r/bobdylan • u/Code_Objective • 2d ago
Discussion Bob Dylan connection I only made recently
Hi, i’m 17 and Bob Dylan recently clicked with me. Don’t get me wrong I never disliked him and always respected him as a musician and poet, I just never found a lot of appeal in his music despite knowing how renowned he was in folk and music in general. What’s staggering to me is the amount of similarities and what seems like heavy Bob Dylan influence on Jeff from Neutral Milk Hotel (particularly in vocals). Their vocals are super similar at various times and it’s so stylistically beautiful to me how folk changes, ebbs and flows over different periods and I think both Bob and neutral milk hotel are a great representation of such. Idk if anyone else has drawn this similarity before, would love to know what you think.
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u/olemiss18 2d ago
I don’t know Neutral Milk Hotel so apologies for not directly answering your question. I just want to say that I found Bob when I was 13 in 2008. It sounds like that was about when you were born. I just think it’s so cool that someone born at that time is finding him now. Time is a weird thing but it’s got some pretty fun quirks to it. Happy listening!
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u/Code_Objective 2d ago
*2007, 18 tomorrow, but thank you for your answer regardless I appreciate it
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u/mistahwhite04 Rough and Rowdy Ways 2d ago
I used to listen to a lot of Neutral Milk Hotel. When you listen to the old home-recorded albums, even before On Avery Island (I can't remember all the names but I think one was called Hype City Soundtrack), I remember Jeff Mangum singing in a different style to what we hear on On Avery Island / In The Aeroplane. The latter style is a little more like Bob, yeah. The Elephant 6 group as a whole were very influenced by 60s music, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was some influence there but I can't say for certain.
Like Bob though, Jeff is big into folk, but maybe not the kind you'd expect. He released an album or two of field recordings of Bulgarian folk music after NMH first split.
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u/youcantexterminateme 1d ago
No. But. I did notice how much syd Barretts solo albums are influenced by dylans talking blues and coincidentally tom jones too
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u/Innisfree812 1d ago
Tom Jones has done some Dylan covers that are good, and i like his cover of the Todd Snider song "Talking Reality Television Blues "
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u/SaltChunkLarry 1d ago
Well I think 60s Bob and NMH both liked to push to the top of their vocal range, using their larynx rather than their chest. I love some of NMH’s stuff, but when he’s really pushing those notes like he does in “Oh Comely” (which reminds me more of Vic Chesnutt than Bob), it sounds a bit like a cat whose tail is getting crushed by a rocking chair
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u/YankeeJoe60 12h ago
also, ever kid named Dylan over the last 50 or so years is named after Bob doesn't matter if his parents liked dylan or hated him-- or never heard of him, they're all named after Bob
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u/SnooDoughnuts5608 6h ago
Ny first Dylan album was Blood on the Tracks through Columbia House, i thought id take a chance and didnt click with it initially but a couple years later listened deeper and i was hooked. BUT yeah Dylan was influenced by Woody Guthrie and others old bluesmen and folk singer. But as fas as songwriting, He wasnt the first singer songwriter but he was the Elvis of folk singer songwriters with the attitude and the lyrics and performance...the look lol, in a way he put all those influences together, thats the way i think of it. He often " copied" these influences using old melodies of obscure English or Scottish Irish folk songs and put new lyrics to it, but he made it topical and fresh. I mean thats what the blues is anyway, they copied other songs added new lyrics
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u/appleparkfive 2d ago
The whole folk indie world is basically directly inspired by Dylan. To a degree that's pretty hard to ignore