Creativity Quote by Robyn Hitchcock

There is something wonderfully unglamorous about the origin story Hitchcock sketches here: not revelation, not destiny, just shopping. The line lands because it frames artistic apprenticeship as consumer behavior, the way a young musician actually builds a worldview - one record bin at a time, with obsession doing the curating. "Mainly" is the giveaway. He is admitting a hierarchy of need. Dylan isnt a passing influence or a tasteful reference point; hes the primary nutrient.

The specificity of "everything I could get hold of" does double duty. On the surface, its completist fandom: a teenager (or young adult) hoovering up albums, singles, bootlegs, whatever the shop has. Underneath, it captures the pre-streaming reality where access was uneven and desire had to outrun scarcity. You didnt just discover Dylan; you hunted him. That hunt becomes part of the mythology and part of the education. The phrase also hints at a kind of self-invention: if you ingest enough Dylan, maybe the shapeshifting confidence, the lyrical permission slips, will metabolize into your own voice.

Coming from Hitchcock - a songwriter with a taste for surreal imagery, dry humor, and literate pop - the confession reads less like worship than like a statement of method. Dylan as a library, Dylan as a toolkit, Dylan as an argument for songwriting that can be brainy without being precious. Its also quietly funny: the future cult artist describing his most formative act as a practical errand, like stocking the pantry before you start cooking.