Music wouldn't have been the same without Bob Dylan, who caused a revolution in songwriting after his first albums were released in the early 1960s. He showed musicians all over the world that they could write about more than just love songs. They could address anything they wanted and still be both good and successful. One of the groups deeply influenced by him was The Beatles, who took things even further creating a whole new revolution of their own. Bob had the chance to meet the Fab Four and get to know them quite well. Over the decades he shared his opinions on them, including on the late John Lennon. What is Bob Dylan's opinion on John Lennon Although Bob Dylan was always more close to his late friend George Harrison, he also liked all the other members of the band, including John Lennon, who he praised many times. "I dig John. As a writer, a singer, and a Beatle. There are very few people I dig every time I meet them, but him I dig. He doesn’t take things so seriously as so many guys do. I always love to see John. Always. He’s a wonderful fellow... and I always like to see him. We played some stuff into a tape recorder but I don’t know what happened to it. I can remember playing it and the recorder was on. I don’t remember anything about the song," the musician told Melody Maker magazine already in 1965, one year after meeting the British musicians for the first time. Talking with Rolling Stone magazine back in 2007, Dylan was asked if there was some competition between him and Lennon. The musician said there was but but not so much, saying that the late Beatle is one of the greatest singers of all time. “Yeah (there was a competition). Only to a certain extent, but not really." He continued: "Him and McCartney both, really, they were fantastic singers. Lennon, to this day, it’s hard to find a better singer than Lennon was, or than McCartney was and still is. I’m in awe of McCartney. He’s about the only one that I am in awe of. He can do it all. And he’s never let up. He’s got the gift for melody, he’s got the rhythm, he can play any instrument." He can scream and shout as good as anybody, and he can sing a ballad as good as anybody. Also his melodies are effortless, that’s what you have to be in awe of. He’s just so damn effortless. I just wish he’d quit [laughs]. Everything that comes out of his mouth is just framed in melody," Dylan said about Lennon and McCartney. Bob Dylan said that John Lennon's was overlooked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVYXWVs0Prc&list=RDbVYXWVs0Prc&start_radio=1&pp=ygULam9obiBsZW5ub26gBwE%3D John Lennon was one of the most influential songwriters and musicians of the history of music but Dylan believed he was still overlooked. Especially because he managed to take his poetic side really far in popular music, something not many people had done. “I’ve always lived the way George Harrison plays guitar—restrained and good. As for Lennon, well, I was encouraged by his book (In His Own Write). Or the publishers were encouraged, because they asked me to write a book and that’s how Tarantula came about. John has taken poetics pretty far in popular music. So a lot of his work is overlooked. But if you examine it, you’ll find key expressions that have never been said before to push across his point of view. So things that are symbolic of some inner reality and probably will never be said again,” he said in an interview with Playboy magazine back in 1978. They were good friends since the mid-60s and there a really interesting footage of the two in the back of a car in 1966, which appears on the documentary "Eat the Document", released in 1972. Bob Dylan visited John Lennon’s childhood home without being noticed by other tourists When touring in the United Kingdom back in 2009, Dylan decided to get in a minibus alongside regular tourists and visit John Lennon's childhood home. According to BBC, the artists paid at the time £16 for the public trip to the 1940s house in Woolton, Liverpool. He was one of the 14 tourists who had the chance to see photos and documents in the house where the Beatle grew up with his aunt Mimi and his uncle George. A National Trust spokeswoman said at the time that the American musician "appeared to enjoy himself" during the visit. "He took one of our general minibus tours. People on the minibus did not recognise him apparently. He could have booked a private tour but he was happy to go on the bus with everyone else," she said. Dylan curiously released on his 2012 album "Tempest", a song called "Roll on John", which pays tribute to the late Beatle. Talking to Rolling Stone in the interview to promote the record, the musician said he discovered that "Strawberry Fields" was just behind Lennon's house during that visit. "A couple years ago? Strawberry Field is right in back of his house. Didn’t know that. Evidently, he grew up with his aunt. He’d be out there in the Strawberry Field, a park behind his house that was fenced off," Bob Dylan said. Bob Dylan wrote a letter supporting John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s fight for US citizenship John Lennon moved with his wife Yoko Ono to New York City in 1971 but it wasn't easy for them to get the United States citizenship. It's a long proccess due to the political pressure they faced in the country at the time. To support them, Dylan wrote a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1972, expressing support for them. "JUSTICE for John & Yoko! John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to this country’s so called ART INSTITUTION / They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only can help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass-media. Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay," Bob Dylan wrote at the time. It was only 1976 that Lennon finally received his Green Card, giving him permanent residency status in the United States.
