Tangled up in Bob

An excited crowd of diehard fans wait for their hero to take the stage. The air is thick with anticipation. It is 1965. Bob Dylan is the voice of a generation, with his acoustic folk songs calling for change, peace and civil rights.

But when he appears, he plugs in electric guitars and turns up the volume. His new songs are personal, surreal and loud. His folk fans are furious, shouting from the crowd: "Judas!"

Today, he turns 80. His "musical DNA" is in every pop tune made since 1962, according to music writer Edna Gundersen. He is the only musician to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and he has been compared to Ovid and Shakespeare.

Dylan's teenage idol was the folk singer Woody Guthrie, who he called: "the voice of the American spirit". Inspired by his hero, he began writing protest songs that captured the countercultural mood of the 1960s.

When he sang The Times They Are a-Changin', the media called him a spokesperson for his generation. But he felt restricted by the label. He listened to the delta blues, read the King James Bible and started to write less political and more ambitious lyrics.

In 1965, he released Like A Rolling StoneFounded in 1967, the magazine took its name from Dylan's song and the 1950 song Rollin' Stone by Muddy Waters., listed as the "greatest song of all time" by the music magazine Rolling Stone. Five days later, he shocked fans with his first electric concert. And he continued to re-invent himself, converting to Christianity in the late 1970s, experimenting with film, gospel and rap.

Despite his many artistic turns, "his writing never lost its political reference", says Dylan expert Sean Wilentz. His music has always challenged social conventions and championed the powerless.

Music and art are often used to convey a message. When grime artist Stormzy came on stage at Glastonbury in a Union Jack stab-proof vest designed by Banksy, art critic Jonathan Jones called it a "banner of a divided and frightened nation".

But not all musicians agree that art should be political. Taylor Swift said: "part of the fabric of being a country artist is don't force your politics on people". When the country band Dixie Chicks came out against the 2003 Iraq War, thousands of radio stations blacklisted their songs.

Fearful of a similar backlash, Swift refused to speak about politics during the 2016 presidential elections. She later regretted her decision, backed Democratic candidates and wrote You Need To Calm Down, an anthem to LGBTQ+ rights.

Justin Timberlake took a different approach. Feeling the pressure to make political statements, the singer wrote Say Something, in which he concluded the best thing was "to say nothing at all". Whether artists are worried about poor sales or angry fans, many conclude it is safer to avoid controversy and stay quiet.

But not for Bob Dylan. Over six decades he has written over five hundred songs, sold tens of millions of albums and shows no sign of retiring any time soon.

So should art be political?

Some say no, art is the opposite of politics. Great art is about eternal and universal truths. It reflects the beauty of the world and our wonder for life. In the words of painter Pablo Picasso, it washes "the dust of daily life off our souls". In contrast, politics is about everyday events, conflict and opinion. The best art does not have a political message but is enjoyed for its own sake.

Others say yes, art should be political. One of the greatest artworks of the 20th Century was painted by Picasso. Guernica is the terrifying depiction of the bombing of a Spanish town and is one of the most famous anti-war paintings in history. In the end, all art is political because it expresses the viewpoint of the artist and makes other people agree, disagree or change their own views.