Peter Gabriel Shares How Bob Dylan Influenced His Music

There’s little doubt that Bob Dylan has served as an inspiration for countless songwriters in the wide spectrum of music. Ex-Genesis member Peter Gabriel recently uploaded a video on his own YouTube account, in which he explained the influence of the Freewheelin’ Troubadour had on the lyrics for his next solo album, i/o.

Peter explained how he made his new song “The Court” on the most recent episode of his YouTube series Full Moon Club. The rocker sat down and talked about his approach to songwriting and how he couldn’t help but utilize rhymes.

“I was just throwing these images fairly randomly and coming at it faster than the ‘to rhyme or not to rhyme’ question come out, and I tend to fall back into rhyming,” Gabriel explained. “I know when I was working with Laurie Anderson, she was trying very hard to train me out of rhyming because it’s sometimes a weakness.”

But he later emphasized that some of the greatest songwriters ever, like Dylan and fellow legend Leonard Cohen, were huge fans of rhyming when creating their hit songs. As a result, Gabriel was inspired by the two icons’ rhyme usage and built the structures of his lyrics around such.

“But, then, you see, Dylan or Leonard Cohen, some of the great lyric writers, use rhyme in a powerful way. It is something that presses buttons and, I think, lines up our mind and emotions in a way that you don’t get.”

But whether the songs are rhyming or not, we’re just extremely happy that we get to see our dear Peter Gabriel enjoying something he missed doing.