#bleachellataylor

Let me preface all of this by saying that my opinions on Bob Dylan's songwriting are highly subjective. People more familiar with music theory and poetry have said wiser things about his work than me and they might disagree with my opinions so... All I can say is that listening to his music makes me want to tear my teeth out. And I don't disagree with the original tweet AT ALL, seeing how often people get compared to Bob Dylan, but I have just grown a bit tired of the comparison because a lot of times, it's just made because Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan and He Is The Best.

I understand where the comparison comes from a 100%, both Dylan and Taylor are great at capturing life and pulling you into the world of the song. But times have changed and they both just have different goals with their songs. A lot of Taylor's work is centered around herself and figuring out her emotions about her own life, whereas Bob – though he had songs like that, too – often aimed higher and wrote songs trying to make sense of the overall state of the world. As fictionalized as evermore and folklore may be, it still feels like the root of the stories lies within Taylor. This is not to say that there is no part of Bob Dylan in his storytelling songs, but I don't listen to The Ballad Of Hollis Brown and wonder how much of this is based in Dylan's personal life.

I can listen to Cowboy Like Me and say that it feels very Blood On The Tracks and y'all have seen my parallel posts, so yea, Bob and Taylor sometimes have a similar edge, but at the end of the day, like you said, Taylor has always been very connected to pop and her pop writing is good, even though it isn't Bob Dylan-style writing. And maybe she could actually write her own Desolation Row, it's just that not a lot of people want to listen to 11 minute long songs anymore. But even if she does write it, she's not going to write it at 25. There is a sense of magic and whimsy and fiction and poetry to Dylan that Taylor seems to lean into more now, but she just didn't for a lot of her career because it wasn't her goal. And that's fine.