Bob Dylan Research Papers

An album that was bootlegged numerous times, officially released eight years after the initial recordings, The Basement Tapes was critically acclaimed upon it’s release in 1975. It’s singer Bob Dylan is a legend. Born as Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, Bob Dylan was raised in a closely knit Jewish society. Being a leader in folk music during 1960s, Dylan produced some of his most famous songs that chronicled social unrest. He then transformed from folk music and released songs incorporating rock elements afterwards, which changed the classical divisions of popular music. In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature. “Tears of Rage” is one of the most highly viewed track from the album. It depicts a daughter running away toward the wrong direction, despite her heart aching father, who would like to lead her back onto right track. Initially written and

Throughout the song, the lines seems to be words spoke toward a daughter by a father. For example, “What dear daughter 'neath the sun could treat a father so/To wait upon him hand and foot and always tell him no?” (Dylan 3-4). This can be seen as an allusion to Shakespeare’s “King Lear, in which the daughters betrayed their father, the King Lear, who has only good intentions to them. Instead of putting a focus on daughter, I think the main intention for Bob is to relate himself with king Lear, who experienced such despair yet cannot find a way out. Gill commented “Wracked with bitterness and regret, its narrator reflects upon promises broken and truths ignored, on how greed has poisoned the well of best intentions, and how even daughters can deny their father 's wishes”(Gill). With the excellent allusion, Bob made the lamentation on the wrong direction of American society sound even more