Uh, Little Hawk, you must have grown up listening to some purty strange folk music if you never listened to dance music, seeing as the body of folk dance music is much larger than folk songs in most cultures. But hey--you keep referring to The Bob as a folk musician, so I doubt we'd ever agree much on folk music anyway!

I do find many of the arguments about Dylan's lyric writing ability compelling--I agree there is a complexity to them. I believe that is what won't make them "standards" or "classics" beyond our generation though, and the reason for that is the tunes. They just aren't that catchy. I mean, I can appreciate someone doing a jazz cover of a lot of Dylan songs, and I can imagine someone doing an R & B cover of some Dylan songs, but for the most part, there isn't a timeless quality to some of his lyrics. There are a number of Dylan songs that already sound very dated to me, for ex. "All I Really Want To Do".

Now, there are plenty of Beatles songs that are dated, not that great, etc. But I think it much more likely that somebody will pull "It's Only Love" off the shelf and do a great jazz cover of it in 50 years than "Like a Rolling Stone". Of course, in 50 years, I'll be dead wrong if I'm wrong.

I'll certainly agree to the complexity of Dylan's lyrics, but not his tune writing ability, which I would consider to be pretty average, nothing that stands out. If his stuff is covered, it's because of the appeal of the lyric, not the tune. And as I said, because Dylan songs are really songs written for Western intellectuals, those are the people his music appeals to, not us unwashed mashes who love to dance, sing along, sing in the shower, etc etc