A heads up for everyone. Ed Bradley will interview Bob Dylan On "60 Minutes" this Sunday, 12/05/04.

Thanks for the info! He's not interviewed much on tv so this ought to be interesting...

We have the OZ 60 mins here but sometimes they show stories from the U.S. version so I sure hope we get that one!!

well, it was typical Dylan on 60 Minutes. he always looks like there's a big cloud over his head. the problem with fame, etc.
got to see him in concert a few years ago in Asheville, NC. played a bunch of old tunes but the music was so different that i hardly recognized them. wearing a cowboy hat and western wear. looked very pale. good show. just wish i coulda seen him way back when.

But have you noticed that he seems more compliant about interviews since the book (Chronicles) has come out. I read the first chapter (at Amazon, I think). When I think about what he said on 60 Minutes, and how he said it, I think he may be trying to move into a new medium, using memiors as a way of fulfilling the need to express his creativity. The chapter seemed to me to have a Kerouac type of feel to it, unlike a lot of non-fiction that I've read. And it definitely has a strong point of view. As one review of the book pointed out, he reveals some interesting personal impressions(e.g., that some of his writing was done to get people to stop following him around like a messiah) while completely ignoring certain pivitol events (Kennedy's assassination) that occurred while he was the "voice of the generation."

I was kind of surprised by the "songs just came out by magic" comment and the reference to his "deal with {the devil}." Or was I misreading that statement?

For somebody who seemed to hate the limelight and being analyzed, both the book and that latter statement indicate a lot of ambition to me.

Anyway, if all he is trying to do is spur interest in his book, it worked for me. I think going back out "On the Road" is exactly what we need to do right now, cause it's seems like we've lost our soul over the last few decades. Maybe we need to use a different medium than music to find it now.

Sorry to ramble, but I found the interview, and the fact that it occurred, pretty interesting.

I think Bob was clear that his "deal" was with God and not the devil when he referenced the" master of this world and the next unseen world" to paraphrase from memory.

As far as his ambition, I think it took the form of what was he percieved was his destiny, a word he used alot, and his passion for what he does. If ambition can in fact take those forms. He also seemed to state to some extent that part of his gift was lost at this stage of his life, but that he could do other things.We all evolve, and our wells are finite.

So far as the distaste for the limelight, I think he was and is frustrated at how he was defined in terms other than his own by so many, as is probably the case with many people who have to deal with celebrity. Bob's case was perhaps taken to an extreme when he was deified by so many. I can't imagine having to deal with that.

...that's what i thought, Larry......Dylan was referring to God or a higher being....i remember the phrase master of the universe....and at one point he said his bargain with himself......
.....i'm not a big Dylan fan....since his first two albums, anyway.....back then he blew me away......but then he started to seem too mainstream.....and i wasn't crazy about mainstreams of any kind......
i really think he wrote and writes some great stuff though....

..so i watched the interview.....i felt kind of bad for him....he seemed so sad, depressed really......thought it was so interesting that he referred to his music as coming from that great creative place(i thought of arlo's old story about having the pencil when the song comes by, or sitting downstream from Bob:)....almost puzzled as to how he had done that......makes sense to me...but i wondered if it really does make sense to him......or rather did he feel he had to give his life to it....a kind of destiny......and give up alot for it.....
...he wouldn't be the first or last........

....joy, humor, pleasure don't seem to be in his nature, at least what he shows....how tough that must be.....

Yeah, Larry, I know what you mean by "his passion for what he does." Another thing that struck me in the sample chapter was a statement he made about watching other people in the Village who seemed to focus on their own persona. For him it was always the song. But, whether God or the devil, the idea that he was actively seeking to achieve some sort of status in the folk music world seems to me to be anathema to his strong dislike of celebrity.

But, as kj points out, his story forms a kind of tradgedy, when you note how unhappy he seems. I wonder if the unhappiness is more due to the fact that, after achieving the level of influence that he had in the early sixties, it was not what he expected, or if it is because he feels that he no longer has the ability to achieve that level now. To me just becoming more accessible may be a sign of the latter. That gives me a bit of hope, because the influential progressive poets have been silent for so long during a period of such madness, that any indication that they are waking up and going to try to inspire the society back into action. Maybe it's just some weird paranoia I have, but I have been shocked with the way that things have been going since the 80's. I just keep thinking of the Springsteen line from Jungleland. The idea of us in another perpetual war in Iraq,... I guess I should adopt the theme Arlo had last night night at the concert; In a world like the one we're in, it takes so little to have a positive impact.

But for quite some time it seems to me that the world really needs another Woody Guthrie. I was always under the impression that that was what Dylan set out to become.

Again, sorry for my rambling. It's a topic that I like to blather on about. (Instead of doing anything about it; Those who can, do, Those who can't teach. And those who can't o anything write unforgivably long posts to email groups.

Mark[/quote]

a lot of good thoughts.
i know something about that place where creativity comes from. it's a well that's always there waiting for the moment when your brain is calm enough to listen to it.
and "selling his soul" was a poetic intention, it seems to me. that WAS the problem with his fame. people kept reading more into his stuff than was there. i'm reminded of John Sargeant Singer, painter, who had a bevy of "groupy" rich women trying to find the depths of his soul when there wasn't one to be found. we like our leaders, to death.
i wish going out on the road was as easy (or impetuous) as it used to be. i was good on the road. it was like real life. maybe the life of our former selves, the nomads. being closeted in a house with stuff feels kind of lost.
anyway, good to see Dylan.

gail.

That quote was from Gail. (I don't know how to change the label of this quote thing in the reply editor.)

That's an interesting comment too, Gail. I'm not really looking for Dylan's soul, but, sometimes, when listening to something like "Forever Young," I can sense my own. And, to me, if Singer helped his bevy find their souls, then he did not defraud them. But even closeted in a house, we are all on our separate journeys to Ithaca (I could never get past modernist sentiment.) And I need a little (a lot of?) inspiration nowadays to try to accomplish anything not unbecoming people who strove with Gods. Aside from a few selected moments, that inspiration is not forthcoming. I kind of feel like, post 9/11, we need another Lincoln or Jefferson to help us determine who we are before we just run out and start killing people randomly (or even selectively) out of shear frustration. Dylan helped with some of that introspection in the 60's. I'd welcome anybody who can help us with it today, even Dylan Redux(the Artist formerly known as Dylan,...). Arlo only makes it out this way about twice a year. That leaves a lot of space in between. And inside that closet, it seems hard to believe Woody's claim that. "it's really OUR world," in any substantial way, except that, based upon the junk that continues to increase on the floor and shelves, I seem to be aquiring all of it . It's going to take some convincing to give up all that junk and go out on the road again. Seems like most people are telling me the patriotic thing to do is to go out and get some more junk.

I do concur with you, Gail, that it's probably never a good idea to go out in search of somebody else's soul. I also, however, agree with Mark Twain's interpretation of the Christian ethic that, "nothing needs reforming so much as other people's habits," and I just need some help with changing those.

Mark

I don't think he thought about or cared where it came from. It just came and he wrote it down!

I can take Dylan saying he is not a prophet - that he was not the Voice of a Generation - not a savior - but it just breaks my heart that he does not know anything about organic farming - that was really a disappointment

yours truly
Hollis Brown

funny, Hollis.

and Mark, it's always easier to clean someone else's house. the trick to cleaning your own is to pretend it's someone else's. not an easy trick. i hardly ever accomplish it.

the reason i miss being on the road is because life was so simplified then. i imagine it's why a good many of our folksingers stay out there. in the house, the "journey" gets too complex. our poets and lyricists can oversee a lot of things by traveling, and then point them out to us.

i don't think it's a huge mystery, this business about who we are. we are greedy. we are children with way too many toys. we are neglecting our responsibilities to our world. we are trying to pretend we are better than "they" are. we never are.
and we are protected. we look at pictures of misery in the world and don't really see it. it's too big. too awful. too expensive. too far away.

we have big egos and low self esteem. makes for really bad tv.

and now we are old. we think we can still be hip. we're not. but it doesn't matter. would Arlo stop playing if he didn't have an audience? i doubt it. our being an audience is for our benefit, not his.
i like this quote: "nothing needs reforming so much as other people's habits". Mark Twain was brilliant. have you read "Letter From Earth"?

i think Dylan doesn't like to smile. he must think he looks goofy or something if he smiles. some people are like that. but he just makes me want to shake him out of his sad face.

gail - being too pendantic.

He smiled more often when he was young!

I think that may have been the reefer?