{"id":550226,"date":"2025-11-05T07:42:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/550226\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T07:42:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T07:42:20","slug":"bob-dylan-accused-john-lennon-of-copying-of-one-obscure-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/550226\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Dylan accused John Lennon of copying of one obscure song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Bent Rej)<\/p>\n

Tue 4 November 2025 19:11, UK <\/p>\n

The world of music is built on the backs of incredible collaboration. Partnerships and bands coming together to create music, even if not directly linked with one another, is why the art form is so vibrant. Even outside influences can infiltrate a great songwriter. Despite this, for a prolonged period of time, Bob Dylan\u2019s relationship with John Lennon<\/a> was fractious, to say the very least. <\/p>\n

While the two musicians initially got off to a genial start, a period when Lennon began borrowing from Dylan\u2019s playbook with The Beatles and Dylan likewise tried to replicate their mainstream sound, the singer-songwriter believed it wasn\u2019t only he who fell victim to the Liverpudlian\u2019s dirty tactics.<\/p>\n

Their first meeting between the two occurred in a New York hotel in 1964, when Dylan introduced The Beatles to marijuana, inadvertently altering their minds and songwriting process. On Rubber Soul, Lennon started to express his inner Dylan, most notably on \u2018Norwegian Wood\u2019, leading the American to respond with the sniping \u2018Fourth Time Around\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From that moment on, they were never the closest of associates despite Dylan forming a friendship with George Harrison, and the two later became bandmates in the Travelling Wilburys. However, while Lennon and Dylan likely would never have been seen dining together, the competitive edge to their relationship was born out of mutual respect.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Dylan was tasked with creating a compilation album titled\u00a0The Music That Matters To Me, featuring a selection of his favourite songs, including one track he believes inspired a classic by The Beatles.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison of The Beatles. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

In the liner notes, Dylan honestly explained the credentials required for the songs to be included on the CD: \u201cWhen I was asked to put together this collection of songs, I wasn\u2019t sure what to do,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I grabbed a bunch of things I was into recently.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dylan has been routinely asked about his favourite music of all time, and the songwriter has, in general, tried to ignore such a question. He has ducked and dodged, and this is his reasoning: \u201cSome people have favourite songs, but I\u2019ve got songs of the minute \u2013 songs that I\u2019m listening to right now. And if you ask me about one of these songs a year from now, I might not even remember who did it, but at the moment it\u2019s everything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out, Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize winner, is just a trendy kid who only cares about what\u2019s the latest thing on his turntable. He added: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different ways a record can get under your skin. Sometimes it\u2019s the way they sound, sometimes it\u2019s the words. Maybe it\u2019s a guitar riff or horn line or maybe you feel like the singer is talking right to you. <\/p>\n

Some people say it\u2019s chemistry but chemistry is too much of a science. A great record is more like alchemy. Here\u2019s a bunch of folks who somehow managed to turn lead into gold for a couple of minutes. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first track Dylan chose to shine a light on was \u2018Doo Unto Others\u2019 by Pee Wee Crayton, a song released in 1954. Other artists who have taken it on in later years include Billy Bragg, and Dylan believes it strongly influenced The Beatles\u2019 hit \u2018Revolution\u2019, even if Lennon didn\u2019t realise it himself.<\/p>\n

Dylan speculated in the album sleeve: \u201cI bet that John Lennon heard this record at a party once and probably didn\u2019t even know who did it, but that guitar just stuck in his head. The song was released in 1954. The \u2018B\u2019 side of \u2018Hey Jude\u2019 by The Beatles is called \u2018Revolution\u2019<\/a>, and it was released in 1968. The start of both of these recordings is identical.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Lennon, though, the track was far more important: \u201cI wanted to put out what I felt about revolution. I thought it was time we f*<\/strong>g spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese war when we were on tour with Brian Epstein and had to tell him, \u2018We\u2019re going to talk about the war this time, and we\u2019re not going to just waffle.\u2019 I wanted to say what I thought about revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been thinking about it up in the hills in India,\u201d he continued. \u201cI still had this \u2018God will save us\u2019 feeling about it, that it\u2019s going to be all right. That\u2019s why I did it: I wanted to talk, I wanted to say my piece about revolution. I wanted to tell you, or whoever listens, to communicate, to say \u2018What do you say? This is what I say\u201d<\/p>\n

In his analysis, the legendary singer-songwriter hits the nail on the head, and if one listened to \u2018Revolution\u2019 side-by-side with \u2018Do Unto Others\u2019, it\u2019d be impossible to tell them apart. While this was likely an act of subconscious plagiarism rather than deliberate on Lennon\u2019s behalf, there\u2019s little doubt that it was entirely coincidental both he and Crayton stumbled upon the same introduction.<\/p>\n

Listen to both songs below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

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Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Bent Rej) Tue 4 November 2025 19:11, UK The world of music…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[39538,77,8345,269,4162,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-550226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bob-dylan","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-john-lennon","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-beatles","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115495970200270541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}