In the current Rolling Stone on stands now, Bob Dylan discusses his new album Together Through Life and American icons from Chuck Berry to Walt Whitman to Elvis Presley. Here Douglas Brinkley shares more of his conversations with America's greatest songwriter.
Do you think of yourself as a bandleader at all?
Ah, yeah... I do. Ideally, I probably would be by not writing music but writing the charts. I'd be writing the dynamics that are happening inside of the song. But without writing that down in a musical notation and being able to give it to say, an orchestrator. And so my songs could be played by an orchestra. With strings and horns and bassoons. And where those rhythms can be played by classical instruments. I could probably get my point across even better than I can now with just playing in a five-piece band. So, in my mind, whatever it is I'm doing, it's not really completely fully developed. Does that make sense to you? It's got potential to be developed. But as time goes on, nobody is notating my music properly. I used to think maybe 10 years ago that somebody should. That somebody would. We had some people come in and do it but back in those days, my electric guitar was dominating the rhythm section and I couldn't get my supporting players to understand what all the focus was on. And it took me a long time to find the right combination of guys. Not that I ever stopped working, I figured I'll just plow through the song and the right guys will appear sooner or later. Which is what happened. That's pretty much the story up to the present time.
My songs, from the beginning, were never like that. They weren't really a communal thing for people to bond over. They were more individualistic right from the start. But I always knew something was going to click. But I didn't know what it would be. So I stuck with it. You know, my health held up. And I was able to stick with it. And there was like a fierce wind that was pushing me, just to do this one thing like nobody had ever done it before. In jazz or classical music you have critics who understand the music. Like in modern jazz, I mean you'll read reviews of, you know, Charlie Mingus or Dizzy or somebody. The critical language is not a more conventional language. It's written for a music person to appreciate. Well pop music isn't written like that. Pop music seems to be right down there on the bottom of the street. It's almost worthless. The critics aren't necessarily good writers. They don't have to really take any type of college course in it because the songs themselves are really simple. And they have generations of musical idioms to look at. And... it's called popular music.
But you know Bob Willis? I saw a statement from Bob Wills one time and he said that, "Each aspect of pop music reflects on the other." And that, "Each aspect of popular music affects the other." He said the kind of music he played, which was called Western Swing music, was only in one area of popular music. He considered himself a popular music man. Just like the Memphis Jug Band, they thought they were playing popular music. They didn't have any skills I guess. I saw an interview once with Riley Puckett. He claimed they were playing popular music just like Bing Crosby singing it or Ella Fitzgerald or anybody. And I feel the same way. It's popular music. You can't break that. Some of it is stronger and harsher than others. But somebody I knew broke the pop music stereotype. That guy was Woody Guthrie. But his songs in one form or another are still popular music.
I would think doing 108 shows a year has helped create such a perfect sound. It must be keeping you alive. The lyrics to Together Through Life are survivalist road songs, really.
What happened there was I really had no plans to make any record, any new record from about '94, '92 or '94. I figured I'd go out on the road and I'd stick to performing. I'd figured that out, I'd gotten into what makes the road tick for me. So I figured I had, at that point, so many songs in my pocket, I didn't really want to write any new songs. I had songs of every type. And they all held up. But I was bored singing them a certain way. So I was already starting to break into the structure with my own guitar.
First thing I had to do was find a drummer. That was difficult. But I found a good bass player, Tony Garnier, and he stuck with me. Finding a drummer was difficult. And finding another guitar player or two was just almost impossible. And I'd experiment with other instruments. I just went through guys, ya know, until what I have as a band now is acceptable for the type of music we play in a good way.
But at a certain point I thought that even though I had made a vow to myself that I wouldn't record anymore, and records take a lot of time, and ya know, you don't just make them to make them. But you make them because you want people to hear the songs you need to play. Ya know, different songs. I had no real hunger to play any different songs. And, of course, that changed because I realized, "Why don't I just write some songs that are more into this new style of music that I'm playing?" Which my old songs weren't. I could force them there and they will work. But, ideally, maybe they weren't suited for what I now wanted to accomplish. So I started writing the Time Out of Mind songs. And we used most of those in that album. I thought, well, we did that! We'll do some more! That album's songs fit this particular style we're doing now. You never knew when you're writing them yourself. Or you'd only write them because you wanted to sing something new. Oftentimes it's because you were short or something for an album. We couldn't possibly play all the songs I've came up with in a week. Or in a month. There's just so many songs I have. Ya know, it's always hard now, trying to find places for them in concert, ensuring the older ones get played. But as far as going out on the road? I mean, that would probably be said by outsiders who aren't really preachers or musicians or entertainers of any kind of degree. Basically I'm like Chuck Berry or Little Richard when it comes to outsider stuff. So I reject that criticism that I'm performing too much.
People bring out books like the Encyclopedia of Dylan. There are people who consider themselves Dylan scholars or Dylanologists. Does it please you or does it seem strange for somebody to be microstudying you like that?
Nooo! It's outsiders, again. Anybody inside would know what it is that we do and what makes it tick. And you could write volumes on it. I could teach a course on it myself, on how to play this type of music. You know teaching enough young guys who want to play it. But you know, popular music. It doesn't attract people who are in it for the right reasons. They're not called to do it. It's not their destiny. They weren't born for it. ...But you know even then... aren't there thousands of books written on Shakespeare's works? And Shakespeare too? How many do you need to read? I'll tell you wouldn't you rather see a Shakespeare play than read a critical analysis on him? I know I would!
Do you get any time to sit in on concerts? Like would you go see someone like Leonard Cohen...
I know what Leonard does. I wouldn't need to go see him. I still go see plays. I go to the symphony because I'd be hearing threads and things that are new to me that maybe would influence me in some kind of way. ... I mean I would hear things harmonically that I might think, "Oh, well that's not such a bad idea" or maybe that kind of thing. But I wouldn't go see anybody.
Do you recall where you were at when Obama was elected? Did you feel part of that energy with the campaign? Do you feel like he's a good person?
Well I mean, how do you know? The people that are in history that I study up on are people like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Scipio, maybe George Washington, Lincoln, those kind of guys. And I don't know much about any of these other guys that run for office. It takes more than being a politician to be a leader. So I study leaders rather than politicians.
Obama's shown great potential as a leader.
Let's hope so. I mean he's inheriting that position at a very complicated time.
Are you recording all of your shows on good digital tape? Is each Bob Dylan show being recorded for posterity?
No. At a certain point we'll take songs into the studio and we'll do a television show. Television. [Laughs.] Like that still exists — with this band performing some kind of a repertoire of these particular songs. And they'll be recorded properly. The other [bootleg] recordings, they aren't recorded properly. You have no idea the stuff I deal with. Why are people compelled to think I'm just a public figure going around doing shows they think they can record what they want? You have to go deal with the people who are actually there from night to night. But most of those people aren't there to record or to take pictures. They're there for enjoyment reasons. They are a lot of people who are having a night out. If you're doing something else while we're playing [shakes head]. I say it's like going to a Shakespeare play and taking pictures. You're not going to feel the affect.
But can you ever say, "Oh, that show tonight I felt like I was in the zone"?
No. They're all in the zone. Because it's got nothing to do with how you feel. They're all in the zone. Every night is in the zone. Because it's mathematical. As long as you stick to the rules — the mathematical rules, there's no way you can miss.
I want to just follow-up on that globalization talk you had with Sarkozy [after his April 7th show in Paris].
Yeah, I ask him, I said, "With all these bailouts and stimulus packages, all these bailouts throughout the country. I'm just wondering whether globalism is dead in the tracks? Ya know, is it over?" He doesn't say yes, he didn't say no.
Bob, he is a politician...
Yeah!
But what intrigued me was you saying that we must get back to being the United States.
Oh, and he could get back to being France.
Boy, you're an individualist, aren't you? Does globalism therefore get oppressive to you? The global Internet? Global economics? Are you missing what some critics call the older, weirder America?
I never thought the older America was weird in any way whatsoever. Where do people come up with that stuff? To call it that? What's the old weird America? The depression? Or Teddy Roosevelt? What's old and weird? Well, musically, no. Musically we play a form of American music and that's not gonna go away. Whatever happens in the world won't affect that whatsoever. But you know globalism is, I would think, about getting rid of boundaries, nationalities. You're apart of one big world, no? It might take people awhile to get used to that. I don't like the trend.
You spent some time in New York rings over the decades. Do you ever get nostalgic being back in the Village? Or are you just doing your thing now so much you're not really looking back much.
Well I still find the old magic downtown. New York is New York. It's always got that vibrancy to it. But the old world? The one I found when I'd gotten there? That's pretty much gone. That's been gone for quite awhile and I wouldn't expect it to come back.
Read Douglas Brinkley's full feature "Bob Dylan's America" in the new issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands now.
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