OK, well, it seems like, regardless, you either like Bob Dylan or you don’t. If you like him, you will defend him and if you don’t, you will accuse him. However, he DID sue ‘Hootie and the Blowfish’ over their song “Only wanna be with you” which either “referenced” or “plaigerized” (agian, depending on your point of view) Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” … so, why is it just fine for Bob to “reference” litarary works and get away with it, but, when someone does the same to him, they are faced with a lawsuit? That’s what I want to know, from all of you Dyland defenders … As an aside, I have met him, and, he was an insufferable prick, and I have been told by others who have also met him, that he is ALWAYS an insufferable prick … genius or not. So why is it OK for him to do it, but when someone does it to him, does he have the right to sue?

Is the author of this piece serious? I’m certain Dylan didn’t insert the above lines thinking people wouldn’t notice. The theft of work is dreadful when it is truly theft. When I hear “Seeing the Real You At Last” and those Maltese Falcon lines (Dashiell Hammett should get credit, not Bogie, by the way) come up, I grin, knowing that he knows someone like me catches it. This whole poem business is a laugh. He was 16 bloody years old when he “wrote” it - no big deal.

All the plagiarism charges cited in
this article and in the comments below are thin at best. Most are just allusions to other works.

If you want to hear a song that Dylan may have actually plagiarized (intentionally or not), check out Bo Diddley’s instrumental “Scuttle Bug” from his 1960 album “Bo Diddley In The Spotlight”.

Bob Dylan’s “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry” from 1965’s “Highway 61 Revisited” has a tune eerily similar–played a little slower, in a different key, and with lyrics, but surely as strong a case as the “My Sweet Lord”/”He’s So Fine” controversy.

Bo Diddley was the best pre-Beatles/Dylan album maker, and surely Dylan must have been aware of this song. Even if he wasn’t, there’s still a strong case for plagiarism.

My favourite has to be from Working Man Blues #2

“I can hear a lover’s breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death”

Sources:
Henry Timrod - 19th century poet
“Which, ere they fell a lover’s breath,
Lie in a temporary death” ~Two Portraits

Robert Johson - 1920’s Blues legend
“I got a girl sits long and tall
sleeps in the kitchen with her feet in the hall” ~They’re Red Hot

My favourite has to be from Working Man Blues #2

“I can hear a lover’s breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death”

Sources:
Henry Timrod - 19th century poet
“Which, ere they fell a lover’s breath,
Lie in a temporary death” ~Two Portraits

Robert Johson - 1920’s Blues legend
“I got a girl sits long and tall
sleeps in the kitchen with her feet in the hall” ~They’re Red Hot

Dylan is a genius at fooling everyone!

I’m less concerned about Dylan’s lack of attributions than about learning that Tennessee Williams stole “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” from Paul Newman!

When authors put in lines from other literary works in their novels, it’s allusion, but when Bob Dylan does it in a song it’s copyright infringement? I think there’s something to be said for Dylan making reference to other songs/poems/anything else that he likes or finds important. Furthermore, I find it a treat to recognize where certain lines come from and then look at that work as a whole and see how it changes your interpretation of a line or song. Dylan has written so much great stuff of his own (lines of which I imagine it’s not that hard to find borrowed in many many instances. Subterranean Homesick Blues = Subterranean Homesick Alien….. whaaaaaaa!?) that it just seems silly to think that he’s using/referencing lines from other pieces with the malicious intent of thinking that he’s pulling a fast one on the entire American Public. I don’t think the original purpose of this discussion really was meant to be so much whether he was doing anything wrong as much as, “hey what other cool references can you find in Bob Dylan’s lyrics”.

It is ok to borrow. Most people do in some fashion,directly, emotionally
etc. Compare “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again” with the old folk song “Mole in the Ground” direct line.. “The railroad men will drink your blood like wine”

There’s an awful lot of side-tracking going on with this Dylan-Thief business. Nearly everyone who writes a song owes a debt somewhere, that shouldn’t be an issue - but to record a famous blues classic like “Rollin’& Tumblin’” using the tune, the riff and the title and even just a few lines of the main verse and claim writing credits is stealing! Period. It’s called Copyright Theft. Will everyone who now records this song with the tune, the riff and the title now have to pay Dylan royalties? Perhaps I’ll make a career going through Howling Wolf’s back catalogue and claim writing credits too. I’ve written a great new song called “Spoonful”. It’s identical to one recorded by Cream some years back - but, sorry guys, I have just written it.

i think its cool that he takes line from songs and peoms. its a whole different art medium. its a good thing, and inspiration is always original!

I’d gladly allow Dylan into the second story of any work of art,of any kind, hell, to do with what he will,cause he makes it new,breathesa life into it, if I could Willie Sutton that well I’d be thqankful. What good are you if you can’t stand up to some ol’biznizzman???

All songwriters get their inspiration from somewhere, especially certain artists who have influenced them. The inspiration can com from a lyric, a particular melodic phrasing, or subject matter in a song. A great way to practice your songwriting skill is to write a song addressing one already written–as if you’re continuing a conversation or debate.

It’s music. Screw the paronoid capitalist plots to own everything. Stop trying to understand everything and enjoy it for what it is. Dylan is amazing. He keeps changing and like Kerouac won’t let somebody label him as this or that. He keeps growing and incorporates old licks into his songs. You aren’t going to turn on an electric lamp because somebody already did it? Enlightenment is free…… Let Dylan be Dylan.

a (maybe) final word … during Dylan’s interview on “60 Minutes” some time back, Ed Bradley asked Bob if he could still write songs such as “Visions of Johanna”; his reply was an honest “No, I can do other things, but I can’t do that.” Dylan may have “borrowed” during the time before and since the period of his greatest original creativity - which produced the “wild mercury sound” of “Blonde on Blonde” and the masterpieces “Desolation Row” and “Tamborine Man” - but the originality of his product during that time is indisputable, and the reason his name is among the pantheon of original American artists. So I, for one, will cherish the masterpieces via recordings, and enjoy live performance of a live performer at perhaps the top of his form (doing “other things”)when he appears at the Wachovia Center in Philly on Nov. 18. Got a problem with that?

Damn! ! ! Jim nailed you on this one, Rolling Stone. “How Does It Feel. . . .? If Dylan “borrowed”, “stole”, or “co-opted” everything this article acuses him of, then he would have to be celebrated as the the most culturally literate person on the planet! Get real.

I just wander if there’s some higher purpose or deeper reason he does that? I tend to think it’s a life and death struggle, and he tends to try to shift the odds, only in their game you just can’t win. In a material sense. But somebody has to chronicle “our lives together” apart from, say, Ruper Murdock and Kerry Packer, and of course the olde BBC which was begiining in Dangerman times, guy called Graham. etc. maybe some people take “politics” way too seriously?

For a magazine that took the name of a Bob Dylan classic, it should think twice before accusing somebody as a ripoff.

Paula, apologies on misstating your name. I can only sheepishly use the excuse that it’s Friday.

Pauline, again, I disagree. These aren’t old folk melodies whose origin is hard to trace, that have been reworked into something completely different. Rollin’ and Tumblin’ and Trouble No More (the actual name) are well-known songs that are performed to this day, with attribution to the man who, if he didn’t originally write them, made them famous. I recently saw the Allman Brothers perform Trouble No More. They don’t get up there and say, now here’s a song that Gregg wrote. Many of their younger fans wouldn’t know the difference if he did, but they don’t try to pull that. The Allmans regularly put the song on their Instant Live CDs, with attribution. As I’ve said twice now, and not been contradicted, the melodies, choruses, and arrangements of these songs are pretty much straight lifts from earlier versions of the songs. Who owns the copyrights is a minor issue to me compared to integrity. The reason for a lot of problems in this country, in my opinion, is that “everyone else does this, why can’t I” seems to be a prevailing attitude. As I’m sure you know, Dylan did two excellent albums in the 90’s of folk/blues standards. What’s so terrible or difficult about acknowledging that you’re using an existing song? You can take credit for writing new lyrics.

People get a life all you do is mock him for re writing Beyond The Horizon [ Red Sails In The Sunset] ,it is most likey a public domain song who’s copy right ran out and he has the legal right to publish it as his own. Lets think hmmm how many artists in music have done this, think of your favorites and researh them.

The name of the album is “Modern Times”, come on now fellas, think about it.

Doglet, I guess I’m that inane, asinine idiot who doesn’t know anything about music. Grow up. I’m not going to get into a name-calling contest with you. I didn’t attack any posters personally. I’ve disagreed with many posters about their comments on these lists. I’ve never seen the need to attack other posters. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. You’re right, Muddy didn’t originate Rollin’ and Tumblin’. Did Bob? Is it OK for Bob to claim that he wrote it? If the melody is public domain, say so. The advertising for Modern Times says all the songs are “original.” Is Bob’s version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ original? Is his version of “Someday Baby” or “The Levee’s Gonna Break” (very clever, he rearranged the titles) original? In what dictionary would “original” be defined to include pre-existing melodies and choruses?

His versions of these songs are OK(I sure would rather hear Muddy or the Allman Brothers stomp through Trouble No More or Muddy or Cream do their versions of Rollin’ and Tumblin’) and maybe in time I’ll enjoy them more. But claiming they’re original is absurd. Even Led Zeppelin, who were known as major ripoff artists — they were sued by Willie Dixon for reworking, without attribution, his song “You Need Love” as “Whole Lotta Love,” and pulled the same trick with several other songs — gave Memphis Minnie co-writing credit for “When the Levee Breaks.”

Finally, I have to contest your statement that Bob took tiny pieces from these tunes. It’s not like Subterranean Homesick Blues or From a Buick 6, where he styled the songs after Chuck Berry songs but they’re clearly different melodies and structures. In the songs I mentioned on Modern Times, in addition to the choruses, which he lifted pretty much intact, he “borrowed” the structure of the songs. The slide riff in Rollin’ and Tumblin’ is what makes the song, more so than the melody.

As I started out my last post by saying, you can have a career built on covers. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t pass it off as “original.”

It never ceases to amaze me at how inane, idiotic, and asinine people can be. First of all, Muddy Watters didn’t write “Rollin and Tumblin,” he merely put his own stamp on it. Only a music illiterate would not understand the reference to this traditional tune. Muddy Waters and his estate have NEVER had any copyright claims to this song…one should at least know SOMETHING about what they are talking about before they offer such pointless, irrelevant drivel. His ability to copyright this version of the song is clearly based on the technicalities of copyright law, and no great theft or deception should be implied by anyone that isn’t an imbecile. The other lines that some are claiming are “stolen” range from similar to vaguely similar, and are only tiny parts of the songs taken as a whole…implying that the songs are stolen is simply silly. When artists use lines from say, the Bible,…weather taken directly or merely alluded to…there is no expectation of citation. At most, the “lines in question” are a few incidental allusions that indicate a passing influence that was incorporated into a work of his own. Just about every phrase any artist anywhere has ever given us has been uttered before somewhere in the annals of time. There are good reasons why simply using a few words that someone somewhere may have used before in some way does not diminish your ability to incorporate them into something that is indeed your own. Nothing like trying hard to make something over nothing….

jonny

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with using old melodies or parts of lyrics. Some artists — Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, early Rod Stewart — launched careers based largely on covers. Plagiarism is when you take the title, the melody, the hook, and the chorus from a song, intact, and don’t credit the author. Rollin’ and Tumblin’. So he piled a bunch of new lyrics on it. It’s an existing song! The Levee’s Gonna Break and Someday Baby — pretty close to the same thing. What the heck would be so hard about noting on the album that the songs he’s doing are based on those songs by Muddy Waters and Memphis Minnie? If needs the money — how could that be considering his catalog and the songs he’s written, the royalties on Blowin’ in the Wind by itself would keep small countries solvent — whose fault is that? Uh, by the way, there are plenty of easily-located members of Muddy Waters family out there, they might be deserving of some royalties from his two songs that are “borrowed” on Modern Times. If your publisher can’t find them, Bob, maybe Mr. Scorsese (you remember him) knows how to track them down, several of them have appeared in recent documentaries. In the recently-released CD of his mid-70’s London concerts, Springsteen gives credit to people when he uses a few instrumental lines from their songs in the middle of a medley. That’s classy. Modern Times is a classless ripoff.

Remember the roots of your family tree. Don’t forget where you came from. Dylan won’t…..

What nonsense!
These (and more) are called building blocks of our collective consciousness.

What about his greatest theft:
“Once upn a time”

so if dylan nicks a song, that’s cool and if you nick a dylan song, you get sued?

double standard?

he can to hide behind the ‘folk’ defense (and seriously, he’s nicked a good deal of his lyrics and music), but no one can ‘paraphrase’ him?

So then what modern day poets or songwriters would you recommend if not dylan?

Yeah I have no problem with Dylan taking lines here and there, he’s writing songs not term papers. Didn’t he sue Hootie and the Blowfish a few years back for stealing his line Tangled up in blue a few years back thouh? I can’t remember all the detais but the Hootie song “I just want to be with you” is a lot like Tanged up in Blue and even has that line in it.

And another thing…Tom Paine took the title of his epic ‘Rights of Man’ directly from a poem by Thomas Spence about an unknown tenant farmer protesting mistreatment by his landlord. That was in 1791. This ain’t new. It wasn’t plagiarism then and it’s not now. Paine’s use of the phrase was a tribute to both poet and subject. Just so with Dylan.

Albert Insinger says
‘Dylan is a far cry from what he used to be. These days Dylan only sings about himself’.
Albert, do you remember ‘I’m not in the songs?’ or even ‘I is another?’

This is without qualification the biggest beatup I’ve ever read-absolute unadulterated crap! Who gives a shit. Dylan is a genius-be happy we still have him with us and still pumping out brilliant music!

Dag, he stole his last name, too.

Dylan speaks of earlier charges of “stealin’” in the last two verses of “Restless Farewell” from 1964’s “The Times They are a Changin’” album - “Oh, ev’ry thought that’s strung a knot in my mind, / I might go insane if it couldn’t be sprung. / But it’s not to stand naked under unknowin’ eyes, / It’s for myself and my friends my stories are sung … Yet on time you depend and no word is possessed / By no special friend. / And though the line is cut, it ain’t quite the end …
Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time / To disgrace, distract and bother me. / And the dirt of gossip blows into my face, / And the dust of rumors covers me. / But if the arrow is straight /And the point is slick, / It can pierce through the dust no matter how thick. / So I’ll make my stand / And remain as I am / And bid farewell and not give a damn.” He has done this for over 40 years, and continues to do so.

He who isn’t busy being born, is busy dying– Dylan

He who isn’t busy dying, is busy being born– Plato

So what? Aristole stole from Plato too. Didn’t Jesus pick his father’s pocket? What’s the first rule of writing? Write what you know, isn’t it? Well, what does that mean?

Dylan is a far cry from what he used to be. He used to sing about what he saw about him. Like ‘She’s and artist and she don t look back” Or even Like a Rolling Stone ” was an observation about others. Or Franky Lee and Judas Priest” These days Dylan only sings about himself. With a buch of very worked on smoothed out Dylan lines phrases and words. His songs I am affraid mean little on this last CD Modern Times. The Tittel is a cliche and the songs are a cliche. Sorry Bob that I am this harsh. Yet Our modern day produces no poets or song writers of any great value. So everyone hangs on the the few that arestill around. Not that they don t exist. They do the music world just doesn t have any room for them.

we are all sitting on the shoulders of giants. what makes our living has been invented by others - and all we can do is try to pass something on to the next generation - just like bob does. who can claim for himself to live on his own - and why should it be bad to repeat things (words, tunes, ways of living…) which you consider worth while…

I LOVE it when Dylan pays tribute to another writer, poet, songwriter or other hero by incorporating his or her words into his lyrics:

“You can’t repeat the past? What do you mean you can’t? Of course you can.”
(from The Great Gatsby and Dylan’s Summer Days)

Dylan is in the tradition of pre-World War II blues musicians. Many of the songs from that era repeat verses, melodies, and guitar style. He’d be the first to tell you this. It’s one of the reasons he called the album “Love and Theft.” It was exactly that, and notice that the title on the album is in quotations, as if Dylan is saying this. But what Dylan does, like any great musician from that pre-war era did, was steal but make it entirely their own. To simply lable this as plagarism isn’t fully understanding the complex traditions Dylan’s music is born out of. Read “Chasin that Devil’s Music” or Robert Palmer’s “Deep Blues” or pick up the “Goodbye, Babylon” box set for some more information. I think the RS review or maybe Letham said it in the interview, no other artist today is doing what Dylan is doing. And, if you want to hear more of his influences, listen to his XM radio show.

Man there have been some great posts here, folks. If you look at his early work, especially Disc one of Bootlegs, so many of the tunes are old traditional songs reworked and or re-worded by Dylan to make them his own, and at the same time pay tribute to a slew of old musical genres. Yes, I contend that sub homesick blues IS the first rap song ever. And he brought the protest song to the masses before anyone else. Timeless stuff.

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” the the first rap song? “Don’t Look Back” the first rock video? “Neither a borrower nor aLender Be” might be wise financial advice, but does not work in the artistic world; Dylan has certainly loaned as much, and probably more, than he has borrowed.

Hey, don’t forget that, first of all, Zimmie is a Song&Dance man, that is, a songster, and in the old, roots music folk traditions, like in the genre of country blues in the South or hillbilly music from Kentucky or Virginia of the late 1920`s, one’s interpolation into your own lyrics of other guy`s, often locally tinged phrases, as heard when traveling around was part of the oral tradition in which the “gospel” was spread. Dylan just reminds it to us. That’s all. And, also, don’t forget that famous Stravinsky’s maxim: “A mediocre artist borrows, but the great artist steals!”

I don’t think poets steal from each other often…they do something called alluding as far as I know…TS Eliot didn’t steal anything from Hamlet when he mentioned it in Love Song

Timrod is not an “obscure poet”… he’s in many American Anthologies.

The bottom line:

Whether or not this is plagarism, it proves his genius. Name another songwriter who is spinning quotes from sources like obscure Civil War poets, Shakespeare, Clint Eastwood, Japanese crime novelists, Scottish folk songs, Neil Young, Arthur Rimbaud, T.S. Eliot, the Bible (listen to “All Along the Watchtower” and read Isaiah Chapter 21), Graham Greene, Charles Baudelaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alfred Hitchcock, and Gregory Peck?

Either Dylan is: A) borrowing these lines from memory and unconsciously putting them in songs or B) actively reading Dostoevsky and saying to himself “This line from The Possessed would work great this album” and writing it down.

Either way, he’s a genius, because he makes it work. You could give a stack of that material to anyone else and no one else would be able to write “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”.

Everything Elvis ever sung was written by somebody else??? and of course plenty of others.

“He just steals from me,but I steal from everybody!”
Woody Guthrie said that.

Who really cares. He borrows. He’s borrowed from. In the end he make’s it his own. And if he didn’t do it most people wouldn’t be turned on to his sources. So it’s all good.

Isn’t anything sacred these daze?
There’s nothing new under the sun! OOPS…just plagarized King Solomon. Dylan is lord even of the Plagarists!

there are these and MANY more…these past things are dylan’s paint

I love Dylan, but what troubles me more than lifting a couple of lines is his theft of melodies. Yes, Guthrie did it with Carter Family tunes, but listen to these tunes from “Theft and Theft” and compare with the songs he took the melodies from. He totally lifted them–music, melodies, riffs, everything. Much worse than “My Sweet Lord”

Sugar Baby–Lonesome Road by Gene Austin

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum–Uncle John’s Bongos, by Johnny and Jack

Floater–Snuggled on Your Shoulder, by Eddie Duchin

Lonesome Day Blues–Low Down Dirty Dog, by Son House

If this is plagiarism then just about every rapper should be prosecuted as well. Ice Ice Baby…need I say more?

Is this supposed to be some kind of news?

Somebody google Shakespeare please.

nothing you can say that cant be said…. did some one else say that too mmmm

“Steal a little and they throw you in jail/Steal a lot and they make you king.”

Form the very first day
We are taught to steal.
If it be our parents or teachers,
All those words we are taught,
Have been read or said before we conversed.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
Steal a lot and they make you king.

Duh. It’s his music. No one listens to Dylan’s lyrics. Smile

Plagiarism? What the hell are you talking about? It’s no folk stuff. It’s just what everibody does. You allways steal from what you know. Knovingly and unknowingly. That’s your database. Everibody reinterprets. That’s what people do. That’s what life is. That’s what dreams are. That’s what deja vus are…

Plagiarism? Oh please…grow up kiddies. Do any of you actually read poetry or, if not, listen to the blues perchance? A [tiny] little learning is a dangerous thing…btw a poet said that!

put the crack pipe down ConshoRocken.

it’s not just lyrics he steals. on his new album, the song “beyond the horizon” is note-for-note plagarism of “red sails in the sunet” right down the key changes. take this shoplifter to court.

Thunder Road. Robert Mitchum.

“I got troubles, I think maybe you got troubles,/I think maybe we’d better leave each other alone.”

– Bob Dylan, “Seeing The Real You at Last”

“Look, I’ve got troubles, and I think you’ve got troubles. Maybe it would be better if we leave each other alone.”

– Piper Laurie in “The Hustler”

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” - t.s. eliot, who fought with ezra pound in the captain’s tower…

I wonder what would be uncovered if every other artists’ lyrics were googled ad-nauseum?

I don’t think it counts as stealing if he uses a line from a book or a movie. I notice that no one ever accuses John Lennon of “stealing the lyrics” to “Tomorrow Never Knows” from Timothy Leary’s Tibetan Book of the Dead, even though most of the lyrics (if not all) are quoted from Leary.

Like that an old saying goes:
Good artists borrow, but great ones steal.

It has been pretty common throughout the history of folk music for musicians to adapt, borrow, or downright reuse melodies and lyrics. This includes Dylan, Pete Seeger, and just about everyone else. So this is not a crazy crime. What bothers me somewhat about “Modern Times” is that on tracks like “Someday Baby,” “Rollin’ and Tumblin,” “Nettie Moore,” and “When the Levee’s Gonna Break,” Dylan gives no credit to the (sometimes painfully) obvious sources. Simply an “all songs by Bob Dylan” is in the liner notes.

Putting new spins on old archteypes is the mark of a true genuis.

“I’m gonna spare the defeated, boys, I’m going to speak to the crowd
I am goin’ to teach peace to the conquered
I’m gonna tame the proud”
from Love and Theft’s Lonesome Day Blues is a direct quote from Allen Mandelbaum’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid

Shot a man named Grey
Took his wife to Italy
She inheret a million bucks
And when she die she says to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky
-Darius Rucker

Hey Greene call Oliver Stone.

he talks about belle star in tombstone blues too

Personally, I don’t think this has anything to do with Dylan being a genius or not. Nor is it in any way plagiarism. This is a very common practice among poets, and not only considered a very normal thing to do, but also a way in which to show great respect to your own influences.

For one we’ve “Reality Sandwiches,” Allen Ginsberg’s response of sorts to William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch.”

i don’t think bob is loosing any sleep over this. i believe he alludes to this in chronicles vol1

Some sources quotes in the Times article described this sort of thing as plagiarism. Which to me is ridiculous. He’s just picking up a phrase here and there and paraphrasing it in context with creating something new, which is really what all songwriters do. In fact it’s what anyone does who has ever said anything, ever.

For the record, I don’t think Chuck Berry’s publishers should have won that lawsuit over “Come Together”. Or the infamous George Harrison “My Sweet Lord” case, for that matter.

to me, this just proves dylans genius…take an established culture and spin it to your own desires