Among the most dramatic/devastating moments in 20th century music? When Bob Dylan meets Donovan (the latter still a golden boy of folk & a rival) & sings him the scorching poetic opener to *It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.* It's all over Donovan’s face: he’s been totally eclipsed

Some are worry about Timothee Chalamet playing Dylan in the upcoming film, but I say if it’s a gateway for my students into possibly the greatest living user of the English language—who finally accomplished the reunion of music & poetics foreseen by the Romantics—then … good.

Also when I am told "Dylan's voice isn't good," I more think it reflects on the listener than the art. (Once maybe you only drank apple juice and water, but later you acquired tastes for coffee, whiskey, wine, did you not? Similarly here. Great art requires expansion & maturing.)

The truth is Dylan has one of the greatest voices of twentieth century song, and it could be argued the most influential. How so? Ethics of authenticity. He makes possible the shift from formal virtuosity to expressiveness. Opens the door to a whole paradigm shift in who can sing

I think it was Sam Cooke (whose voice is of course wonderful) who noticed right away and with incredible prescience observed that *everyone in the future will sing like Dylan. they will be judged by whether or not they mean it* (i.e a Romanticist authenticity criterion)

Back to the lyrics: what does it mean to be "crying like a fire in the sun"? it seems a sorrow so disproportionately eclipsed as to appear insignificant since a fire is nearly nothing compared to the sun. But also, alternatively, fire joins, adds to a burning world of sorrow/sun

It seems either way (whether the crying, like a fire, is disproportionate or additive to a world of sorrows burning like a sun) the "orphan" is unaware that he is adding a bit of flame to the hell of sorrows, or that he may be overly nursing his own sufferings comparatively.

P.S. 2 more points since this post has summoned forth many who are unsubtle in interpreting human psychology/culture: 1. Donovan requesting the song is part of his realization 2. Pennebaker's capture of what otherwise would've been forgotten in a hotel room is what made it great

Watch the film for yourself. They pass the guitar back & forth—two rising artists in the same form (no one knows for sure who will outlast the other in the decades to come). Pennebaker's astonishing capture makes it a stand-in or symbol for the numberless artists Dylan eclipsed.

It's like watching Mozart devastate a-million-and-one Salieris in a single performance. You were good. But here comes divine genius. You could put in there for Donovan as proxy Van Ronk, Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, & every other singer-songwriter put up by the culture ever since

Not really true though. Donovan (18 years old here, 5 years younger than Dylan) had only started his career proper the previous year, so there’s zero logic to him being “totally eclipsed” by Dylan when he was never above him in the first place