David Keenan on Bob Dylan: "His work transcends definition and description..."

Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon the handmade blade the child's balloon eclipses both the sun and moon to understand you know too soon there is no sense in trying. Rimbaud once wrote Je est un autre...

Dylan is that somebody else. Impenetrable? No, as clear as day if you just get out of the way of it all. What twenty-one year old today would be so fully formed as to deny with grievance, responsibility for the messiah tags placed upon him by the press. The voice of a generation, give us your message oh great social influencer, spell out in CAPITALS what every line means and doesn't mean.

Dylan understood the internal bond and pact he had made with his interpreter and the self generation required to loosen those songs into the world. His work transcends definition and description, he has eluded petty presumptions forever.

Dylan's songs are already as old as time, existing outside of time belonging to no one they will outlive us all. He was a lightbulb moment that remains lit and for the passerby what a galorious world to witness. Happy birthday Bob x

David Keenan's new single, 'Bark', is out June 10.

Read the full Bob Dylan special feature in the current issue of Hot Press – out now: