Sunday, January 27, 2013

Bob Dylan can't sing or play guitar.


"Sing in your own voice. Picasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn’t paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg’s formal drafting skills were appalling. T.S. Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can’t sing or play guitar.

But that didn’t stop them, right?

So I guess the next question is, “Why not?”

I have no idea. Why should it? No one person can be good at everything. The really good artists, the really successful entrepreneurs, figure out how to circumvent their limitations, figure out how to turn their weaknesses into strengths. The fact that Turner couldn’t draw human beings very well left him no choice but to improve his landscape paintings, which have no equal.

Had Bob Dylan been more of a technical virtuoso, he might not have felt the need to give his song lyrics such power and resonance.

Don’t make excuses. Just shut the hell up and get on with it. Time waits for no one."

From Ignore Everyone: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity which I would recommend for anyone who is or wants to be creative...or who is breathing. 

Photo Credit: brizzle born and bred

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