Give both men 30 seconds to solo, and Frusciante would blow Young off the stage, just as Duane Allman would blow Frusciante off the stage. Young is something else, though.

By contrast, everything Dylan has done, from his vocal mannerisms to his changes of style to his notorious rearrangements of his songs hits in concert, sometimes to the point of unrecognizability, seems calculated to destroy any possibility of singing along, at least for long. His songs belong to him.

(One of the strengths of Wald’s book is that he regards Dylan as a musician first, everything else second, which his relentless touring in recent years testifies is no doubt the way Dylan sees himself.)