Margarete Suppes 
Andy Warhol’s “Superstar” Edie Segdwick. The True Heroine of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blonde on Blonde’? 

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Musicology – Miscellaneous, grade: 1, 3, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen (Department of English), language: English, abstract: As an aficionado of filmed biographies, I came across the 2007 released movie ‘Factory Girl’. This girl, who is better known as Edie Sedgwick or Andy Warhol’s first “Superstar”, was familiar to me due to a Warhol exposition I had seen before. Nevertheless, one thing impressed me: besides her platonic relationship with Warhol, another man in the movie turns out to play an important role. It was a man, with whom the “Factory Girl” falls in love with, but is ultimately left by which influenced on her tragically ending way. It did not take long to find out that this film character was clearly portraying Bob Dylan As the biographical movie itself only covers a 90 minute long Hollywood adaption of Edie Sedgwick’s life, I was motivated to learn more about Dylan’s real connection to her, the Factory’s role, and Andy Warhol.

Thus, my mission seemed clear: listening closer to Dylan’s albums of the 1960s and checking both biographies as well as related literature in order to find connections between the two artist’s worlds. The difficulty of interpreting Dylan’s songs or arranging the facts one knows about his life made the challenge even more worthwhile. Although the idea of finding a connection between both personalities in his music seemed ridiculously far-fetched during the first albums, I finally hit pay dirt on ‘Blonde on Blonde’. Two songs of the album feature ‘Edian’ characteristics and rumors have been supporting this hypothesis for years.

As a result, this work aims on revealing these myths and finding a possible truth between the artist Bob Dylan, two particular songs of his album Blonde on Blonde, and Edie Sedgwick. To begin with, the songs in question (“Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat” and “Just Like a Woman”) shall be analyzed closer. After considering its musical and lyrical value objectively, this work attempts to leave room for a rather objective interpretation. Next, the main part of this work is going to portray the time of the song’s emergence, Bob Dylan’s life back then, and in how far Edie Sedgwick’s life has intertwined with the artist’s world. With the help of time witnesses, I will finally try to separate rumors from facts and give an overview of why I am of the opinion that both songs have been inspired by Warhol’s “Superstar”.