If Bob Dylan quit music after the 1970s, he still likely would have gone down as one of the greatest of all time. Though, as we all know, that is not the case, and to this day Dylan continues to grace stages and release music. The man is now 84 years old, with the majority of his career in the rear-view. And that image in the rear-view is not a flat Kansas plain, but a grand Rocky Mountain skyline. However, there was a decade that arguably left a bit of a stain on that gorgeous view, and that was the 80s.
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We need not beat a dead horse, as all Dylan fans and Dylan fans adjacent know that the 80s were a rough patch for Bob Dylan. In essence, the Dylan we received in the 80s is not the Dylan we saw in the 60s, 70s, or even the 90s. It was a completely different version of the man who already has many versions of himself. On the contrary, one individual who was doing well in the 80s was, of course, Tom Petty.
In the 80s, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers scored major hits with singles such as “Refugee”, “The Waiting”, and “Don’t Come Around Here No More”. Furthermore, they were one of the few rock bands of the decade not following the fads of the time. As a result of this success, Petty and the band got an offer to join Bob Dylan on his 1986 True Confessions tour. This decision would ultimately lead Dylan into a sort of identity crisis, but as history has told us, he came out the other side and reinvented himself once again.
A Harsh Reality Check for the Great Bob Dylan
By the time 1986 rolled around, Bob Dylan had already been coined as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Again, he could have quit and walked away a happy man, and during this tour, that was likely a thought that flashed through his mind. Because, well, during this tour, Dylan saw his relevancy and musical power start to trickle away a bit.
Concerning the tour with Petty, Dylan stated, “I remember playing shows [with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in the 80s] and looking out [thinking] I didn’t have that many fans coming to see me.” “They were coming to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,” per Dylan: The Essential Interviews.
“I had been going on my name for a long time, name and reputation, which was about all I had,” and “I had sort of fallen into an amnesia spell … I didn’t feel I knew who I was on stage,” added Dylan. For anyone, a moment and or a series of moments such as this one is a real reality check, and it seemingly was for Dylan.
While the rest of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s might not have been too great for Dylan, the late 90s were exceptional, as he released Time Out of Mind in 1997, and made his unofficial and inspired comeback
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