Five: High Water Everywhere (1993-2021)

Three days before the Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, concludes his series about one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

In the final episode Sean Latham considers how stories are defined by their endings - a point Dylan makes in his Nobel speech when discussing Homer. Dylan invents a series of endings every bit as powerful as the beginnings around which he built his career in 1963. And, starting with 'Time Out of Mind', he reveals how Dylan fashions the roots music genre by becoming a musical historian, building on the past (including his own vast archive) to craft songs that are at once folk and pop, rock and poetry.

Latham examines different kinds of endings in Dylan's songs: the end of love, the end of the world (climate change), and the looming end of Dylan's own life as well. Latham concludes that over eighty years Dylan has learned his songs well and, at the end of his career, has learned to open a space for the future; his endings open the past, creating spaces for new stories and new voices that can build using the musical tools he has fashioned, as younger artists covering Dylan’s songs illustrate.

Producer: Julian May Show less