A Smashed Hits piece for the BBC News Magazine about this year’s X Factor Winner’s Song, Bob Dylan’s Forever Young:
The Dylans decamped to rural New York state for some peace. They didn’t get it. The presence of Bob Dylan gave the tiny town of Woodstock such countercultural kudos that its name was given to an “aquarian exposition” – the famous 1969 festival in a neighbouring county which didn’t feature Dylan, but did bring half a million people into his back yard.
For some of them, “Dylan’s back yard” was no metaphor, and they never went away. The Dylans soon wearied of finding hippies in the trees around their home and Dylan became frightened that he might have to use his “clip-fed Winchester blasting rifle” to keep them from his family. Onwards, then, to an Arizona ranch.
The quotes are from Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, his Spin interview with Scott Cohen in 1985 and Clinton Heylin’s Behind the Shades. Here are the tunes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwvN3KJBT9M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jEKY-3eNZc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLfrdRgpKfI
- Forever Young at bobdylan.com
- Previously by me on X Factor songs: Hallelujah; Killing in the Name; 4’33”
- Related: Like a Rolling Stone; Everybody Hurts; Fairytale of New York
Tags: bbc, bbcnews, bobdylan, foreveryoung, music, smashedhits, writing, xfactor
