In a world full of singer-songwriters, no one did what Bruce Springsteen could do in the late 1970s. After being given the role of one of the greatest songwriters in America, Springsteen would paint outstanding pictures of what life in the US had to offer, either writing fiction about those dreaming of freedom or those caught on the wrong side of the law with no means of escape. While Springsteen had a voice all his own whenever he stepped up to the microphone, the spectre of Bob Dylan loomed large over his career.
Then again, it’s hard to think of any kind of songwriter that Bob Dylan hasn’t influenced in some capacity. Picking up where artists like Woody Guthrie left off years before, Dylan was known as one of the lonesome troubadours of Western culture, constantly working to create the next immortal anthem that had something to say about the greater aspects of society like ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.
When Springsteen emerged on the scene, he was ridiculed for sounding too much like his idol on his first few records. Throughout his debut, Greetings from Asbury Park, it’s clear that Springsteen is wearing his influences on his sleeve, especially in the verses where he goes on various rambling passages reminiscent of what Dylan might have done on songs like ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’.
As much as Springsteen may have been a Dylan acolyte, his determination to push himself into new territories culminated in the album Born to Run, which became one of his calling cards. Instead of the usual sounds of folk-rock diatribes, Springsteen pushed the limits of his E Street Band as far as they would go, painting the album with a particular bombast that few records have matched since.
Even though Springsteen was on top of the world, he wasn’t looking to be a pop idol for much longer, going on many different detours throughout his career, like on the acoustic album Nebraska before coming back to the big time with Born in the USA. Despite all of the creative risks he took later in his career, Springsteen maintained that Dylan was the template for everything he did.
When speaking about his biggest idols, ‘The Boss’ had to give credit to Dylan for opening his mind to what could be done in a traditional rock song, telling Howard Stern, “If you want to talk about lyrics, he was the foundation where a lot of, if you want to call it, the poetic side of my lyrics came from [sings ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’]. I just grew up and lived on that”.
While Springsteen would find a unique way of approaching a rock narrative than Dylan, his willingness to experiment also came from his idol. Like Springsteen, Dylan wasn’t willing to play the game of pop music, electing to make different swerves throughout his career that kept his fans dumbfounded but no less interested to see where he was going next.
Compared to the artists who find their voice and stick with it, Dylan taught Springsteen that every great career is built on having different phases of one’s career. It might not be easy to manage most of the time, but even the stranger sides of his catalogue help tell the whole story of the man behind the songs.
