Bob Dylan's Little-Known Early Career Path Helped Propel Him to Rock Stardom
- - Bob Dylan's Little-Known Early Career Path Helped Propel Him to Rock Stardom
Jacqueline Burt CoteJanuary 7, 2026 at 9:00 AM
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Photo by National Archives on Getty Images
Bob Dylan has always been one of the more mysterious figures in rock and roll. While he might open his heart in his lyrics, he's been less forthcoming about the details of his personal life, sometimes even making up his own alternate version of the past. In fact, one little-known detail about his earlier years is still being debated by hardcore fans.
During one of Dylan's first-ever interviews, before the release of his debut (mostly covers) album, the future music icon claimed he spent much of his adolescence working with a carnival...and not as a performer.
On Jan. 13, 1962, a 20-year-old Dylan told Cynthia Gooding on Pacifica Radio WBAI 99.5 FM (via Swingin’ Pig) that he was "with the carnival off and on for six years."
"[I was doing] just about everything," Dylan continued, per Far Out Magazine. "I was a clean-up boy. I used to be on the main line on the Ferris Wheel, just run rides.”
On the one hand, a life with the circus would have been good preparation for Dylan's decades on the road to come. On the other, nobody really seems sure if this story was true or not. In the biopic A Complete Unknown, when Dylan (played byTimothée Chalamet) tells Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) the same tale, she responds by saying he's "full of s—t."
And as Ben Sherlock wrote for Screen Rant, the carnival claim is "tough to verify, but it seems likely that Dylan lied about working at a carnival, just as Baez suspects in A Complete Unknown. He also says he was from Gallup, New Mexico, but that’s not true; he was born in Duluth, Minnesota."
While we might never know the truth, as longtime fans are well aware, Dylan even changed one of the most basic facts about himself: His name.
Why did Bob Dylan change his name from Robert Allen Zimmerman?
There's been plenty of speculation over the years about why Dylan legally changed his name from Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1962, but the reasons he gave in one '70s interview were pretty straightforward.
As Dylan explained in a 1971 interview with friend Tony Glover (which was never published, per Come Writers and Critics), he was partly motivated by the desire to create a character for himself.
"It was more or less that there had to be this character…There had to be something about it, to carry it to that extra dimension,” he said, going on to add that his experiences with anti-Semitism also played a part in his decision.
“My first 18 years I encountered [prejudice], sure…A lot of people are under the impression that Jews are just money lenders and merchants," he said. "A lot of people think that all Jews are like that. Well, they used to be cause that’s all that was open to them. That’s all they were allowed to do…In a way, [the name change] allowed me to step into the [Woody] Guthrie role with more character. And, I wouldn’t have to kept being reminded of things I didn’t want to be reminded of at that time.”
As for whether or not he likes being reminded of the carnival, fans will probably be left wondering forever.
Related: Bob Dylan's Tiny Paycheck for First Show at Carnegie Hall on This Day in 1961 Is Mind-Blowing
This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
