{"id":67800,"date":"2026-05-24T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=67800"},"modified":"2026-05-23T10:01:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:01:40","slug":"hearing-elvis-for-the-first-time-was-like-busting-out-of-jail-bob-dylan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=67800","title":{"rendered":"“I don’t call myself a poet, because I don’t like the word. I’m a trapeze artist.\u201d – Bob Dylan"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Bob Dylan’s birthday<\/big><\/p>\n

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“When I first heard Elvis Presley’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.” – Bob Dylan<\/big><\/p>\n

\n“Nobody was going to be my boss” is one of my favorite comments from a fellow musician on the impact Elvis had. There’s also this from Keith Richards’ great memoir<\/a>. My favorite comment about Elvis very well may be George Harrison’s response to the question from an interviewer about his musical roots. Harrison, surprisingly, said he didn’t have any musical roots. The only “root” he could think of was from when he was a kid in Liverpool, hearing “Heartbreak Hotel” playing through an open window. <\/p>\n

But Dylan: hearing a song, hearing a singer, on the radio, and suddenly knowing that “nobody was going to be my boss”? <\/p>\n

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\nBob Dylan considering Elvis<\/i><\/p>\n

Elvis recorded Dylan’s song “Tomorrow is a Long Time” in 1966. Dylan had written it, and recorded a demo of it in the early 60s. He played it in his concerts, and others started recording it. (Everyone recorded it, including Odetta, which is how Elvis heard it.) <\/p>\n

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