New York City, 1986.

The Bitter End Nightclub in Greenwich Village was thick with cigarette smoke and the echoes of decades of music history.

It was the kind of place where legends were born and grudges were buried—or so they said.

That night, Bob Dylan was scheduled for a surprise acoustic set, just a few songs, nothing major.

But moments before taking the stage, a note was slipped into his hand.

Three words.

A name.

He read it, frowned, stepped back, and without a word, turned around, guitar still on his back, and walked out the back door into the cold Manhattan night.

He never explained why—not to the club, not to the press, not even to the friend who invited him.

But those who knew him best understood exactly what that name meant and why it haunted him still.

Now, decades later, at 83, Dylan—the man who spent a lifetime dodging interviews and avoiding drama—is finally cracking open the vault.

Not for revenge, not for applause, but for truth.

The list he reveals isn’t made up of mere rivals—they were collaborators, icons, even friends once.

And the first name on that list is a guitarist whose flattery turned to sabotage: Eric Clapton.

Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan seemed like musical soulmates on the surface—two titans of guitar-driven revolution who rose from different corners of the scene but spoke the same musical language.

They admired each other’s songwriting, shared festival stages, and even collaborated on impromptu live sets that fans still rave about decades later.

Clapton once called Dylan the greatest poet in music, and Dylan respected Clapton’s blues mastery.

But behind the scenes, tension simmered.

In the late ’70s, while Dylan was experimenting with gospel and spiritual themes, Clapton reportedly made a comment that stung.

After a few drinks, he allegedly told a mutual producer that Dylan was losing it—that his edge was gone and the crown of poetic rock needed a new heir.

Clapton, riding high from his solo success, hinted that maybe it should be him.

It wasn’t arrogant, but it wasn’t humble either.

Word got back to Dylan, and though he didn’t make a public scene, insiders say the impact was immediate: a joint recording session that had been quietly scheduled was canceled without explanation.

Dylan reportedly saw Clapton’s gentlemanly demeanor as a mask—smooth on the outside, calculating underneath.

In Dylan’s world, betrayal, especially from another songwriter, cut deeper than any critic’s review.

Next on the list was a 60s icon whose protest anthems clashed with Dylan’s most personal reinvention: Joan Baez, the folk queen who once wooed his conscience.

They were the royal couple of folk music, harmonizing on stage, marching at civil rights rallies, spreading messages of peace and justice to crowds that saw them as the voice of a generation.

Dylan and Baez weren’t just musical partners; they were cultural icons, emotionally and politically entwined.

Their duets felt like declarations, their presence at protests made headlines.

Together, they made folk music feel urgent, revolutionary, and deeply human.

But Dylan changed.

He electrified his sound—literally plugging in at Newport in 1965—and traded protest anthems for surreal, personal poetry.

It wasn’t just a sonic shift; it was a spiritual one.

Baez didn’t just disapprove; she felt abandoned.

She had built her platform on activism, and Dylan’s pivot felt like retreat from the cause they once shared.

Joan tried to pull him back, urged him to return to political roots, publicly criticized his shift, even told interviewers he had lost his purpose.

She framed his evolution as artistic selfishness.

To Dylan, it wasn’t a debate about music—it was betrayal from someone who had known his insecurities, fears, and drive, and used them to attack his choices.

It cut deep.

He never slammed her in the press or fired back in song, but for over four decades, he refused to collaborate with her.

When pressed in private about the rift, he once muttered under his breath, “She sang for the people.

I was singing for myself.”

Then came the most unexpected feud of all: the punk poet who mocked him in public, Lou Reed.

Dylan appreciated risk-takers, admired those who broke the mold and pushed boundaries.

Innovators didn’t threaten him—they inspired him.

But there was one thing he couldn’t abide: mockery, especially from artists who, in his eyes, had built their careers on roads he had paved.

Lou Reed, frontman of the Velvet Underground, was one such artist.

In a 1974 interview, Reed let loose, saying Dylan never really meant anything to him.

He claimed Dylan’s lyrics were smoke and mirrors, dismissed him as a poet of pretense, a pioneer not of meaning but of self-importance.

It hit a nerve.

Dylan didn’t fire back—no retaliatory verse, no public rebuttal—just silence.

But not the kind that gets forgotten.

Lou Reed’s name vanished from Dylan’s universe.

No mentions in liner notes, no illusions in interviews, not even a name check in countless speeches and memoirs where Dylan paid tribute to his peers.

Reed was erased.

In the early ’90s, a Rolling Stone journalist casually brought up Lou Reed during an interview.

Dylan looked up from his cigarette, raised an eyebrow, and simply asked, “Who?” Then he smiled.

It wasn’t a joke.

It was a dismissal so complete it rang louder than any diss track ever could.

Frank Zappa was next—the showman who mocked Dylan’s voice.

Zappa was never one to mince words.

He thrived on confrontation, challenged convention, and wielded sarcasm like a scalpel.

When it came to Dylan, he didn’t hold back.

Across the ’70s and ’80s, Zappa dismissed Dylan’s voice as a tragic accident, mocked his lyrics as pseudo-intellectual ramblings, and ridiculed his fan base as brainwashed sheep who thought they were enlightened.

Most artists wrote Zappa off as a provocateur—brilliant but deliberately inflammatory.

They knew better than to bite back.

But Dylan wasn’t most artists.

Years later, at a party in Laurel Canyon, a mutual friend spotted them both and tried to bring them together for a handshake.

Dylan stood frozen, refusing to reach out.

The air grew tense.

Zappa, never one to let awkwardness hang in silence, smirked, raised his drink, and quipped, “I hear silence is your best verse.”

Dylan didn’t respond.

He just turned and walked out the door, leaving the party.

To outsiders, it may have seemed like overreaction, but for Dylan, it was never about artistic criticism.

He could take that.

It was about dignity.

To him, Zappa’s jokes weren’t clever; they were cutting, cruel, and deeply disrespectful.

The next name was a friend turned foe who played with fire and then watched Dylan burn: Leonard Cohen.

This one was different.

Dylan admired Cohen deeply and publicly.

He once called him the highest level of songwriting—a rare compliment from someone famously sparing with praise.

The respect was real, but behind the reverence lay something more complex: rivalry and quiet resentment.

Cohen’s rise in the late ’60s happened just as Dylan was withdrawing from the spotlight after his motorcycle accident.

As Cohen’s poetic, monk-like presence captivated the world, Dylan’s absence grew louder.

Some insiders say Dylan felt eclipsed, replaced.

Others whisper that Cohen’s refined, brooding mystique made Dylan’s wild energy seem reckless, outdated, even juvenile in comparison.

But the real wound came from words.

In an early ’70s interview, Cohen reportedly remarked that Dylan’s early songs were juvenile compared to mature poets.

It wasn’t intended as a jab; Cohen was musing on growth, on art, on evolution.

But Dylan took it as betrayal wrapped in academia.

He didn’t fire back in song or interviews but never forgot it.

Years later, when Cohen passed, fans expected a heartfelt tribute from Dylan—something worthy of their intertwined legacies.

Instead, they got three short lines: no emotional flourishes, no deep reflection, just a hollow acknowledgment.

For Dylan, that said everything.

Michael Bloomfield was Dylan’s secret weapon on Highway 61 Revisited.

His searing electric guitar work—sharp, spontaneous, unapologetically raw—helped Dylan not just evolve but explode into a new era.

That album marked a turning point in music history, and Bloomfield was at the center of it.

To Dylan, their collaboration wasn’t just successful; it was sacred.

But after that legendary project, Bloomfield slipped away.

He turned down offers to tour, ducked out of sessions.

Some blamed his growing drug habit; others said he was overwhelmed by pressure.

But for Dylan, it felt personal.

He had trusted Bloomfield, depended on him in a moment of transformation—and then watched him vanish without a word.

Years later, the real break came not from silence but speech.

Bloomfield gave interviews downplaying Dylan’s role and implying he had saved Dylan’s career by making him rock.

He suggested he was the true architect of folk rock, that he gave Dylan the edge he desperately needed.

Dylan was livid—not just hurt but betrayed.

In his mind, their work had been a partnership, a mutual spark.

Bloomfield had rewritten history and claimed the flame for himself.

From that moment on, Dylan never spoke of him the same way, never praised him again, never called him back.

Finally, the feud that goes deeper than music: Paul McCartney.

Dylan and McCartney were friendly, shared joints, admiration, and even stages once or twice.

But deep down, they were never truly close.

There was respect but not resonance.

Dylan liked John Lennon’s sharp wit, his bite, his darkness.

He saw in Lennon a kindred rebel spirit.

But Paul? Dylan viewed him differently: too polished, too pop, too eager to please.

He appreciated McCartney’s talent—how could he not?—but felt Paul was playing it safe, crafting melodies while Dylan chased meaning.

The final straw came in 1987.

In a seemingly off-hand magazine comment, McCartney quipped that Dylan wasn’t writing songs people could remember anymore.

It was framed as casual critique, but to Dylan, it hit like a backhanded slap—a dismissal of his later, more complex work: songs filled with shadows, not singalongs.

Dylan didn’t retaliate publicly.

No diss track, no rant in interviews.

But actions spoke louder.

He abruptly pulled out of a proposed joint tour, citing vague reasons.

Insiders knew the truth.

In private, Dylan was more direct: “Paul writes love letters,” he reportedly said, “I write scars.”

The tension never fully healed.

They remained civil in public but distant.

To this day, one thing remains clear: Dylan respected McCartney’s fame but not his fire.

What does this list really mean? These names weren’t just random enemies pulled from the shadows.

They were once comrades in melody, brothers in verses, allies in rebellion, and in some cases, haunting reflections of Dylan himself.

Maybe that’s what made the wounds run so deep.

Because with every voice he turned away from, there was a ghost of his own past looking back—the youthful idealist, the wounded poet, the firebrand searching for meaning.

These weren’t just feuds; they were fractures of identity, reminders of who he was, who he feared becoming, and who he could never be again.

Now, at 83, Bob Dylan isn’t out for revenge.

He’s not rewriting history to settle scores.

He’s just telling the truth—quietly, precisely, with that same haunting clarity he’s always had.