Poets live down to earth, behave nobly and live by their noble code

Paul Zollo interviews Bob Dylan / The SongTalk Interview, 1991 (Excerpts from a longer interview)

Translated by: Fadil Bajraj

Although Van Morrison and others have called him the greatest poet in the world, he does not think he is a poet. "Poets drown in lakes", he told us. However, he wrote some of the most beautiful poems the world has known, poems of love and anger, abstraction and clarity, eternity and relativity.

Arlo Guthrie recently said: Songwriting is like fishing in a stream; you cast your line and hope you catch something. And, I don't think anybody but Bob Dylan caught anything.

 Dylan: [Laughs out loud]

Any idea how you were able to catch so many?

Dylan: [Laughs] Maybe it has to do with the bait.

What kind of bait do you use?

Dylan: Uh … bait … gotta use some bait. Otherwise, you'll be sitting around waiting for the songs to come to you. To insist on them is to use bait.

Does this work for you?

Dylan: No, come on. Putting yourself in a situation that will demand an answer is like taking the bait. People who write about things that haven't really happened to them tend to do so.

When you write songs, do you consciously try to direct the meaning or do you try to follow subconscious instructions?

Dylan: Well, knowing what the motivation behind each song is something you can never really know. The song though, I never knew what the motive was. It is good to be able to put yourself in an environment where you can fully accept all the unconscious things that come from your inner workings of your mind. And, locking yourself in where you can control it all, write it down. Edgar Allan Poe must have done one. People who are dedicated writers, of which there are a few, but today people mostly get information through television or some other way that hits all their senses. It is no longer just the great novel that does this. You have to be able to get thoughts out of your head as well.

How do you do it?

Dylan: Well, first of all, there are two types of thoughts in the head: good thoughts and evil thoughts. Both pass through the brain. Some people are more preoccupied with one thought than the other. However, they come, and one must be able to balance them if one wants to become a lyricist, if one wants to become a good singer. You need to get rid of all that baggage. You have to be able to sort out those thoughts, because they don't make any sense, they can overwhelm you, they are even redundant. It is important to get rid of all those thoughts. Then you can do something of a kind of surveillance of the situation. You have some place where you can see it, but it cannot affect you. Where can you bring anything about this matter except take, take, take, take, take. Like many situations in life today. Take, take, take, that's all it is. What's in there for me? This syndrome that started in "My Decade" whenever that was. We are still in that state. It's still happening.

Is songwriting for you more of a feeling of taking something from somewhere else?

Dylan: Paj, somewhere else is always a heartbeat away. There is no rhyme or reason to it. There is no rule. That's what makes it so appealing. There is no rule. You can still have your wits about you and do something that inspires you in a multitude of ways. As you well know, or else the man would not do what he does.

Your songs often take us back to other times, and are filled with mythical and magical imagery. A song like "The Changing of the Guard" seems to take place centuries ago, with lines like: "They shaved her head / She was wedged between Jupiter and Apollo / The messenger arrived with a black whistle." How can you relate to a song like that?

Dylan: [Pause] A song like this, there's no way to know, to be honest, unless one understands chronologically, what the motivation behind it is. [Pause] But, on one level, of course, it's no different than anything else of mine. It is the same amount of metrical lines as in poetry. To me, it's like a poem.

The tunes in my mind are simple, they're just based on the music we've all heard growing up. That and the music that went beyond that, that went back further, to Elizabethan ballads and things like that... To me, it's old. [Laughs] I don't know what, with my minimal amount of talent, if you can call it that, minimal amount…

For me, someone who will come later will definitely understand what is in it, if they are seriously interested in being an artist, who will continue to be an artist when they reach Picasso's age. Better to learn some music theory. It's much better to learn, all the time, if you want to write songs. Instead of taking a raw sound, you know, and trying to base everything on it. Even country music is more orchestrated than it used to be. It's better to have some feeling for music that you don't necessarily have in your head, that you can write down. To me, they are people who ... are serious about this craft. People who dedicate themselves to this craft in this way. And not the people who just want to stick their balls out and make a big deal out of it and want to tell the world about it, sure, you can do that through a song, you've always been able to. You can use a song for anything, you know. The world needs no more songs.

You don't think so?

Dylan: No. They have quite a few songs. Too much. Indeed, if no one were to write songs from this day forward, the world would not suffer for their lack. No one feels it. There are plenty of songs for people to listen to, if they want to listen to songs. For every man, woman, and child on earth, hundreds of plates could be sent to each of them, it seems, and never duplicated. There are quite a few songs. Unless someone comes forward with an open heart and something to say. And this is another story.

But as far as songwriting goes, any idiot can do it. If you see me do it, any idiot can do it. [Laughs] Such a thing is not difficult at all. Everyone writes songs together, just like everyone has a great novel inside of them. There are not many people like me. You've just interviewed Neil [Young], John Mellencamp … Of course, most of my ilk who've come on stage write their own songs and perform them. It wouldn't matter if anyone recorded an album. They have quite a few songs.

To me, someone who writes really good songs is Randy Newman. There are many people who write good songs. Like a song. Now Randy can come on stage and not entertain you too much. And he won't cheer the people in the front row. He won't do that. But he'll write a better song than most people can do. You know, he has turned this into an art. Now Randy knows music. But it doesn't get any better than "Louisianna" or "Cross Charleston Bay" [Sail Away]. It doesn't get any better than that. It's like a classic heroic hymn. He did it.

Quite a few people have done it. Not so many people of Randy's class. Brian Wilson. He can write melodies in the best way possible. Three people can combine in a song and make it a great song. If someone else had written the same song, you might never have heard it. She could be buried in some… rap record. [Laughs]

However, when you come out with a few new albums of songs, those songs fit that specific time better than any songs that were already written. Have your new songs always presented us with new possibilities?

Dylan: It's not a good idea and it's bad luck to look to popular entertainers for life guidance. It is foolish to do such a thing. No one should do this. Popular entertainers are fine, nothing wrong with that, but only as long as you know where you are standing and what your reasons are, many of them, even they themselves, do not know what they are doing.

But your songs are more than pop music...

Dylan: Some people say so. For me they are not.

Already?

Dylan: Pop music means nothing to me. What. You know, Madonna is good, she's talented, she puts all kinds of things together, she's learned her craft... But, it's one of those things that takes years and years of life. to be able to do such a thing. You have to sacrifice a lot to do it. Sacrifice. If you want to achieve success, you have to sacrifice a lot. All this is the same, all this is the same. [Laughs]

Van Morrison has said you are our greatest living poet. Do you consider yourself as such?

Dylan: [Pause] Sometimes. This is inside me. It is within me to put myself so high and be a poet. But this is dedication. [Softly] It's a big commitment. [Pause] Poets don't drive automobiles. [Laughs] Poets don't go to the supermarket. Poets don't empty the trash. Poets are not members of the parent-teacher association. Poets, you know, don't picket in front of the Housing Insurance Office and stuff. Poets don't... Poets don't even talk on the phone. Poets don't even talk to anyone. Poets listen a lot... and usually they know why they are poets!

[Laughs] Yes, qebesa … there are such … what can you say? The world no longer needs poetry. It has Shakespeare. Everything is in abundance. Hall, name a name, there is plenty of everything. Even with electricity it was overkill, maybe, some people had said that. Some people said that even the electric pot is going too far. Poets live on earth. They behave nobly. And they live by their noble code. [Pause] And die knock. Or drown in lakes. Poets usually end tragically. Look at the life of John Keats. Look at Jim Morrison, if you want to call him a poet. Look at that. Although some people say that he is really in the Andes.

Do you think so?

Dylan: Well, it never occurred to me to think one way or the other about it, but one hears a lot of talk. Caliqafé in the Andes. Riding a donkey.

People have a hard time believing that Shakespeare actually wrote all of his work because there is so much. Do you find it difficult to accept such a thing?

Dylan: People have a hard time accepting something big that overwhelms them.

Can they think the same thing about you, after many years, that no man will have been able to create such an incredible work?

They can think. They may review it and think no one has created it. [Softly] It's not in anyone's best interest to think about how they'll be perceived tomorrow. It hurts in the end.

But don't you have songs that you know will always be sung?

Dylan: Who will sing them? My songs are definitely not written for someone else to sing. No, not really. Can you think... Yes, they are sung by others, but they are not theirs. They weren't written for someone else to sing, but okay, they do.

Your songs are much more enjoyable to sing and perform than most songs.

Dylan: Do you perform them on piano or guitar?

When you sit down to write a song, do you first choose the key that will suit the song? Or do you change keys while typing?

Yes. Yes. Maybe in the middle of the song. There are many ways to get out of wherever you are. You want to get out of it. It's bad enough to get into. But the best thing is when you get into it, you realize you have to get out of it. And if you get out of it quickly and easily, then it is futile to stay in it. It will simply drag you to the abyss. You can spend years writing the same song, telling the same story, doing the same thing.

So when you get into it, after accidentally slipping into it, it's important to get out of it. Well, your primal impulse will take you too far. But then you might think, well, you know, is this one of those things that's going to end like this? And then all of a sudden you start thinking: “What's going on now? Oh, there's a story here,” and the mind starts to get caught up in it, and immediately you're in trouble. You're usually in big trouble. And never to see this thing again. There are a multitude of ways to get out of this. You can get out of this situation by changing the key. This is one way. Hall take this whole thing and change the key, keeping the same melody. And see if it gets you anywhere. More times than not it works, this will lead you down the road. You don't want to crash along the way. This will lead you on your way. Somewhere.

And then if that fails, that will be exhausted, too. And then you can always go back to where you were at the beginning. It won't work twice, it only works once. Then you're back where you started. Yeah, because whatever they did in A, it's going to be a different song in G. While you're writing it, anyway. There are too many wide passing notes in G [on guitar] to not affect your writing unless you're playing high chords.

Do you ever switch instruments, for example from guitar to piano, while writing?

Dylan: Not so much in that way. Although when it's time to record something, for me, sometimes a song that's written on the piano with the lyrics in hand will take me time to play on the guitar. So this song will come out differently. But this would not have affected the writing of the song at all. Changing keys affects songwriting. Changing keys on the same instrument. For me, this works. I guess for someone else, some other method works. Everything is different.

I interviewed Pete Seeger recently.

Dylan: He's a great man, Pete Seeger.

 I agree. He said: "All lyricists are links in a chain." Without your link in that chain, all of songwriting would have evolved much differently. You said how you brought folk music into rock music. Do you think this would have happened without you?

Dylan: Someone else would have done it in a different way. But hey, why not? Without what? You can lead people astray very easily. Would they have it easier without me? No doubt. They would have found someone else. Perhaps different people would have found different people, and been influenced by different people.

You have brought the song to a new place. Is there a new place to bring songs yet? Will they continue to develop?

Dylan: [Pause] The evolution of the song is like a snake with its tail in its mouth. This is evolution. It is what it is. How to get there, you find your tail.

Would it be okay if I quote some lines from your songs out of context to see what your response would be?

Dylan: Naturally. You can name whatever you want, man.

 "I'm sitting here looking at your yellow rail / On the ruins of your balcony". [From “Absolutely Sweet Memory”]

Dylan: [Pause] Okay. This is an old song. No, let's assume it's not old. How old is it? Very old. It's completely done. It's like summer. Now, you know, look, she's complete as can be. Every letter on that line. It is true. At the literal level and departure from reality.

And is it the truth that adds so much resonance to it?

Dylan: Oh, yes, just like that. See, you can take it apart and it's like, "Yellow Railroad?" Well, yes. Yes, yes. That's all.

Without oxygen I lay on a reed / I saw you in the desert among men / I saw you go into infinity and come back again.” [“True Love Tends To Forget”].

Dylan: Those are probably leftover lines from my songwriting days with Jacques Levy. To me, that's what they sound like.

Going back to the yellow rail, they could be wanted by any country. Being a performer, one travels the world. One does not look out of the same window every day. Nor does it walk down the same old road. So you have to watch whatever. But most of the time, something touches you. You don't need to observe. Something touches you. Like the "yellow rail" it may have been a dazzling day when the sun was shining on a rail somewhere and it stuck in my mind. These are not fictional images. These are images that are just there and had to come out. You know, if they're in there they have to come out.

"Even the chains of the sea will break in the night." [From "When The Ship Comes In"]

Dylan: To me, that song means a lot. Patti LaBelle would have to sing it. do you know I know, again, this comes from having been to many gatherings where the poem has been read. That kind of imagery is very romantic. They are very gothic and romantic at the same time. And they have some sweetness, too. So this verse is a combination of many elements of that time. This is not a fictional verse. This has nothing to do with sitting down and writing a song. These kinds of songs come naturally. They are inside you, so they must come out.

"Standing on the water you cast your bread/Till the eyes of the iron-headed idol are blazing." [From "Jokerman"]

Dylan: [Plays a small Peruvian flute] Can you tell me what song this verse was from?

This was from "Jokerman".

Dylan: It's a song that got away from me. Many songs from that album (Infidels) have eluded me. Just like that.

Do you mean the form in which it is written?

Dylan: Yes. I have carried them with me for a long time. They were better before I interfered with them. Of course, I was the one who messed them up. [Laughs] Absolutely. It could have been a good song. She could have been.

I think it's great.

Dylan: Oh, really? That's probably why it didn't stick with me, because in my mind it was written and unwritten and written again. One of those kind of things.

"But the enemy I see is wearing a cloak of politeness." [From "Slow Train"].

Dylan: Now don't tell me … wait … Is this from the song "When You Wanna Wake Up"?

No, this is from "Slow Train".

Dylan: Oh, wow. Oh, yes. Wow. Back there. This is a song that you could have written a song with every verse in it. You could write it.

A lot of your songs are like that.

Dylan: Well, you know, that's not good either. No, really. As a whole, it could have stood up better perhaps by taking each verse and making it into a song. If one had the will. But that line, again there, is an intellectual line. This is a verse: "Well, the enemy I see is wearing a tallagan of politeness", which could be a lie. It can be. While "Standing under your yellow rail" is not a lie.

For Woody Guthrie, see, the airwaves were sacred. And when he heard something false, on those waves that were sacred to him. His songs were not fake. Now we know the waves aren't sacred, but that's what they were for. So they influenced a lot of people, even me when I was growing up. Like, "You know, all those Hit Parade songs are just a bunch of shit, anyway." It affected me at first, when no one had heard it. You know, "If I give you my heart, will you keep it carefully?" Or "I'm getting sentimental about you." Who cares! It can be said more magnificently, and the performer was able to perform the song beautifully, no, more, it is because he is a great performer, not because this is a great song. Woody was both a performer and a lyricist. So many of us are stuck with it. There is nothing good on the radio. Nothing happens. Then, of course, The Beatles show up and grab everyone by the throat. You were for them or against them. You were for them or joined them, or what the hell to do. Then everyone said, "Oh, popular music wasn't so bad," and then everyone wanted to be heard on the radio. [Laughs] Before that it didn't matter.

My first records never got radio play. This was unheard of! Folk records were not played on the radio. You never heard them on the radio and nobody cared if they were on the radio. Let's deal with this a little bit, after The Beatles and everyone else came out of England, rock and roll is still an American thing. Folk music is not. Rock and roll is an American thing, it's all kind of twisted. But the English kind of gave it back to us, didn't they? And they forced us to respect it once again. So everyone wanted to appear on the radio.

Now nobody knows what radio is anymore. Nobody likes to talk about it. Nobody listens to him. But, again, radio is bigger now than they've ever been. But no one really knows how to react to him. No one can close it. [Laughs] You know? And people really aren't sure if they want to be on the radio or they don't want to be on the radio. They probably want to sell a lot of tiles, but people have always done that. But being a performer of folk music, who has hits, this has not been important. No matter what that thing is about. [Laughs]

Your songs, like Woody's, have always refused to be part of pop music. In your songs, as in his, we know a real person is speaking, with lines like, "You're shameless when you say you're my friend."

Dylan: This is another way of writing a song, of course. Himself talking to someone who is not there. This is the best way. This is the most faithful way. Then, simply, the question is how heroic is your speech. For me, that's what I try to achieve.

Until you record a song, however heroic it may be, it doesn't really exist. Do you ever feel this?

Dylan: No. If it is there, it exists.

You once said that you only write about what is true, what you have tried, that you write about dreams, but not about fantasies.

Dylan: Really my songs are not dreams. They are more of a responsive nature. Waking up from a dream is... when you write down a dream, that's when you try to remember it and you're never quite sure you've got it right or wrong.

You said that your songs are responsible. Does life have to be a mess for the songs to come to you?

Dylan: Well, for me, when you need them, they show up. Life doesn't have to be a mess to write a song like that, but you have to be out of it. This is why many people, myself included, write songs when one form or another of society has rejected you. So you can truthfully write about it from the outside. Someone who has never been outside can imagine it as anything else, forever.

Outside of life itself?

Dylan: No. Outside of the situation in which you see yourself. There are different types of songs and they are all called songs. But there are different kinds of bash songs just like there are different kinds of people, you know? There are an endless amount of different types, ranging from the common folk ballad verse to people who are trained in classical music. And, with classical training, of course, then you can just adapt the lyrics to classical training and develop things in places that you've never been able to before. Modern ears of the 20th century are the first ears to hear this type of Broadway singing. There was no such thing. These are musical songs. These are made by people who know music very well first of all. And then comes the text. For me, Hank Williams is still the best lyricist.

Hank? Better than Woody Guthrie?

Dylan: This is a pertinent question. Hank Williams did not write "This Land Is Your Land". It's not that shocking to me to imagine Hank Williams singing "Pastures of Plenty" or Woody Guthrie singing "Cheatin' Heart." So in many ways these two authors are similar. As authors. But we must not forget that these two were also performers. And that's another thing that separates him from the person who just writes the song…People who don't perform but who are connected to those who perform, they kind of feel what that other person wants to say in the song and be able to write those lyrics for songs. Which is quite a different thing from a performer who needs songs to perform on stage year after year.

And you always wrote songs to sing yourself...

Dylan: My songs are written with myself in mind. In those situations, some people might say, "Do you have a song that's hanging around?" The best songs for me – my best songs – are the songs that were written very quickly. Yes, very, very soon. Just as long as it takes to put it on paper about as long as it takes to write it. Moreover, there have been many songs that have failed. They have not survived. They have won. They should be taken out, I know, and looked at again, perhaps.

You once said that the saddest thing about songwriting is trying to reconnect with an idea you've started before, and how difficult it is to do that.

Dylan: For me, such a thing cannot be done. For me, unless I have a lyricist around me who would like to finish it…besides writing with The Traveling Wilburys, my collective experience writing lyrics with other lyricists isn't that great. Obviously, if you find the right person to write with as a partner… [Laughs] you have to be pretty lucky to find them, but if you don't, then it's not worth the rent to try to write something with someone.

Your collaboration with Jacques Levy turned out to be quite successful.

Dylan: We were both pretty much lyricists. Yes, very panoramic song, because, you know, after my verse, one of his verses came. Writing with Jacques was not difficult. It was a lot of effort to write. He just didn't stop. As for the lyrics. Of course, my melodies are also very simple, so they are very easy to remember.

With a song "Isis" that you two wrote together, did you plan that story before you wrote the lyrics?

Dylan: This was a story that was important to him. Yes. It seemed like it would develop a life of its own, as a different take on history [laughs]. Which has many views that are not told. On the story, anyway. This was not one of them. Ancient history, but history nonetheless.

Was this a story you had in mind before the song was written?

No. With this "Isis", it was "Isis" ... I know, the name kind of sounded familiar, but not in a powerful way. So it was shoot-the-title-melody time. It was everything. The name was familiar. Most people will remember knowing that name from somewhere. But it seemed like wherever he wanted to teach it would have been fine as long as he didn't get too close [laughs].

Too close to who?

Dylan: [Laughs] Pretty close to me or him.

People think your songs flow freely from you, but that song and so many others are so neatly written, it has ABAB as a rhyme scheme, which is like something Byron would do, strumming every line.

Dylan: Oh, yes. Oh, of course. If you've heard a lot of free verse, if you've grown up with free verse, William Carlos Williams, EE Cummings, the kind of people who wrote free verse, your ear won't be used to things that sound like that. way. Of course, it's no secret to me that all my things rhythmically are oriented in that way. Byron's line would be something as simple as: "What is it that you are paying so dearly/With pain and fear?" Now this is Byron's line, but this could have been one of my lines. Until a certain time, perhaps in the twenties, that was poetry. That's how it was written. It was…simple and easy to remember. And always on pace. It had rhythm whether the music was there or not.

Is rhyming fun for you?  

Dylan: Well, it could be, but, I know, it's a game. You know, you sit… you know, it's more like mentally… stun. It's amazing to rhyme something that you can think: "Well, it's never been rhymed like that." But on the other hand, now people are rhyming anything, rhyming doesn't have to be accurate anymore. Nobody cares if you rhyme "represent" with "ferment", you know. No one feels it.

This was the result of many people of your generation for whom the elements of the craft of writing lyrics did not seem to matter as much. But in your songs, craftsmanship is always present, along with poetry and energy.

My sense of rhyme used to be more involved in writing lyrics than it is now… It's still in the unconscious state of mind, you can step back and write two rhymes first and then work them out . First you have the rhymes and you work them out and then you see if you can make them make sense in another way. You can still remain in an unconscious state of mind to attract it, and you should be in that state of mind anyway.

So, from time to time you process them, right?

Dylan: Oh, yes. Yes, many times. That's the only way to get anything done. However, this is not unusual.

Do you finish songs even when you think they might not be worth saving?

Dylan: Is it worth saving or not worth saving … you save the songs if you think they're good, and if they're not … you can give them to someone else. If you have songs you won't sing and you just don't like them...tell others if you want. Then again, this all brings us back to motivation. Why are you doing what you are doing? It is what it is. [Laughs] This is the confrontation with her … my goddess. My god or my goddess? Someone told me that the goddess rules over me. Gods are not concerned with such earthly matters. Hall of goddesses … will stoop so low. Or stoop so low.

You mentioned that when you were writing "Every Grain of Sand" you felt like you were in an area where no one had ever been before.

Dylan: Yes. In that where Keats is. Continually. A poem accompanied by music.

A beautiful melody.

Dylan: It's a nice tune, too, isn't it. It's a derivative folk tune. It's not something you can put your finger on, but, you know, really, those tunes are great. There aren't many like that, really. Even a song like this, its simplicity can be... deceptive. Such a song could have been written in a state of disarray, although you would never feel it. Written but not sung. Some songs are better written in peace and quiet and sung in a chaotic state. Others are better written in a state of disarray and sung in a peaceful and calm manner. It's a magical thing, the popular song. Trying to push it to daily numbers does not work. It's not a puzzle. There are no matching parts. It does not make a complete picture that has ever been seen. But, you know, as they say. Thank God for lyricists.

Randy Neman has said that he writes songs every day, as a day job.

Dylan: om Paxton has told me the same thing. The weather has told me that. The same thing. Every day he wakes up and writes a song. Well, that's great, you know, you write the song and then you take the kids to school? You come home, have lunch with your wife, you know, maybe write another song. Then Tom told me that for recreation, to relieve himself, he rode the horse. Then he would pick up the children from school, and then go to bed with his wife. Now that sounds like the most ideal way to write songs to me. For me, it doesn't get any better than that.

How do you write them?

Dylan: Well, my songs are not written according to such a schedule. In my mind writing has never really been a serious profession... It has been more confessional than professional. Then again, everyone writes for different reasons.

Do you ever sit down on purpose to write songs, or do you wait for the songs to come to you?

Dylan: Either or. In two ways. They can come … some people are … Now it's possible for a songwriter to have a recording studio in his house and record a song and make a demo and do something. It's like the roles have been reversed in all those things. Now for me, the environment for writing songs is extremely important. The environment must bring out something in me that wants to come out.

This is a contemplative, reflective thing. Feelings really have nothing to do with me. Look, I don't write lies. This is a proven fact: Most people who say I love you don't really mean it. Doctors have tried this. Well, love generates many songs. Perhaps more than necessary. Now it is not my intention that love affects my songs. Nothing more than he influenced the songs of Chuck Berry, Woody Guthrie or Hank Williams. Hank Williams songs are not love songs. You degrade them by calling them love songs. They are songs from the Tree of Life. There is no love in the Tree of Life. Love is in the Tree of Knowledge, in the Tree of Good and Evil. So we have many songs in popular music about love. Who needs them? Not you, not me. You can use love in many ways, which can then come back to hurt you.

Love is a democratic principle. It is a Greek thing. A college professor told me that if you read about Greece in your history books, you will know all about America. Everything that happens will be clear to you. You read the history of Ancient Greece and then when the Romans arrived, and nothing will bother you about America anymore. You will understand what America is. Now, maybe, but there are many other countries in the world besides America... Two. You can't forget them. [Laughs]

Have you come across any places in the world that are better for songwriting?

Dylan: You don't have to travel to write songs. What a long strange journey it has been, though. But that part of it is true, too. The environment is very important. People need calm and stimulating environments. Stimulating environment. There is a lot of repression in America. There are many people who are oppressed. They would like to get out of town, they just don't know how to do it. And so, it stifles creativity. It's like going somewhere and you can't help but feel it. Or even people say it, you know?

What got me into this whole thing at first wasn't the writing of the lyrics. It didn't do it for me. When "Hound Dog" came on the radio, there was nothing in my mind to say, "Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?" I really didn't care who wrote it. It didn't matter who wrote it. She was just…she was just there. The same thing happens to me now. Hear a good song. And think to yourself, maybe, "Who wrote this?" Why? Because the performer is not as good as the song, maybe. The performer must transcend the song. At least be as good as the song itself. A good performer can always make a weak song sound good. Albums are filled with good female performers singing rubbish. Everyone can say they have done the same thing. Regardless of whether you wrote it or someone else, it doesn't matter. What I was interested in was being a musician. The singer was important and so was the song. But being a musician was always at the back of my mind. That's why, while other people were learning…whatever they were learning. What were they learning at that time?

“Ride, Sally, Ride”?

Dylan: Something like that. Or "Run, Rudolph, Run". When other people were into Run, Rudolph, Run, I was into Leadbelly's kind of stuff, when he was playing the Stella 12-string guitar. Like, how does this guy do that? Where can one find one, a 12-string guitar? In my town they didn't have any. My intellect always worked that way. For music. Like Paul Whiteman. Paul Whiteman sets the mood. Bing Crosby's first records. They set the mood, like that Cab Calloway, with that screeching horn. Violins, when big bands had their distinctive sound, lost that Broadway sheen. As soon as this certain Broadway style was introduced into the music, everything became sparkling, and Las Vegas followed, for good. But this has not always been the case. The music created an ambience. This doesn't happen anymore. Why? Maybe technology has gotten rid of it and there is no need for it. Because we have a screen, which is supposedly three-dimensional. Or it is presented to us as three-dimensional. And they want us to believe that it is three-dimensional. Well, like old movies and things like that that influenced a lot of us who grew up with that kind of stuff. (He picks up the Peruvian flute) Like this old thing, look, this is not a thing, this is a kind of, what is this? …Listen: [Plays a slow flute tune] Here, then, listen to this song. [Continues playing] Okay. This is a song. This has no words. Why do songs need words? They don't need the words. Songs don't need words? They don't need them.

Are you satisfied with your opus?

Dylan: Done with the hook, yes.

Do you spend a lot of time writing songs?

Dylan: Well, have you heard the latest album that Columbia released last year, "Down In The Groove"? Those songs, I wrote them very easily.

I would like to mention some of your songs and see what your response is to them.

Dylan: All right.

"One More Cup of Coffee" [From "Desire"]

Dylan: [Pause] Was that an ad for coffee? No... This is a gypsy song. This song was written in the summer during a gypsy festival in the south of France. Someone took me there during the days of the gypsy celebration that coincided with my birthday. So someone took me to a birthday party once, and my week-long stay there probably influenced the writing of this song. But "The Valley Down" probably came from somewhere else. My feeling about this song is that the lyrics came from somewhere else. This was not for nothing, so this "valley down" thing became a prop to hold for him. But "valley down" can mean anything.

"Precious Angel" [From Slow Train Comin']

Dylan: Yes. This is another one, this could go on forever. There are many verses and still not enough. you know When people ask me, "How come you don't sing that song anymore?" It's another one of those songs: too many verses, yet not enough. A lot of my songs fire me up that way. For me, that's natural about these songs. It is very difficult to ask myself about them. To me they are not worth dying for. They are songs. They are not written in stone. They are in plastic.

For us, however, they are written in stone because Bob wrote them. I was amazed at how you changed some of your wonderful songs.

Dylan: All right. Someone has told me that Tennyson often wanted to rewrite his poems when he saw them in print.

"I And I" [From Infidels]

 Dylan: [Pause] It was one of those songs from the Caribbean. One year a bunch of songs popped into my head down in the islands, and this was one of them.

"Joey" [From Desire]

Dylan: For me, this is a great song. Continually. And it never loses its charm.

And it has one of the most visually stunning endings of any song.

Dylan: This is great song. And you will understand this when you sing it night after night. Do you know who made me sing this song? [Jerry] Garcia. Continually. He made me sing this song again. He told me that this is one of the best songs ever written. Hearing this from him I didn't know how to take it [laughs]. He pushed me to sing this song with them [The Grateful Dead] again. It was amazing how it developed, from the beginning, it had a life of its own, it developed very quickly and it keeps getting better and better and better, much better. It's baby stages, like an interpretive thing. Obviously, it's a long song. But for me, I don't want to brag, but for me this song is like a ballad of Homer. Much more than "A Hard Rain", which is also a long song. But, to me, "Joey" has a Homeric quality that you don't hear every day. Especially in popular music.

"Ring Them Bells" [From Oh Mercy]

Dylan: It stands when you hear it sung by me. But if another performer were to sing it, you might understand that the song has nothing to do with bells, as the title suggests. Once someone came and sang this song to me in the dressing room. He sang to me. Trying to influence me to sing this song that night [laughs]. It could have ended either way.

Elliot Mintz: Which way will it end?

Dylan: He hurried out the door. He walked out the door and never came back. Hearing this song that was on my album, sung by someone who wanted me to sing it… There was no way he was going to force me to sing it the way he wanted. A great performer, too.

"Idiot Wind" [From Blood On The Tracks]

Dylan: "Idiot Wind." Yeah, I know, it's obvious, if you've heard both versions you know, of course, that there could be a bunch of verses to this song. It doesn't stop. She won't stop. Where will it end? I would still be writing it, forever. This is something that can be a constant work in progress. Although, having said that, let me say that my lyrics, to my way of thinking, are better for my songs than anyone else's. About my songs sometimes people have felt the same way as me. And they tell me, your songs are so dark, people tell me, that they have feelings that they would like to express in the same frame. My answer is always, just go ahead, do it, if they don't fill the eye. But they never succeed. The ones they edit are not as good as my texts. There is something about my lyrics that can have a kind of gallantry. That may be all they have. However, this is no small thing. /Telegraph/

Taken from the book Younger Than That Now, The Collected Interviews with Bob Dylan, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004, New York.

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Biography

Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman, 1941) is an American songwriter, singer, artist and writer. It has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. He recorded 37 albums. Dylan has also published the novel "Tarantula" and the first part of his memoirs "Chronicles: Volume One", several books of song lyrics and seven books of drawings and paintings. He is the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (2016).