I can't agree Dylan opened up songwriting to a level of seriousness and subject matter--there was plenty of serious songwriting about political subjects for decades when Dylan came around--or doesn't political folk music count? Dylan, along with several other songwriters, got it played on the radio more than it had been before, because political songs became part of pop culture in the 60s. But he wasn't the only who did it by a long shot. I can't stand on solid ground and say he wasn't even the first songwriter to do it--maybe he was, but I don't think so. There were a lot of people recording and performing political songs at the time Dylan decided to take it up.

I just don't see Dylan as the pioneer that his devotees see him being regarding songwriting with serious subject matter. Now, if you want to say that "Like a Rolling Stone" matters because it was longer than 2 minutes and therefore changed the airplay format on radio, you might have a case. But that isn't the same thing as revolutionizing popular music the way the Beatles did. And whether you like the label or not, Bob Dylan plays popular music.

Here is my thing: in 1965 there was a lot of different sounding music in the pop charts, and Dylan was part of that, but not the Supreme Being of it. I mean come on, in the Top 409 hits for 1965, there were also these songs:

Baby the Rain Must Fall - Glenn Yarborough
California Girls - Beach Boys
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
Do You Believe in Magic - Lovin' Spoonful
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - The Animals
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
For Lovin' Me - Peter, Paul, and Mary
For Your Love - Yardbirds
Go Now! - Moody Blues
Going to A Go Go - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
I've Been Lovin' You too Long - Otis Redding
Hurts So Bad - Little Anthony and the Imperials
In the Midnight Hour - Wilson Picket
The In Crowd - Ramsey Lewis (an instrumental that hit #5)
Laugh, Laugh - Beau Brummels (a "Whiter Shade of Pale sort of song)

And I didn't include the multiple hits of many of the music acts that year that could be added to the above. I just give this list as a sample of what the music was that was being played on radio in 1965, when "Like a Rolling Stone" hit the Billboard charts.

Before 1965 we had the Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Roy Orbinson, Ray Charles, the Shirelles (hey, now that I think of it--how come none of theirs and the other girl group songs made the list, like "Heat Wave" or "One Fine Day" etc?), Etta James, James Brown, Beach Boys--hell, Peter Paul and Mary had hits with "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Don't Think Twice" in 1963, 2 years before Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" hit the charts. So if someone wanted to argue that Dylan's PP & M songs (rather than his performances and recordings of his songs) predates the Beatles, you would be correct about that in the US. But that is because the Beatles don't enter the US charts until January 1964. But hell, Elvis' "What'd I Say" was a 1964 hit too.

Lennon/McCartney weren't as profoundly influenced by another great songwriter of the era who WAS all over the charts pre-1964/1965 when the shit hit the fan musically, and that was Brian Wilson. "Don't Worry Baby" was just one of their hits in 1964--along with the Drifters "Under the Boardwalk" and "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" (the Temptations) and "Memphis" (Johnny Rivers) and "It's All Over Now" (Rolling Stones), and "Dancin' in the Streets" (Martha and the Vandellas), "Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison), "You Really Got Me" (Kinks), and a bazillion Beatles songs that year, along with "She's Not There" and some other classics of the "British invasion".

So if you base your arguments on Dylan influencing the Beatles, I think that is pretty weak, considering they couldn't possibly have heard any Dylan songs prior to the PP & M songs that were on the charts in 1963. But they sure as hell heard Brian Wilson, and the Beatles harmonies in their songs certainly reflect that influence. Not Dylan. His influence on Lennon/McCartney wouldn't come until much later. By the time Dylan arrived on the charts, the seismic change in popular music had already occurred. Dylan was a beneficiary of those changes, rode the wave--he didn't set the changes in motion the way the Beatles & the British invasion did, or the way that the R & B genre moving into popular music did at the same time.