1. Bob Dylan interview, some more
When you think back to the Civil War, one thing you forget is that no battles, except Gettysburg, were fought in the North.
Yeah. That’s what probably makes the Southern part of the country so different.
There is a certain sensibility, but I’m not sure how that connects?
It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web - some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere. . . a lot of times even in people’s backyards.
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What do you think of the Stones?
What do I think of them? They’re pretty much finished, aren’t they?
They had a gigantic tour last year. You call that finished?
Oh yeah, you mean Steel Wheels. I’m not saying they don’t keep going, but they need Bill. Without him they’re a funk band. They’ll be the real Rolling Stones when they get Bill back.
Bob, you’re stuck in the 80’s.
I know. I’m trying to break free.
Do you really think the Stones are finished?
Of course not, They’re far from finished. The Rolling Stones are truly the greatest rock and roll band in the world and always will be. The last too. Everything that came after them, metal, rap, punk, new wave, pop-rock, you name it . . . you can trace it all back to the Rolling Stones. They were the first and the last and no one’s ever done it better.
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The character in the song reminds me a lot of the guy who is in the song ACROSS THE BORDERLINE.
I know what you’re saying, but it’s not a character like in a book or a movie. He’s not a bus driver. He doesn’t drive a forklift. He’s not a serial killer. It’s me who’s singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn’t confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don’t have to explain it to me.
Well can’t a singer act out a song?
Yeah sure, a lot of them do. But the more you act the further you get away from the truth. And a lot of those singers lose who they are after a while. You sing, “I’m a lineman for the county,” enough times and you start to scamper up poles.
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Back then I guess most of my influences could be thought of as eccentric. Mass media had no overwhelming reach so I was drawn to the traveling performers passing through. The side show performers - bluegrass singers, the black cowboy with chaps and a lariat doing rope tricks. Miss Europe, Quasimodo, the Bearded Lady, the half-man half-woman, the deformed and the bent, Atlas the Dwarf, the fire-eaters, the teachers and preachers, the blues singers. I remember it like it was yesterday. I got close to some of these people. I learned about dignity from them. Freedom too. Civil rights, human rights. How to stay within yourself. Most others were into the rides like the tilt-a-whirl and the rollercoaster. To me that was the nightmare. All the giddiness. The artificiality of it. The sledge hammer of life. It didn’t make sense or seem real. The stuff off the main road was where force of reality was. At least it struck me that way. When I left home those feelings didn’t change.
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In the song I FEEL A CHANGE COMING ON the character says. . .
Wait a minute Bill. I’m not a playwright. The people in my songs are all me. I thought we talked about that?
What exactly makes it you?
It’s in the way you say things. It’s not necessarily the things you say that make you who you are.
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