Bob Dylan and the Beatles

Where do songs come from? And where do they go? 

The first is a question of inspiration, the second one of posterity. Consider the Beatles standard “Yesterday,” the indelible tune of which Paul McCartney famously received in a dream, or the Bob Dylan classic “Like a Rolling Stone,” of which its writer later said, “It’s like a ghost is writing a song like that. It gives you the song and it goes away.”