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For Douglas Brinkley's feature "Bob Dylan's America," check out our new issue, on stands now. |
In
the current Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
discusses his new album
Together Through Life and American icons from Chuck
Berry to Walt Whitman to Elvis Presley. This is just the most
recent of many conversations we've had with Dylan since he first
appeared on our cover in 1968. Here we present some of his most
intriguing moments with us, including his thoughts on bootlegs, the
Sixties and religion.
On Performing Live:
"There's always those butterflies at a certain point, but then
there's the realization that the songs I'm singing mean as much to
the people as to me; so it's just up to me to perform the best I
can. ... For me, it's just reinforcing those images in my head that
were there, that don't die, that will be there tomorrow. And in
doing so for myself, hopefully also for those people who also had
those images."
[From Issue 154 - February 14, 1974]
"Ask Muhammad All why he fights one more fight. Go ask Marlon
Brando why he makes one more movie. Ask Mick Jagger why he goes on
the road. See what kind of answers you come up with. Is it so
surprising I'm on the road? What else would I be doing in this life
— meditating on the mountain? Whatever someone finds
fulfilling, whatever his or her purpose is — that's all it
is."
[From Issue 278 - November 16, 1978]
"Since 1974, I've never stopped working. I've been out on tours
where there hasn't been any publicity. So for me, I'm not getting
caught up in all this excitement of a big tour. I've played big
tours and I've played small tours. I mean, what's such a big deal
about this one? ... To me, an audience is an audience, no matter
where they are."
[From Issue 478/479 - July 17, 1986]
"They say, 'Dylan never talks.' What the hell is there to say?
That's not the reason an artist is in front of people. An artist
has come for a different purpose. Maybe a self-help group —
maybe a Dr. Phil — would say, 'How you doin'?' I don't want
to get harsh and say I don't care. You do care, you care in a big
way, otherwise you wouldn't be there. But it's a different kind of
connection. It's not a light thing. ... It's alive every night, or
it feels alive every night."
[From Issue 1008 - September 7, 2006]
"My band plays a different type of music than anybody else
plays. We play distinctive rhythms that no other band can play.
There are so many of my songs that have been rearranged at this
point that I've lost track of them myself. We do keep the
structures intact to some degree. But the dynamics of the song
itself might change from one given night to another because the
mathematical process we use allows that. As far as I know, no one
else out there plays like this. Today, yesterday and probably
tomorrow. I don't think you'll hear what I do ever again."
[From Issue 1078 - May 14, 2009]
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On Having a "Career":
"To me, I don't have a 'career.' ... A career is something you
can look back on, and I'm not ready to look back. Time doesn't
really exist for me in those kinds of terms. I don't really
remember in any monumental way 'what I have done.' This isn't my
career; this is my life, and it's still vital to me. ... I just
want to do whatever it is I do. These lyrical things that come off
in a unique or a desolate sort of way, I don't know, I don't feel I
have to put that out anymore to please anybody. Besides, anything
you want to do for posterity's sake, you can just sing into a tape
recorder and give it to your mother, you know? ... Sometimes I
think about people like T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Muddy
Waters — these people who played into their sixties. If I'm
here at 80, I'll be doing the same thing. This is all I want to do
— it's all I can do. I mean, you don't have to be a 19- or
20-year-old to play this stuff. That's the vanity of that
youth-culture ideal. To me that's never been the thing. I've never
really aimed myself at any so-called youth culture. I directed it
at people who I imagined, maybe falsely so, had the same
experiences that I've had, who have been through what I'd been
through. But I guess a lot of people just haven't ... I've always
been just about being an individual, with an individual point of
view. If I've been about anything, it's probably that, and to let
some people know that it's possible to do the impossible."
[From Issue 478/479 - July 17, 1986]
"You never heard about Oral Roberts and Billy Graham being on
some Never Ending Preacher Tour. Does anybody ever call Henry Ford
a Never Ending Car Builder? Is Rupert Murdoch a Never Ending Media
Tycoon? What about Donald Trump? Does anybody say he has a Never
Ending Quest to build buildings? Picasso painted well into his 90s.
And Paul Newman raced cars in his 70s. Anybody ever say that Duke
Ellington was on a Never Ending Bandstand Tour? But critics apply a
different standard to me for some reason. But we're living in an
age of breaking everything down into simplistic terms, aren't we?
These days, people are lucky to have a job. Any job. So critics
might be uncomfortable with me [working so much]. Maybe they can't
figure it out. But nobody in my particular audience feels that way
about what I do. Anybody with a trade can work as long as they
want. A welder, a carpenter, an electrician. They don't necessarily
need to retire. People who have jobs on an assembly line, or are
doing some kind of drudgery work, they might be thinking of
retiring every day. Every man should learn a trade. It's different
than a job. My music wasn't made to take me from one place to
another so I can retire early."
[From Issue 1078 - May 14, 2009]
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On Bootlegs:
"I still don't like bootleg records. There was a period of time
when people were just bootlegging anything on me, because there was
nobody ever in charge of the recording sessions. All my stuff was
being bootlegged high and low, far and wide. They were never
intended to be released, but everybody was buying them. So my
record company said, 'Well, everybody else is buying these records,
we might as well put them out.' ... I started playing ("Blind
Willie McTell") live because I heard the Band doing it. Most likely
it was a demo, probably showing the musicians how it should go. It
was never developed fully, I never got around to completing it.
There wouldn't have been any other reason for leaving it off the
record. It's like taking a painting by Manet or Picasso —
goin' to his house and lookin' at a half-finished painting and
grabbing it and selling it to people who are 'Picasso fans.' The
only fans I know I have are the people who I'm looking at when I
play, night after night."
[From Issue 1008 - September 7, 2006]
On the Sixties:
"Everybody makes a big deal about the Sixties. The Sixties, it's
like the Civil War days. But, I mean, you're talking to a person
who owns the Sixties. Did I ever want to acquire the Sixties? No.
But I own the Sixties — who's going to argue with me? I'll
give 'em to you if you want 'em. You can have 'em. ... My old
songs, they've got something — I agree, they've got
something! I think my songs have been covered — maybe not as
much as 'White Christmas' or 'Stardust,' but there's a list of over
5,000 recordings. That's a lot of people covering your songs, they
must have something. If I was me, I'd cover my songs too. A lot of
these songs I wrote in 1961 and '62 and '64, and 1973, and 1985, I
can still play a lot of those songs — well, how many other
artists made songs during that time? How many do you hear today? I
love Marvin Gaye, I love all that stuff. But how often are you
gonna hear 'What's Going On'? I mean, who sings it? Who sings
'Tracks of My Tears'? Where is that being sung tonight?"
[From Issue 1008 - September 7, 2006]
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On Religion & Politics:
"I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I
don't think I've been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a
superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a
world to come. That no soul has died, every soul is alive, either
in holiness or in flames. And there's probably a lot of middle
ground. ... I don't think that this is it, you know — this
life ain't nothin'. There's no way you're gonna convince me this is
all there is to it. I never, ever believed that. I believe in the
Book of Revelation. The leaders of this world are eventually going
to play God, if they're not already playing God, and eventually a
man will come that everybody will think is God. He'll do things,
and they'll say, 'Well, only God can do those things. It must be
him.' "
[From Issue 424 - June 21, 1984]
"For me, there is no right and there is no left. There's truth
and there's untruth, y'know? There's honesty and there's hypocrisy.
Look in the Bible: you don't see nothing about right or left. Other
people might have other ideas about things, but I don't, because
I'm not that smart. I hate to keep beating people over the head
with the Bible, but that's the only instrument I know, the only
thing that stays true. ... Don't forget, Jesus said that it's
harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for
a camel to enter the eye of a needle. I mean, is that conservative?
I don't know, I've heard a lot of preachers say how God wants
everybody to be wealthy and healthy. Well, it doesn't say that in
the Bible. You can twist anybody's words, but that's only for fools
and people who follow fools. If you're entangled in the snares of
this world, which everybody is ..."
[From Issue 478/479 - July 17, 1986]
"Some say you can't legislate morality. Well, maybe not. But
morality has gotten kind of a bad rap. In Roman thought, morality
is broken down into basically four things. Wisdom, Justice,
Moderation and Courage. All of these are the elements that would
make up the depth of a person's morality. And then that would
dictate the types of behavior patterns you'd use to respond in any
given situation. I don't look at morality as a religious
thing."
[From Issue 1078 - May 14, 2009]
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On Gadgets & Globalism:
"Everything is computerized now, it's all computers. I see that
as the beginning of the end. You can see everything going global.
There's no nationality anymore, no I'm this or I'm that: 'We're all
the 'same, all workin' for one peaceful world, blah, blah, blah.'
Somebody's gonna have to come along and figure out what's happening
with the United States. Is this just an island that's going to be
blown out of the ocean, or does it really figure into things? I
really don't know. At this point right now, it seems that it
figures into things. But later on, it will have to be a country
that's self-sufficient, that can make it by itself without that
many imports. Right now, it seems like in the States, and most
other countries, too, there's a big push on to make a big global
country — one big country — where you can get all the
materials from one place and assemble them someplace else and sell
'em in another place, and the whole world is just all one,
controlled by the same people, you know? And if it's not there
already, that's the point it's tryin' to get to."
[From Issue 424 - June 21, 1984]
"It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young
people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and
so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their
self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life.
Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do
with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should
understand that before they start spending their life with all
those gadgets."
[From Issue 1078 - May 14, 2009]
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For Douglas Brinkley's feature "Bob Dylan's America," check out our new issue, on stands now. |
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