Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd co-founder, bassist, singer and main songwriter, was heavily influenced by the 60s music and was not only by the psychedelic and experimental bands. Besides The Beatles, he was also deeply inspired by Bob Dylan, who is one of the most prolific songwriters of all time.
Curiously, he also loves a song written by Bob Dylan’s son, Jakob Dylan, who is the leader of the group The Wallflowers.
The song from Bob Dylan’s son that Roger Waters loves
It was in an interview with World Magazine back in 2005 that Roger Waters revealed which were some of his favorite songs from the 90s and late 80s. One of the tracks mentioned was “One Headlight”, which is The Wallflowers’ signature song.
“I loved that song One Headlight by The Wallflowers. It probably appealed to me the same way Tommy Steel’s version of Singing the Blues did when I first heard it and took up my position in the corner of the playground to defend it against the Guy Mitchell version!” Roger Waters said.
The band led by Jakob Dylan was formed in 1989 in Los Angeles California with the guitarist Tobi Miller (who was part of the band until 1995). Although they released their debut album in 1992, they would only achieve fame with the release of “Bringing Down the Horse” (1996). That was the album where “One Headlight” first appeared. Besides peaking at number 1 on several charts, the track also won the Grammy for “Best Rock Song” and “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals”.
Besides that track, the record also had famous songs like “6th Avenue Heartache” and “Three Marlenas”. The album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 charts at the time. It became their best-selling record.
Waters’ love for Bob Dylan’s music
Although the kind of music made by Roger and Pink Floyd was quite different musically from what Dylan was doing, the one thing they had in common was in songwriting. Both of them wrote about injustice, prejudice, war, and other social issues. In an interview with Howard Stern back in 2012, Waters explained how important Dylan was for him. He said that the musician showed that long songs also could be successful.
He was asked by Stern if he hated the ‘rule’ that record companies had when he was starting. They used to say that songs couldn’t be longer than 3 or 4 minutes. They believed that if the track was long, it wouldn’t be played on the radio.
“(Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) ‘(Bob Dylan’s) ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ changed my life. When I heard that I thought ‘Worthy’, if Bob can do it I can do it. It’s 20 minutes long, it’s a whole hour and in no way gets dull or boring or anything. You just get more and more and more and grow. It becomes more and more hypnotic the longer it goes on.”
During his career, Waters covered Bob Dylan a few times during special concerts. He played “Forever Young” and even made a studio cover of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”. But he also criticized the American songwriter when he made the covers album “Shadows in the Night” in 2015. That album had tracks that were only recorded by Frank Sinatra.
