Date: 8/27/25 6:27 am From: <jwdavis...> <jwdavis...> Subject: Re: Just Like That Bird--Dylan's Birds
Thanks for sharing the article. At one time I was noting all of the songs by different artists and poets that used birds and bird references in their songs. It is also an education to look at all of the bird reference that are made by William Shakespeare, Poe, Byron, Browning, and others.
Jerry Wayne Davis
Hot Springs, AR
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From: The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...> on behalf of Todd Ballinger <todd.ballinger...>
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2025 2:11 PM
To: <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: Just Like That Bird--Dylan's Birds
Bob Dylan may not be submitting personal checklists to eBird, but he has apparently been making many references to birds in his songs over the last 60 years. He turned 84 this past May. For those who listen to Bob Dylan, or just sometimes think birds make for good analogies/metaphors, here's an article I've enjoyed reading recently that combines the two:
[excerpt] "If you’ll pardon the avian pun, I’m ducking out of overviews and grand comparisons to focus on one small but typically interesting aspect of his [Dylan's] enormous body of work: the invoking of birds — birds in general and birds of particular species — and to consider how he deploys them.
"I’m prompted by the happy way the white dove with which he flew into so many people’s consciousness back near the starting-point — Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail / Before she sleeps in the sand? — returns on his most recent album, again invoked as a symbol of peace: If I had the wings of a snow-white dove / I’d preach the gospel, the gospel of love.
Having had that prompt, I suppose I assumed there’d be the handful of bird allusions recurrently in my head and perhaps as many again. How wrong I was: there are dozens!"
