive you batty, but it sums up a lot of the discussion here:

http://www.geocities.com/paul_82_allen/beatles

Dylan was influenced by the Beatles and vice versa, but I think Dylan's idea to go electric was more because of other bands covering his songs, the Animals folk rock House of the Rising Sun cover of Dylan is usually noted.