I think if i'm honest there is no real  contest between John Lennon and Bob Dylan .
Dylan is just the better songwriter lyrically  Dylan is Shakespeare , while John at best is Edward Lear ?
If it was'nt for Paul's genius for melody  , i don't think  " The Beatles " would come close to Dylan .
I've been listening to " Blood On The Tracks " today and it's only my opinion but Lennon never came near to been this good over an entire album .  " Plastic Ono Band " gets close but it's still in the foothills in comparision.
Thats not to say John did'nt produce some brilliant individual songs he did .
I just think Dylan is the superior wordsmith .
And Paul is a dot on the Horizon lyrically  up against Dylan , but Melody wise he's superior to Dylan .
I think it was a wise move on John's part to have Paul in the band , only together do they get close to this genius .

at least john never stole tunes from nobody!!!!!

i woudnt have put one above the other, as i think both had a different way of writing and seeing things, i personally prefer Johns nonsensical style and self analyzing over Dylans Social commentry (although john delved into it a little later also)

I also love Maccas although not as technical as the other two, they still did the job he set out to do be it lift a mood or set a scen for a story and i can always be gauranteed if i listen to a macca tune i will feel happier afterwards as his lyrics are uplifting

I agree  fendertele the psychedelic songs John wrote are brilliant , but when it comes to the social commentry songs and the personel songs i think Dylan as John by the nuts .
Compare " Mother " with  " Idiot Wind " and i think Dylan nails the utter sense of rejection . John's crybaby lament although emotionally delivered is in my opinion adolescent , where Dylan by comparison is the tortured man in his song ?
And i know their both coming at turmoil from a different perspective , i just think Dylan can articulate his pain better than John , Dylan moves me more .

Blood On The Tracks is by far the better record in my view as well. Plastic Ono Band has a few good songs- "I Found Out,""Love," "Look At Me," and "God," - but much of the rest is tiresomely self pitying navel gazing, and "Mother" and "Working Class Hero" actually make me cringe: John was a thirty year old guy when he recorded these and he's still going on about old standby adolescent resentment targets like parents and schoolteachers.

A comparison of "Julia" and "Mother" perhaps shows that John underwent some sort of psychological regression at the end of the sixties, too: both songs are about his mother, of course, but whereas the earlier one has a mood of reconciliation with the past and looks forward to a new relationship with Yoko, the later one just circles angrily around its long dead object, merely venting its author's unresolved emotions. I've often wondered if John's heroin addiction in 1969 isn't partly responsible for this and whether it did lasting damage: John always wrote best using his own experience, but after The Beatles, John is himself his only real subject, and apart from a few swipes at political commentary (which were never much good), he just noodles on and on about himself to less and less effect each time out. Making art out of personal experience is one thing, but pretending that mere experience is art is quite another. In that sense, the political journalism of Some Time In New York City is only different from the personal journalism of Walls and Bridges in its choice of subject matter.

The thing is that Dylan's voice bores me after two or three songs and I usually don't understand what he's singing about.  

I think " God " and " Love " are the standout songs on the album also Geoff , and i think your right about the heroin addiction John goe's into self - pitying mode  when he's on that shite .He's better on the LSD , the psychedelic songs although nonsensical are works of freer mind.
" Blood On The Tracks " released the year after  " Walls and Bridges " as got to affect Lennon's creative muse , nowonder he spent the next five years kneading bread .

for me it is impossible to compare their work
they're just two different artists
but I love them BOTH ...and I think they're my favourite composers of popular music
macca's too boring, too much ideas in some songs (better to develop one good tune than put into one song couple of them.e.g. I wish 'band on the run' were 3 different songs) and too much destroyed ideas...
BTW I love the depth of Dylan lyrics

Quoted from DaveRam

" Blood On The Tracks " released the year after  " Walls and Bridges " as got to affect Lennon's creative muse , nowonder he spent the next five years kneading bread .

John surely recognized a rival in Dylan. For one thing, he took shots at him:



Staying at home just might have been Yoko's price for reconciling, however that decision may have been later rationalized for public (and maybe even private) consumption. That's just baseless speculation on my part, though.