History Trivia / BobDylan

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: To the extent where the 1969 release ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Wonder Great White Wonder]]'' is considered the TropeCodifier for unauthorized bootleg albums. Dylan was also (along with Music/FrankZappa) among the first artists to acknowledge the demand for unreleased music by releasing official versions of songs that had been bootlegged for years. Still, even with eleven (and counting) volumes of the official ''Bootleg Series'', there are still scores of unreleased songs, one out-of-print album (''Dylan'') and literally [[ArchivePanic thousands of live recordings]].

* CreatorsFavoriteEpisode: He's cited ''Music/BlondeOnBlonde'' as the album he's most proud of. Judging from his latter-day concert setlists, he also holds ''Music/Highway61Revisited'' in high regard--"Tombstone Blues" (last played in 2006) and "From a Buick 6" (only played twice in 1965) are the only songs he hasn't played live in the last decade.

** In March 1984, Dylan appeared on ''Series/LateNight with Creator/DavidLetterman'' backed by the L.A. post-punk band the Plugz for a three-song set considered one of Dylan's best-ever television performances and a highlight of a decade where Dylan was largely written off. The performance was so popular with his fans that it even circulated as a bootleg recording for years. However, Dylan never followed up on either his chemistry with the Plugz nor the acclaim his stylistic shift received. The Letterman set is often thought of as a great "what-if" moment in rock history, to the point where the Canadian indie band Daniel Romano's Outfit released full-length cover of Dylan's 1983 album ''Infedels'' in 2020 done in the post-punk style of the Plugz and titled it ''Daniel Romano's Outfit Do (What Could Have Been) Infidels By Bob Dylan & the Plugz''.

** The Bob Dylan Center has some notebooks in which Dylan jotted down some ideas while he was editing his experimental documentary ''Eat the Document'', and buried among them is a very intriguing entry: the name and home address of Creator/AlfredHitchcock. Whether Dylan was somehow going to try to enlist Hitchcock's help in putting ''Eat the Document'' together, or the two were considering another potential collaboration, is not known.

* ChartDisplacement: On one hand, his biggest hit is also his possible signature, as "Like a Rolling Stone" reached #2. On the other, this means the classic songs released prior to it barely charted, including "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (a top 10 hit in the UK nonetheless), "Blowin' in the Wind" (which missed the US charts altogether), "Mr. Tambourine Man" (not even released as a single), and "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (a mere #39).

** If you go by charting songs, the classic "The Times They Are A-Changin'" was his first hit in the UK, while "Like a Rolling Stone" (arguably also his SignatureSong) was his first hit in the US - "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was his first charting single in the US, but a low-charting one.

** Dylan pretty much wrote his debut album out of canon, simply put.

* TropeNamer: To EverybodyMustGetStoned.

* BreakthroughHit: "Blowin' in the Wind".
* ChartDisplacement: On one hand, his biggest hit is also his possible signature, as "Like a Rolling Stone" reached #2. On the other, this means the songs released prior to it barely charted, including "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (a top 10 hit in the UK nonetheless) and "Blowin' in the Wind", which missed the US charts altogether, and "Subterranean Homesick Blues", a mere #39.