Forty years ago, “We Are the World,” by the Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie-helmed supergroup USA for Africa, was released to the public.
Since then, the star-studded charity single has raised an astonishing $80 million for Ethiopian famine relief and other humanitarian causes. But it also gave the world something else: a truly priceless glimpse of Bob Dylan looking miserable.
The highly meme’d image has spread far and wide across the internet, representing a very specific kind of existential dread. Its universal appeal comes from the fact that we’ve all been “We Are the World”-era Bob at one time or another — out of our element, insecure, confused, exhausted, woefully unclear what’s expected of us, and unsure when it’s all gonna end. It’s a rare moment of relatability for a man not exactly known for being relatable.
Richie, who co-wrote the song, cleared up any misconceptions about Dylan’s state of mind in the studio during a 2022 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. While promoting Netflix’s documentary The Greatest Night in Pop, he explained why the historic 1985 session, packed with more than 40 of music’s biggest luminaries — Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Diana Ross, Billy Joel and Paul Simon, to name but a few — was not the greatest night for Dylan. “Poor Bob was having a nervous breakdown,” Richie admitted.
So what went wrong? In an effort to find out, PEOPLE launched a look into what very well might be Dylan’s darkest day.
It may seem puzzling that the notoriously mercurial (and occasionally reclusive) icon agreed to participate at all. On one hand, it made a certain amount of spiritual sense that he’d be present for what was a descendant of the musical activism he’d pioneered in the early ‘60s alongside people like Joan Baez and Phil Ochs. Their work mainstreamed the idea that music had the power to change the world for the better, and helped birth the very notion of a “charity single.”
But still, Dylan didn’t always play well with others. According to legend, the organizers of 1969’s Woodstock festival specifically sought a venue near Dylan’s home in Woodstock, New York, with the aim of coaxing him out of his self-imposed retirement as a special guest performer. This failed to occur. Instead, Dylan staged a solo comeback concert two weeks later in England.
But the Dylan of the ‘60s was a very different man from the Dylan of the ‘80s. He was in the midst of a relatively fallow period and, simply put, he wanted a hit. He’d hired producer du jour Arthur Baker, known for his creative collaboration with the dance-y synth-pop group New Order, to work on his 1985 record Empire Burlesque, and even consented to making music videos for MTV. Aligning himself with the Top 40 vanguard at the “We Are the World” session seemed like more than a way to lend a hand for a good cause. It was also a good career move.
Even so, Dylan was pretty iffy on the whole endeavor. “People buying a song and the money going to starving people in Africa is, you know, a worthwhile idea,” he later said during an interview on 20/20, “but I wasn’t so convinced about the message of the song, to tell you the truth. I don’t think people can save themselves, y’know.”
The session was scheduled for Jan. 28, 1985, just after the American Music Awards — a rare occasion to get so many stars together in one place. Once the ceremony wrapped at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, the artists cruised across town to A&M Studios in Hollywood to begin an extremely long night of work. Richie, who hosted the telecast, found himself the de facto co-host of the session along with co-writer Michael Jackson and producer Quincy Jones. He would later admit that all three were concerned about whether Dylan would actually show up. “Bob is a sweetheart,” he told UPI in 2021. “But when Bob says ‘I’ll be there,’ you have to say to yourself, ‘Okay, did he get the right day? Is it the right time? Is he gonna be there?'”
To everyone’s surprise, Dylan was one of the first artists to arrive. Journalist David Breskin, covering the session for LIFE Magazine, details the moment when bomber-clad Dylan “slouches in, stone-faced, and sits down in the seat closest to the door.” Showbiz wisdom dictates that stars of Dylan’s stature are supposed to make a grand entrance, and his unfashionably early arrival may have started the night off on the wrong foot.
Making matters worse was the onslaught of unwanted attention he received from each new artist who appeared. An extra-chipper Diana Ross spotted Dylan the moment she entered the studio and promptly jumped in his lap amid cries of “BOBBY!” (History has not recorded grumpy Dylan’s response.) Billy Joel sidled up to introduce his fiancée, supermodel Christie Brinkley. Al Jarreau had a full-scale fanboy meltdown, going up to Dylan and gushing, “Bobby, in my own stupid way I just want to tell you that I love you.” Dylan simply ignored it and walked away, leaving Jarreau in his wake wailing, “My idol!” through his tears.
Bruce Springsteen, generally cited as everyone’s favorite person at the session, had a more pleasant experience with his hero. Considering he’d go on to describe Dylan in his 2016 memoir as “the father of my country,” the stan energy coming off him that evening was surely strong. Having just flown in after wrapping up the latest leg of his grueling Born in the USA tour the night before in Syracuse, the Boss went in for a hug and Dylan responded warmly. Kim Carnes, hot off the success of “Bette Davis Eyes” and the Flashdance soundtrack, also shared a nice moment with Dylan. “He was easy to talk to,” she later told The Independent. “Exactly how I would have expected him to be.”
Other stars got perhaps a bit too comfortable with Dylan. Footage captured by documentary cameras reveals Dylan backed into a corner by Willie Nelson and Huey Lewis, who speak at him for an interminable period about their golf game. “You are the ball — it’s really true,” marvels Lewis. “Some shots man, you can just see them. They happen for you. And some, in the middle of the swing, you know it won’t work.” When pressed, Dylan dismissively replied that he didn’t play golf because “I’ve heard you had to study it.”
The vibes didn’t improve for Dylan once the recording got underway. Photos from the night depict the reserved legend seemingly trying to disassociate from his surroundings. Video shows him looking distinctly uncomfortable and isolated as he takes his place among the choir of music’s most elite, swaying arrhythmically as he sings — or possibly just mouths — the chorus. It doesn’t take a lip reader to detect his total unfamiliarity with the lyrics. In short, it’s clear that Bob is having a bummer.
Things go from bad to worse when the time comes for Dylan to record his solo for Quincy Jones. It was impossible for everyone to have their own feature given the total tonnage of singers on hand, and even standout vocalists like Smokey Robinson, Bette Midler, Harry Belafonte and Lindsey Buckingham were relegated to background chorus. Getting a spotlight in such illustrious company was a great honor. But for Dylan, it only heightened his stress. He may have been hailed as the voice of his generation, but his voice was famously an acquired taste. At 5:30 in the morning, surrounded by 40 of the greatest singers on the planet, with camera crews trained on him from every corner of the studio, being coached by charismatic extroverts like Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones, Dylan chokes.
He meekly approaches the mic and mumbles a string of indistinct syllables while focusing intently on the lyric sheet that shakes in his hand. “You can do it,” says an encouraging voice from the control room. He starts again, in a voice barely above a whisper. No dice. “I have to try it a few more times,” he says bashfully. The moment is chronicled briefly in The Greatest Night in Pop documentary, and a longer version of the footage exists online. It’s a tough watch as Dylan wilts with self-consciousness. The man who recorded 15 songs in a single day 10 years earlier for his album Blood on the Tracks now struggles to nail two lines.
“Bob Dylan, when he was recording his solo piece, stepped up to the microphone and sounded nothing like Bob Dylan,” recalled Hollywood mega-agent Ken Kragen, who organized the session almost single-handedly. “He was so nervous because he was not used to recording with all these other stars there.”
Jones deduces the problem right away, and orders the studio cleared, save for Stevie Wonder and Richie, who also sympathizes. “If you’re thrown in a room with a bunch of singers, you have a tendency to get psyched out and you want to sound like them,” Richie explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “But everyone that we chose as the lead vocalists, they were not singers, they were stylists. We only had half a line and, in certain cases, one line to sing. We had to make sure that whoever was singing, your voice was identifiable right away. Now, Bob Dylan has an identifiable voice instantly. But he was trying to sing it another way. We kept saying, ‘No, just sing it like Bob Dylan.’ ”
Wonder was enlisted as, in Breskin’s description, “the secret agent to make him comfortable.” Seated at the piano, he launches into a pitch-perfect Bob Dylan impression to demonstrate what they’re looking for. The approach has the added bonus of breaking the tension, as Dylan recognizes the inherent absurdity of impersonating his impersonator. Richie and Jones rally to cheer him on. “Just do your thing, man,” says Q. “That’s something nobody can do better than you.”
Dylan approaches the mic and tries again. The result is definitely better, but Dylan is not impressed. “Ugh, I can do that better,” he says. Jones, with his eye on the clock, quickly objects. “That’s fantastic!” Dylan isn’t buying it. “I don’t think that’s any good at all. You can erase that.”
A few takes later, they have it. Dylan isn’t satisfied and asks to do it again. “I’m telling you, we got it!” insists Jones. The producer approaches the mic to pull Dylan in for a bear hug. “Alright, if you say so…” Dylan says with charming self-deprecation. It’s a touching moment, and for possibly the first time that night, Dylan genuinely smiles.
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