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Dylan's rules were Hank's rules
Hank's death
Dylan did not need to live Hank Williams's life to know what Williams was singing about. He later learned that Williams had died in the back seat of a car on New Year's Day, kept his fingers crossed that it was not true, and found out it was. The news felt like a great tree had fallen, and the silence of outer space had never seemed so loud.
Rules in the records
When Hank sang, all movement ceased, and the slightest whisper seemed sacrilege. In time, Dylan noticed that Hank's recorded songs held the archetype rules of poetic songwriting. The architectural forms were like marble pillars, and they had to be there. Listening to the records over and over taught him the structure, and he took it in.
The critic's review
A few years later, the folk and jazz critic for the New York Times reviewed one of Dylan's performances and wrote that Dylan breaks all the rules in songwriting except that of having something to say. Whether the critic understood it or not, those rules were Hank's rules.
How did Hank Williams die so young?
Williams was 29 when he died on New Year's Day 1953. He was being driven from Tennessee to a concert in Canton, Ohio, and the driver found him unresponsive in the back seat at a stop in West Virginia. He was pronounced dead at a hospital in Oak Hill. His song Your Cheatin' Heart was released after his death and became a number one country hit.
How did Hank Williams influence later songwriters?
Williams wrote plain-spoken songs like Your Cheatin' Heart and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, built on tight verses and simple melodies. Later country, rock, and folk writers have pointed to his work as a model of economy. He was among the first inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961. In 2010, the Pulitzer board awarded him a posthumous special citation.
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