Transcription
[Music] Love and theft sounds like a return to the allegorical material, if you soak around the time or time out of mind. No, I haven't seen the lyric sheets, but you see that's a bad assumption. Um, pretty fair. Did you explain the title to us, please? The word, the title of the album. Eleven fair, explain it. Yeah, or what could you—is it, does it refer to one of the songs, uh, or to the general atmosphere? Probably. Yeah. Can I rephrase it? Sure. Love and theft are synonymous, or are they? What? Synonymous or opposite? Counts consonants are the names. [Music] Uh, I don't think there is opposite ends of of [Music] For me, they are the same. Yeah, exactly. There's still something, for example, exactly. That's just—this is what I said. Would you say they go hand in hand? Exactly. [Music] Like fingers in the glove. Yeah, yeah. How do you enjoy to be in Rome? Oh, yeah, often here, you know, pretty regular, huh? You write the song quite a few. I've been my masterpiece. Exactly. You speak exactly. This is it. I remember this time, then the steps. Yeah, huh. Spanish steps. Yeah, yeah. What's it doing? Would you say this is the the first record of yours that you that people can dance to? I mean, this is—we've listened to it now all morning, and you've been dancing all morning to me. Yeah. Was it one of the intentions to make it swing? And I'm like [Music] No. Um, I can't say that. No, but but you seem to have a return to the music of your youth, the 40s and the 50s, the western swing, the rockabillys, the rockefeller, and these things, and those are uh forms that obviously has not utilized before. Was this a conscious attempt? Many, no. Um, almost the songs have, you know, some traditional roots to them, if not all of them.
Um, since there's no producer credit, uh, was it an album you produced with the band in the studio, or are you the producer? Well, exactly. Yeah. Um, oh, it's some of my favorite—he's one of my favorite um performers, or Robert Johnson, of the old newspaper referring to him as well. Do you think that these guys have too little respect in American cultural history? Um, maybe 30 years ago, but um it wasn't their Robert Johnson record um came out a few years ago that um, you know, uh displayed his music to quite a few people who maybe weren't aware of it. I've heard when I first heard him, I was given that record before it was even released by uh uh the man who kind of discovered me at the rec company, uh John Hammond, who gave me that record before was even released, and no one had heard Robert Johnson then outside of maybe a dozen people in all of America. Early 60s, about 1961, they were um about to release it. Was it a shock to hear that voice? No one had heard him—the people that only heard the uh the the records that were reissued on uh um labels uh rural labels at that time, and you could find a song by this person or that person on all the different records, which were actually weren't that many, but um I think this was the first record where all everything was by one singular performer, which had taken years and years to put that together. He seems to be a very happy record, huh? He seems to be a very happy wife—the Robert Johnson, my record. Oh, um, love and theft. Exactly. A lot of the music seems like good time music—from good time music. Well, three or four tunes are more or less like swing. Well, the lyrics are are very hard. Yeah. Um, producers, you know, when when you're working with a producer, they can take you this way or that way on a particular song if you're not determined that it should go a certain way, and and um [Music] in many many cases, a lot of my records have been compromised in that way. Which one would you think most of them? Um, when we play live, you know, on the stage, people would say, "Oh, the song doesn't sound like like it did on the record," or if it doesn't go that particular way. Well, of course not, you know, because that way it was never the way it should be uh really perceived anyway. So is this the first real deal without any—excuse me, is a health—do your Dylan recommend without any? Oh, no, no. I I produced—I mean, I wouldn't call myself a record producer, but but if if you have a singular vision, there's nothing really a producer can can do to—well, I don't know about this audio part of it, but as far as all the arrangements go, yeah. Did you did you catch the songs at a certain point in their history, and did the do the arrangements still vary and evolve, and does this record document a certain moment in these songs and their lifetime? No, no. I I th these songs really—we weren't written um when we recorded them. They were written earlier, so I had the idea in my mind for months and months before before uh you know everything was pretty set.
I noticed your voice sounds much darker than the last record. Excuse me, your voice sounds much darker and lighter. Well, if um in my case, either you can um um [Music] I've never been recorded that that properly for—excuse me. Well, usually when it comes to me, uh whoever is operating in controls is just thinking, "Well, this is a Bob Dylan record, this is about Dylan's song," so they're not really thinking about um what I particularly sound like, and and uh one one person who was working with me earlier on did a whole entire record with me and then realized that he used the wrong mics on me, and and for a variety of reasons, um a great one would be that my vocal range would fall into the exact line of um of an another instrument that would be comp playing on every song, and you know, so there's a pres a presence uh tug of war there. But do you think it's hard to record your voice? I don't think so, and I really don't know. And on this particular record, we had a a young guy who who who understood how to how to do it. I don't think anybody really has got understood how how uh how to record me, which is no fault of theirs really, but uh um [Music] and then the last uh what was the last uh record we put out, they—I think of our voice—my vocal uh [Music] track was tricked up, you know, with effects, and you know, that put on after and and to make it more—to make it sound like I actually did sound. Did you say that? Well, you know, they take highs and they take lows off, and my particular vocal range just goes—yeah, it subverts the system, and and it always has, actually. I don't know why that are working for you are also kind of prisoners of the villain. Exactly right. Yeah. I find that to be an unbearable problem when sometimes uh people you you know you can feel they're uncomfortable. Do you think there's a very set standard of recording uh preconceptions about what voices should sound like? Sure. Your voice and Leonard Cohen's voice and the Lou Reed's are not the way voices should be. Well, I don't know about uh Lou and Leonard's, but I think Leonard's would that be a little bit more understandable to somebody because where his vocal range is like, you know, slow down so that you can only do so much with it anyway. Lou um sort of talks and sings at the same time, and and you know I don't really think that would present a problem for anybody who's recording, but it's not what you consider—would you consider normally a good singer, a crooner or something like that, the three of you? Well, I really don't know, but but uh uh I've said it before that that the best way to record me or even deal with what I do is as a more antiquated system. Uh I I was better served by that system where, you know, rather than stereo, mono, you know, whether you know it's uh it's analog or or stereophonic or whatever. I'm sorry, the simpler way, better. You certainly seem to stretch yourself, and like it sounds like "Poor Boy," we sort of go, you know, it's high notes, and it kind of—it's kind of unexpected of you to uh you know that chorus when you go really high, sort of jazz inflection. Do you know what I'm telling you? I do know what you're talking about, but uh um that song sort of plays itself. I mean, I I have to sing that way on that particular song uh because uh that's that's a song that can exist without any uh lyric [Music] It exists just on chord structures uh and uh with with no instrumentation except maybe a minimalistic guitar playing it, and the lyrics are just trying to stay in the path and you know and not um you know not to lay too much emotional um rhetoric here or there, but as far as how to sing that, you have to sing it that way. I mean, it's just not going to come off, you know.
Do you think the success of the *Time Out of Mind* album in this sort of way, in a way reflected the way you did this album? I haven't listened to that *Time Out of Mind* for for for a a long long time. I I very rarely listen to the records that I make. More like you you said around that time that you got used to being slagged off your records and your consciousness. I don't know what I said at that time, but you could really uh don't pay any attention to what I'm gonna, you know, I mean, why would you—something you wrote five years ago? I mean, should we pay attention to that [Music] To have a success like that, does it change your sense of confidence in what you do, or do you just keep on doing what you would have done? No, I would just do it. Yeah. I mean, I'm fortunate that I'd have I have an audience, you know. I don't know if I'd do it if I didn't have an audience. Then the audience is growing, it seems like. This doesn't wonder that after all this year. Well, people of my uh uh the age equation um they either they either die or they uh fade away or they they get um well, some do, but but not very many, because uh they you know in a certain time person's life they start to have families and you know and have different priorities rather than light entertainment, which is basically—I don't consider myself in lighter entertainment, but I I have I'm dealing in the light entertainment um uh arena. I don't think so. Now listen to the record—the impression this is very fresh sound. I mean, that—listen, the record that was imagined to the public like you were playing for the public, that's what the intention was. Yeah. This is this is not a record for me. I mean, if I wanted to make a record for me, I'd record Charlie Patton's songs. [Music] Excuse me, is this is this your the version of the blues albums that you uh that you published in the beginning? No, I just use blues formats or or [Music] or um either 12-bar formats that are altered somewhat or um or Elizabethan ballads that are deconstructed. Um I I I just use those as forms. It seems—it seems like um this is the record that—it's a record that has influences from all the roots—American roots music—western swing, you know, jazz, blues, but it the smallest part of influence from rich music is folk music. It seems to me like it's after doing *Well Gone Wrong* and uh *Good as I Been to You*, which are the deepest folk records you've done since, you know, '62. Well, what you call folk music is really is really fundamentally there at the uh you know on the uh on the on the ground level really. Um, yeah, I'll talk more about the range, but the arrangement is going—the arrangements are are as—it's just they're as tight as can be. Yeah, you know, and that's uh and I that was all done intentionally. There really isn't any superfluous uh playing on it, and and and actually I wanted to accomplish that. You know, who else is on this record from your lifetime? Excuse me, who else? I have to look at the labels that tell you. I mean, my memories says—yeah, it's a little froggy. You're still saying about the American rural [Music] Is it possible to recreate the fear that was in that old blues? I don't think so. I don't think so. Um I I think whatever time uh whatever whatever time you're born and raised in and uh has a tremendous influence on um you know on whatever your personal and private life is, and um it's it's not not the same uh these days as we can look in books of historical value and see it was just a different world—a place to fear. Oh, yeah, fear everywhere. Absolutely. Yeah, but I don't know if it's ever been any different, but there's a lot more—there's a lot more of what you say—probably—there's a lot more of what you say fear is that what you say or misunder misunderstanding. [Music] Well, I don't think we're buying fear—fear doesn't really buy it too much. Does that have anything to do with something which I believe you have said that the songs don't have any genetic history? Don't you think they have a genetic history? Don't you feed on what you have wrote and otherwise written before you, too—that genetic code that goes on from generation to generation? Possibly, but but but I mean you still can't you still can't get around the fact that uh a square equals b square equals c squared, so you know—well, what are we talking about? Yeah, but she was son off and the great son of a grand grand grandson of many writers and of your own past history as a songwriter. Don't all the songs in a way descend from the the previous ones? Oh, um, or is that all [ __ ]? Yeah, it is completely. Yeah, you—if you check out if you check out all all the lineage of of my records um there were, you know, a lot of performers who repeat themselves, and then it was fine, but uh I don't really feel that that's something that um I need to do really. Do you ever find that you are writing songs that you have written before? No, I never do that. That's not what I meant. I mean, isn't there some sort of lineage between the Bob Dylan of uh the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and the 90s and nowadays? It's all interrupted—maybe biologically speaking, but I think so. The process—I use so many processes that you know I can't really just say I've discovered any any any new way you wrote in the 60s. No. Well, you know, I I you know just take notes—jock down this—if I think of something, I put it down. If I find it later, I'll think, you know, put a melody to it, or it's it's it's a lot a lot of different ways. You said these songs on *Love and Theft* are more free association in their imagery and um and in the way they associate with the music as opposed to maybe *Welcome By the* um the last album, were they—the songs are maybe more about the subject, or would you would you say the subject was the chicken and the egg—subject or the words was the subject? Am I an idiot, or I mean, am I not understanding? Is this something I should concentrate on? My point is uh it's from what I've heard of the record, it seems like the the images associated with one another and flow in a natural way rather than the songs being about something specifically and you know describing a feeling. My avenue of approach on on on on all of it is is is to just allow it to be to happen, and if if and reject what what doesn't seem to fit. I mean, if that makes sense to you—writing process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm learning the song writing process is is a small process of of performing as it happens to be. I I write the songs or do the process of live concerts. How has that changed over the years? I'm told that you only recently started to use set lists, for instance. Use set lists. Set list—um I don't know—you mean a list of songs? A list of songs? Uh well uh uh we can use a set list or or we—I maybe we don't need one. I know—I guess I don't know how the process on how you go about concepts have that changed over the years. Uh I don't think so. When you go on stage, how much do you know what is going to happen? Pretty much uh pretty much all of it. Um I usually play to the people in the back. I disregard the people in the front, because usually these people have come to quite a few shows, they're going to be there anyway, and they're going to they're they're they're going to like what they hear one way or another, so we're not trying to reach them, we're trying to reach the people in the back who who might not have been there ever before. No, we don't think about these people because they're always there. We also—we think about the people we've never seen. Do you feel annoyed by those? No, no. I mean, they're they're they uh that's you know they they're there um um probably a lot more than you used to. Between '66 and '70, you're hardly playing at all, are you? Are you happier on stage now than you were back then? Do you like the audience more now than you like the audience right now? Uh well uh back then I assume you you talk about when people were um either uh reacting in a in a kind of a negative way to either what—is it playing electric or—no, I don't think that necessarily, but quite the opposite—they were acting in a messianic kind of way in some ways. So I'm saying now if they go along and seek out and see some music and you get up and running—oh, I mean, I wouldn't know what—oh, I wouldn't know. Um people are people—really the audience is used to playing—I don't know. I mean, you know, it's really all the same. You know, what was the reason of these many shows? What was the reason why you play live so much these days? I don't think I play a lot. I may play more than someone you're accustomed to uh seeing and hearing who might release a record every uh a certain amount of time and then do a a you know big big tour. Um maybe when you add it all up, we play more shows than that, but I'm sure there's people in Europe, in England, or I know there are in America who play far more than me. You wrote these liner notes uh in *World Gone Wrong* about the don't be uh fooled by this never-ending tour business. Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, that's uh you know I I don't know—it seems to—it seems to like—I think titles belittle what what whatever it is, you know, you're a person is trying to do, and uh um you know that's that kind of like irritated me hearing hearing uh what I do referred to as that as if it's an—I mean, of course everything's gonna end, you know. There seems to be a line as far as I like—why unders—people think I've been doing it in every tour. I mean, it's it's undoubtedly going to end, you know, I mean, but what what uh ties us all together really—well, the one basic characteristics of all of us is mortality, and nothing else really makes it similar to each other. Do you reflect upon this? Um, I wouldn't say a lot, but uh you know, maybe when people close to you um get put in the ground, you kind of—what about your own mortality? Well, I mean, I can see myself in others, you know, so that's that's the way I would think about it, you know, I mean, I wouldn't think about any more than you would think about yours. I mean, as soon as a person enters the world, they're old enough to leave it. What I mean—what I mean is uh the fact that the people you like and are friends of yours are going to die hurts you, and your own mortality hurts the others. Exactly. I don't mean to cry, but there's two songs in which the narrator um refers to uh there's "Lonesome Tables," which when the character says, "I wish my mother was still alive," and there's uh "Poor Boy," when the character goes, "My mother died." Was that inspired by your personal um? Oh, probably. Well, you know, I wouldn't know—I wouldn't say—yeah, I mean, I don't see how it could be right. You didn't block it, or you didn't—you didn't consciously put it into—some of these lyrics are written like with an extreme stream of consciousness kind of thing, you know, I mean, it's like uh I don't sit there and dwell on her or meditate on on each each line. Do you fear analysis from other people? Is that something that you sort of dread? No, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm not really uh you know I don't know what anybody can find in in any of my stuff. I mean, you know, I don't know—analysis of what—a Freudian analysis you mean, or German idealism, or or or maybe a Freudian Marxist? I don't know. Do you what—Portuguese interpretation? Exactly. Portuguese implication. I like that. I'm going to say—invited by the firm—the future for me is already a thing of the past. I say that for everyone. I say that for everyone. I'm a spokesman for a generation. I say that for everyone—for us all—all of us—everyone. Comfortable which you have been in—people look up to you, and they want to know what you think about general topics and stuff like this every so often when you are on stage and play really old songs. Yeah, what kind is that—more an abstract relationship to your own songs, like like written by someone? Well, I'm glad I wrote that. I'm glad I wrote it, and I'm glad I have that song to sing, because uh he's still in a way um phenomenal performer. Um there is like there is some kind of footage of him—a movie footage of him singing—and um and it stands up there with uh you know Charlie Parker, Hank Williams, or or anybody of that high altitude. Generally to your older songs that it's so far away—that's more playground? No, that's why, you know, my songs are all singable. They're they're they're they're current. I mean, something doesn't have to be in you know just to drop by the sky yesterday to be current. Um th this is the Iron Age, you know. We're living in the Iron Age, but but you know the—what was the last age? The Age of uh Bronze or something? You know, like we're we're still uh we can still feel that age. I mean, if you walk around in this city, you know, you people today can't build what you see out there, but but at least you know when you walk around in town like this, you know you know that people were here before you, and they were probably on a much higher grander level than any of us are. I mean, it would just have to be—we couldn't conceive of building these kind of things. America doesn't really have stuff like this, you know. You read history books? Are you interested in that? Not any more than than—not—nothing more than just be natural to do. I was thinking about asking you a question about *Precisely Wrong*, because in a an old song of yours you had the language you said, "Inside the museum's history goes up on trial." Uh, how does it feel to be here inside museums? Is it history? It's freaking a sing and song. "Inside the museum's history goes up on trial." No, no, so correctly—I'm trying to—it's your fault. "Inside museums," not "control me." I don't think that's right. I don't I don't think it's right. But does it—so what's it—I'm trying to think—"Inside of the museum." Yeah, no, I know where it's from—"Tie the museums." No, it's not that. No, it's not. Is it—where's the "salvation" line? I don't know—"foundation"—you're the writer. No, no, but what I meant is uh even if that's not the right quotation, it doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound right when you say it—"Inside the museum"—is it right? It could be about—I don't—I'm not willing to say—you are not—not quite yet—"watching your salvation goes up on trial," isn't it? I think so—"salvation"—salvation is up on trial—salvation.
Maybe it's right. No, no. I'll tell you what. Why don't we take a break for a few minutes? Everyone can debate, and then we go look in the book about 10 minutes. Okay, gentlemen.
All right, let's start. It's time to start. I was wondering if, um, in the last few years, the few years that I've seen you play in Paris, obviously, um, the look of the band has evolved to sort of—I don't know if it's Tony Garnier's influence—but, uh, you know, from uh, it, it, you've become this sort of, you know, drifting cowboy sort, what, wheels and the Texas Playboy's outfits, you know, the hats and the suits and the mustaches and everything. Was it just a gradual sort of like common choice, or did you did you just say, "Hey, boys, let's dress up now?"
Well, we kind of dress like people where where we're from.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's I don't know. I'm not really that that, you know, we don't it's not a fashionable statement of any kind. I, I don't, I'm not aware that it is.
It's your 60th birthday recently, and all the magazines celebrated it.
Yes. Did you celebrate it?
Me? It's an unusual way. Yeah. You know, blow out some candles and what's important. Yeah, mostly just family people.
Yeah. Are you younger than that now?
Sure hope so. Yeah. That's the way, that's the song, that's correct.
Wow, you got that right. Yeah, that's right. Does the amount, the level of celebration around such an event, does that bother you?
No. All these prizes you never win before now, also. I know, I know I'm winning a lot of stuff. Um, yeah, sounds funny, isn't it? I think the captain up on wasted time. I don't know. We didn't give them nothing for all these years. It's just maybe there's an element of that in it. I wouldn't know.
What is it about being nominated? Yeah, I hear about that, but uh, who would that put me in the company of? I don't, I'm not sure. Oh, anyway, I don't really think, uh, I think all those guys that want to write like Hemingway write for Time magazine, and don't they? The Hemingway is this, huh? I'm not sure that I really belong in that category of people, because you know I play—that's difficult to say. You know, it's all really pretty relative.
You mentioned that the producers are kind of prisoners of the book villain. How about yourself, having done so many things, being a legend or whatever, how does it affect your—
Not well. 95% of the time it doesn't affect my life whatsoever. The other part, I mean, uh, you just, we, we who are, you know, get involved in fame, we just have to learn to deal with it every any kind of way we can.
What kind of strategies are there?
I don't have any strategy for it. I usually try to be as polite as possible.
Do you sometimes wonder why me?
Not at this point. I, I know what it is I've done to, you know, to be so famous. So in one of your last conversations with them in Ginsberg, you said the thing had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. My question is, what would you substitute your pain for? What would you substitute fame with? I mean, if you didn't, if you weren't that famous, you couldn't do the ever-never-ending tour and do the elves you wanted to, the way you wanted to, so forth. I mean, they must have some advantages. That probably has quite a few, um, you know, um, I, I don't, I, I, I really don't do that, uh, traveling that world of the rich and famous though. So, uh, I don't really feel I'm part of that culture in any way.
Do you find it hard to go to places where you're not being recognized everywhere?
Well, just at this point, I'm recognized just about everywhere, everywhere. So when was the last time? I don't even remember.
Do you feel that, um, the work you've done, was it being poetry or singing or the combination of both, that you've arrived at a certain time that, um, in American history perhaps, um, where you've been allowed to to achieve great fame and a certain degree of fortune, um, would you consider, do you consider this lucky compared to doing the same work but, you know, maybe 30 years before you'd have been an obscure artist? Do you think that the same work that you that you do, um, gaining this great, great exposure through uh, the time that you arrived in, was it, is it a benediction? Is it good? I mean, that you, uh, you expect your work was exposed so broadly?
Do you know, um, sort of, um, uh, I didn't really choose to do what it is you see me doing. I mean, it chose me. If I had anything to do that, I'd have been something different, maybe, you know, a scientist, an engineer, doctor, or somebody who, you know, those are the people I, I look up to. I don't really look up to entertainers at all. They don't have any meaning for me one way or another.
You must have ambition in the beginning, ambition to do something. You said music chokes you. You also chose music in that way, maybe?
Yeah, it shows me that's definitely nothing. Well, I said it, you know, my, that's that was what I did. Yeah. In one of the lines you obviously say that I've been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down. Is that the theme for you still? That's the only line that you remember. [Music] That's that's it, that's it, that's the theme. Well, everybody wants to know what was in the suitcase, or where I sat it down. I don't know. Yeah. Excuse me. Um, do you feel good the present time or you miss something from the past?
This? Oh, there must be something, you know. I think I miss plenty, but uh, you know, I'm not really a very uh, nostalgic person, so I don't really yearn for things like that from the past.
Do you have fun?
I'm having fun. Do I have fun? Yeah. Like what fun? What fun? What, what is fun? But like, like enjoy life, kick a football, or what is fun? To enjoy life? I'm here. I mean, what choice do—is there any choice? I mean, people have killed themselves.
Yeah, yeah. You're sure. But not, not on their own accord. That's, that's might be half the discussion.
Did you enjoy the Oscar celebration? Wasn't that something?
I wasn't there. I don't know. How could you have ever—
Do you agree that at some point you reflected your times?
It's been said many times. I think I always do. I don't think I could uh, reflect any other period of time than the time I find myself in.
Do you try to reflect or react upon the time that you live?
Probably the latter, reacted, the the latter one, maybe a bit of both. I don't really know.
Imagine yourself being a newcomer nowadays. Do you have any chance?
Me as a newcomer? I think so. Because uh, if you have the ability and the knowledge and the, you know, and the strengths to do it, you know, that's all you really need. And I think I know more about what I'm doing now than than I ever—I know I could find a place if that's what I wanted to do, but I don't think I want to do it. If I come out now, like I said, I'd do something else.
I didn't surprise a lot of people to see you as part of a band like that, really.
Yeah. It surprised me. Me too.
Do you feel that you're part of a band now, that the the whole crowd of guys that you that you play with—it seems there's a good unity, at least when I saw you on stage. There's a good sort of band atmosphere rather than Bob Dylan with his backup, you know, musicians?
Maybe that's due to—well, I always try to have a current band of current performers with uh, you know, the ability to play this music. Uh, you never know how long you can keep a band together or when a band will will change one individual to another. I mean, those things unforeseen, you know, but th this particular, you know, group is, you know, pretty competent, on can go a lot of different ways musically.
How—I don't really know. I mean, until uh, one day I just might have had it, you know.
Good. I don't know. I, I can't say when the crowds dwindle down, because the crowds uh, aren't dwindling down, um, but I may just one day have had enough. Uh, well, it's fictitious energy. It's a it's a fictional thing. I mean, um, it's uh, once you set up certain, you know, like like anybody who knows how to do anything or who learns how to do it over a period of time, there's certain strategies, stratagems, uh, codes, uh, techniques, um, that all go, go gotta play in a certain way. So once you can set these things up uh, and you know how to do them, then then the um uh energy and any motion whatever it seems like is happening, uh, it's just a combination that that happens in a kind of in a combustible way, uh, but as far as energy goes, it doesn't take any that the type of energy you're talking about, that it's not that kind of energy is being used.
Do you feel like you're still getting better?
Um, I feel I could get better, uh, um, if, if you know, if I if I if I really put my mind to it. And I think, for instance, you sing one, you might be the best time I've heard from you.
Well, it may be, but I don't think I'm singing any better on it than than I than I have in the past. I mean, it might be uh, perceived or recorded, you know, in a in a in a better way, both as well documented changes in your life, perceived or otherwise, it's real or not.
One end of part one for a lot of people was so after a lot of time on stage and after bringing it all back home, I was 61 and blonde and blonde. You had a motorbike accident, whether it was as exaggerated or as real as you might think it had to be. Did that allow you to change and be different or be yourself and not be on the treadmill, or did it make you not be able to treat them? And what was the question?
The question basically is, when John Wesley Harding came out a few years later, people said this is a different thing, there's a ton of love and peace of settings. Did that allow the motorbike accident to sort of change, or did it change it? Did it change you? Like around the same time George Harrison was flying back from the Candlestick Park and said, "I'm never playing with the Beatles again. This is just madness. I can't hear anything on stage. I don't know what the speakers are doing." I never did play again. Got off the treadmill. I thought was that a conscious decision, and you kind of used the motorbike—guess it really wasn't bad as well.
Um, it's difficult for me to pinpoint any any time where I made any conscious decision to do this or or that, um, but obviously, I mean, uh, um, that period of time you're talking about, uh, I just didn't feel like going out and play. I, I didn't feel like I was part of that culture.
When you said earlier you don't necessarily look up to celebrities or people who are currently in the business or whatever, you dig it on very well Bonham in the early 1980s. Did you tell him that because of what you knew and Greenwich Village say from Brandon B and Tommy making the chances maybe you should be looking back at that kind of music, because obviously in his blood?
Um, I, I could have, I don't remember verbatim or time and place or, but I mean, if, if I'm being held responsible for telling him that, uh, I, I, I don't really know that I could deny that.
Do you look for inspirational poetry still? Do you, are you still legally looking for poets that you may not have heard of or read yet, um, or do you go back to the ones that have influenced you, like maybe Rambo's? Um, you know, I, I don't really study the poetry, new writers. Well, yeah, but I just don't think there are any uh, uh, uh, because we're living in a different time. The media is, is, is, is all-pervasive. What can a writer think of to write that you don't see every day, you know, in in a newspaper or on television or, huh? There are emotions that need to be expressed. Yeah, but um, but, but, but the media is moving people's emotions anyway, uh, it's, you know, when these guys you're talking about, when Ron Beau is writing or William Blake or or, you know, or or Shelley or Byron or any of those people, there probably wasn't any media, just bulletins and that you could feel free, you know, to to, um, you know, put down anything, you know, that came to that came into your mind.
You feel free when you were you're right?
Well, like I say, I don't particularly sit down and write. I, I, I it's my my lines go into songs, and they have a certain structure, and um, they have to conform to a certain idiom, um, and and they're they're not free form, and uh, and there there's no point to trying to throw in uh, some ideological uh type of thing to uh—well, you can't do it in a song. A song cannot do it. I've done it, if I did it, I did a de facto, you know, um, but but I've never intentionally started out to, you know, with that in mind. I mean, I never have. Maybe some others have, but I haven't.
But do you think that TV and the media have killed poetry and literature because—
Oh, absolutely.
You think so?
Absolutely. Because, no, because even if even literature is written for an audience, you know, it's not written—one man doesn't sit down and everybody's in a Kafka sit down and write something, you know, that should never be seen by—you don't want anybody to see, you know. Most people sit down, they want people to see it. They want people to read it, you know. They would, they want a person's reaction. They want to some type of acceptance. But if all writers have wanted that—
Yeah, of course. But the media is doing that for everybody now. They're, they're in movies and uh, uh, TV and uh, I mean, you can't see any more horrific things than you see on the media, especially in the news. I'm just talking about the news department, which which which is showing people absolutely everything they've ever even dreamed about, you know, the the uh, even thoughts that they might think and suppress for, you know, forever, they'll see it in in the media, so they can't, you can't suppress those things anymore. What's a writer to do if if every idea is is exposed in the media before he can get to it or let it evolve? What's the writer going to write about? In the underlying notes to—um—um, well gone wrong, you were talking about, uh, I'll show you the real alternative lifestyle, the agrarian one. Do you think—
Yeah, that's one of the solutions perhaps.
Well, I think so, uh, but it's quite difficult with uh, you know, corporate corporate entities paying, you know, farmers not to grow things, uh, it becomes a problem.
Is that one of the issues that still means—is that one of the issues that still move you enough to—
Well, yeah, I'm, I'm partial to the land, so you know, I kind of, you know, I—well, the Stone Age, they put it that way. Yeah, we've got what—we talked about these ages before, the Golden Age, which was, you know, the I guess the age of Homer, and then they got the Silver Age, then you got the uh, Bronze Age. I think you have a heroic age someplace in there, and then you got what we're living in where people call the Iron Age, but it could really be the Stone Age. We could be living in the Stone Ages.
Exactly. Did you check out the internet, Silicon Valley?
Huh? Do I go on the internet? I'm afraid to go on the internet. I'm afraid somebody's gonna, some pervert's gonna lure me somewhere.
Basically, love and religion and, you know, the basic emotional uh, feelings that humans um, have are the same since the Romans or since the Egyptians, pretty much. People look for the same thing. People look for a connection to another human being, probably. But everybody knew their role in their place. Their class system was different than a Roman age plus, you know, you could—I don't know, I wasn't there. [Laughter]
Because you weren't there with me. If the Bible is right, the world would explode. You thinking things have changed then? People are crazy and times are strange. Is this a particularly bad time we're living in? I mean, decided being the Stone Age—I, I don't know. Anyone's badass. I don't know. I mean, who knows?
Do you go to religion for comfort? Do you go to some sort of meditative state?
Well, I try. [Music] I mean, who would I be if I didn't try?
Did you read the Bible?
Of course. Who doesn't?
Yeah. He wrote the Bible. Yeah. [Music]
Do you remember?
I do. [Music]
Did you read those writers? [Music]
Did I read them? Yeah. I don't, I don't remember uh, just a little move. I know you mean, but uh, I think I'm basically, I think I just saw the movies. But music, dude. Do you listen to the local music?
No. Nowadays, some. Yeah. You're not anymore than I ever did.
Do you listen to any new music, or is covers on your shows? When I saw you in Holston's Theater last year, you played the [Music]
Oh, yeah. But those aren't new songs. I don't know. But those are also—but what is so special about the Stanley Brothers system?
Well, you know, it's like the old thing. If you if somebody has to tell you, then you'd never know. Sometimes when you're standing with the guitar on stage, it reminds me of some of the old Elvis Presley pulses from 1955, and they relate to that.
No, I, I, I, I. Some pictures are—it's very similar to—
Well, is that a compliment or is it—but [Music]
Oh, well, you know what can you say, you know, when when somebody like when that somebody like that, you know, records a song, I'm sure any songwriter would feel, you know, um, you know, intensely gratified.
Why aren't you playing any songs from Live?
Yeah. Well, uh, there's no there's no point to it because uh—not tomorrow. No way. Nope. You won't hear anything. There'll be 12 people in the audience who know the songs.
Yeah, exactly. [Laughter] Some of the old folk songs that you play, probably not more than 12 people in the audience have heard.
That's true. This is true. So what's the difference?
There is a difference. Uh, I'm not really free to say it right now, but there there's a uh, if, if you know the songs on this record and you know the songs that nobody's heard before, then you you would know, you wouldn't know how to tell the difference. There's almost a religious feeling within your hardcore friends about you. How do you feel about that?
Uh, I don't really feel like I have any hardcore fans, you know. I mean, I just don't. There's some people who do. I really just don't. I mean, we have a few people who who see an abundance of amount of shows, but we we don't think of them as hardcore friends. Huh. Well, what religion are they? I mean, if they are, what what sacrifices do they make, and to who do they, do they sacrifice these hardcore religious fans, uh, do they have that, do they—if, if they do, then we have hardcore religious fans, and I would like to know where and when they do make their sacrifices, because I want to be there.
Somebody once told me that your collected work is like the Bible because everything is in there somewhere.
Well, that's that without what, you know, goes without saying before—not to go away. I had committed interviews which uh, he told me uh, when I asked him uh, that reclaiming to himself the fact of being a poet was too much of a burden and too much a risk of responsibility. Do you, do you agree with that in your case?
Um, I, I know what he was trying to say, and he's right. [Music]
Do I read biographies? Uh, do I read the biographies of myself? I hadn't read any really since that Bob Shelton book which came out um, I and I knew him. I don't know these other people.
Did you like him? Did you like him?
It was uh, it's difficult reading about oneself because in your mind things really didn't go, they don't appear that way. They didn't happen that way the way it seems. This uh, um, is it seems very uh, it seems like uh, you're reading we're writing about other people, uh, fictitious, you know, fictitious. And if it's going to be fictitious, well, then where is all the good stuff, you know, like the stuff—if you had any temptation to write about, you know, me about you—
Yeah, I, I have, and and I will. In the process of doing that, the uh, they just uh, translated Tarantula in French, you know, which is a scary concept. Um, was um, the fact that the ambition of being a poet that writes as opposed to um, song and dance man, did you get it out of the way with Tarantula or, you know, was that something that you sort of said, "Okay, I've done that?"
Oh, I think that that's a particular uh, instant and that um, things were running wild at that point, and it never was uh, you know, my intention to to write a book, you know, but I think uh—wasn't there—didn't Leonard write a book or something? Right? Something like that. Well, I had a manager who when when asked, um, well, he writes all these songs, uh, what else does he write, right? You know, and then and they might have said, he might have said, "Whoa, wow," um, what do you what do you what do you got? And they said, "Well, does he write books?" And he might have said, "Of course he does." And and uh, they said, "Well, we would like a we would like to publish one." Well, I think it was one of those kind of things, what where uh, where he he likes the whole thing, raised the whole thing, and then it was up to me to write the book, and and it was never anything that I consciously set out to do, um, but he did that, he did that uh, you know, uh, on different occasions, he had me on a television show of being an actor, whereas you know, I didn't know anything about it until the day I appeared. I thought I was going to sing, and he—these things would happen uh, back in the early part of the last century. It's a long time ago, isn't it?
Ages ago. To comply with that—
Oh yeah, just did this TV, absolutely. In America, Dharma and Greg. I think it's done with Greg.
Yeah, I did. Oh, uh, I don't know. I wasn't doing anything, and I know the guy was writing it. Yeah. Well, I mean, why wouldn't it have been—there was a rumor about you doing a variety show on television. That's just a rumor. Because that seemed like the craziest thing—I know the things that you're writing now, is that the sort of a memoir?
It is, um, well, I think it will be published, um, as I'm told, uh, in a in an article form, but uh, in as a book, but but articles because they're they're ongoing, and um, that's as bad as much as about your own life. Yeah. Um, the only thing—are you thinking of writing all the fiction?
No, I don't know. I'm not writing any fiction. That's the fact that you wrote your own name has an influence of songs you play on stage.
Well, uh, that's interesting you say that, because a lot of the memoirs take, they they use as a starting point uh, certain songs. Yeah. And if I find out that that's a good way to to get into a lot and unlock a lot of memories and things. Yeah.
Are you wrapping on the road?
Um, I'll all right, uh, then I ideas, but I, I, I won't really develop them on the road, but—well, I don't know. I mean, were there or have there been any—oh, yes, there's been like seven here, yeah. This year, I'll have to see. I mean, I'm not aware there were any—
Do you feel that the time—why do you feel that time was right? The time is right now to um, for you to reflect upon your past. What was it? Were you like preparing that for years, or—
I think, you know, I think in in this kind of stuff that I'm writing, I think it was just finding the right uh, way to get into it rather than make it some—
Kind of a self-serving story of my, my particular past. It doesn't come off that way. It comes off that way, but it doesn't. But it's, it's, it's um, dissimilar in, in a lot of ways. I can do it because I'm a famous person, so I use that fame. Because a lot of things I talk about, I write about, other people know about anyway. So, so with a person like myself, the process of doing it this way works.
Do you find it exhilarating, this, this writing, as opposed to the more deconstructed way of writing songs that you were describing? This is something a new exercise that sort of means—uh, no, I, I don't really think about it one way or another. Yeah, I mean, I'm not making a real attempt to do this; I just do it like almost in spare time, you know.
Is there any phase in your life that you, that you see as a very difficult phase? Especially difficult? Any phase in my life that I see is difficult? I'm sure there's been many, but uh-huh. The most difficult, the most difficult, um, oh man, um, press conferences. No, there have been, there's been a lot of tricky, tricky parts, you know, where you have to assume another character in order to um [Music] survive.
What are you thinking of? What friends? Well, basically you have to, um, um, surrender your ambitions at a certain point, you know, if, uh, you know, in order to, um, get to where you need to be. We're gonna have time for just a few more questions, so that was a good one. I know.
What kind of ambitions did you ever surrender? Well, that's, that's, you know, that's what you're gonna have to find out in one of those bookstore articles or somewhere. They said that you are probably happier in the tour bus than in any of your student—the buses. Uh, yeah, they're becoming quite luxurious now, but uh, uh, not before. I'm pretty happy. I mean, as far as happy goes, as far as feeling at home goes, I can't say I don't feel at home almost anywhere. I'm probably, yeah, I mean, I mean, I feel at home at home, and I feel like, you know, when I'm not there, it's not like I'm longing for anything that's not present where I'm at.
What's it like nowadays? Is it easier than it was? Um, I'm not the one to ask, you know. That's a philosophical question. For physical, philosophical matters—have you tried being someone else? Ever tried being someone else? I'm sure, but uh, you know, we all try to be someone else when we're, when we're starting, uh, from point zero.
You mentioned earlier on that some of the stuff from the past you don't really want to listen to that much. You don't go back and listen to your old albums. Yeah, if it's autobiographical stuff, you might be at journals or whatever, just say the entry is the sounds. So in which case you've been forced to go back. It's like someone getting the greatest hits together and collaborating. Yeah, so in that way, if you look back at some of the cheeses—I was good. Well, I, I, I, I'm only looking at it from an angle that maybe, uh, it's never occurred to me before to look at it. A lot of the things that, uh, happened to us, we, we just seem to go through without ever wondering, is there a purpose to go from this to that, or why did this happen, you know, without—could this have happened if that didn't happen? And if this didn't seem so—if this seemed so bad at the time, why it led to something, you know, so beneficial in the, in, in the, in the long run, you know. So it's, it's written from a variety of angles really, and, and it interests me to, to write it, but I'm not, uh, painstakingly doing it.
Now, would you, looking back on your 43 albums, which ones do you think are the most successful artistically, seen by a fabulous part of you? Well, successful, you know, I never listened to them. Um, I'm sure they were all successful in their way, and I'm sure they all have failures in, in their own way. I don't think—would you express great discontent with producers? And we talked about *Love and Theft*, you were expressing discontent with the way we produced. But some of them must hold up better than others in your own opinion, even though you don't listen to them that much. I don't listen to them because I never think Phil with the songs have been perfected, you know, like, like, and I used to have a problem—I don't anymore—with, uh, um, working on a, on some, uh, record album where a song might have been recorded, but I didn't particularly think it had been recorded very well, uh, or the right way, or the way I hear it in my mind, or for many, myriad reasons. And, um, you know, six months, or maybe four months, or whenever, that then the song as it exists gets out on a, you know, it by people you trust, make copies, and they put it out there for the public, uh, to, to hear. And I feel like that's happened too much in, in, in my case. So, um, well, just with people that you know, we, we, uh, have no reason to distrust at the time. So, um, people, you know, I've, I've been asked, you know, like, well, how come you're such a bad judge of your own material? You don't put the best stuff on your record. Well, I don't know who judges what the best stuff is or not, but basically, you know, I'm not judging material; I just don't, don't—I would love to put certain things on; I just don't think they were recorded right. And then once it gets out, I'm not really that keen on going in and, and re-recording it, except on this record that you all just heard. Yeah, like we had that on the *Time Out of Mind* record, but, but it wasn't recorded particularly well, and, uh, uh, you know, thanks God it never got out, so we went and re-recorded it again. But something like that would never have happened 10 years ago; you'd probably all heard the trash version of it, and I never would have re-recorded it. So, so that doesn't mean you, you, you take more care and make—well, you take more care; you just don't trust anybody. I mean, that's basically—I mean, that's, that's simple.
Do you think that sometimes some records need a second chance? Like, apparently, uh, there was a remixed version of *Street Legal* that came out, um, maybe two years ago. And do you think maybe that some of these albums were overlooked by, uh, because they came out of the time when people were interested in something I was involved in? Certainly *Street Legal* had, you know—well, I don't know about *Street Legal*, probably didn't, uh, there were probably other artists who have been featured in, uh, you know, in the, in the, in the media, and, uh, the cultural landscape was a little different back then, probably, uh, um, I don't, I wouldn't know. I know that I've always been with the same American company, and they probably tried everything to sell it, and it probably wasn't what people wanted to hear at that time. Oh boy, now I'm going to go see the Coliseum. Let's see if the streets are full overall. Exactly, gentlemen. Yeah, all right, you.