Transcription
The poet also happens to be a singer. I figure you all know, so everybody will try to ask questions about what I'm supposed to be talking to this microphone. Welcome to the first KQ poets conference press conference. Mr. Dylan is a poet; he will answer questions about everything from atomic science to uh, uh, riddles. And go, oh my God, who's first? Come on.
I'd like to know about the cover of your, of your forthcoming, your, your uh, uh, album, the uh, one of the Subterranean Blues in it. I'd like to know about the, the meaning of the photograph with you and the wearing of a Triumph t-shirt.
Well, you know about it.
Well, I'd like to know that that's an equivalent photograph; it means something; it's got a philosophy in it, and I'd like to know, I'd like to know visually what it represents to you because you're a part of that.
Um, I haven't really looked at it that much. I don't really, I've thought about it a great deal. It was just taken one day when I was sitting on the steps. You know, I, I don't uh, I don't really remember I, a great too much about it.
But what about the motorcycle as an image in your, in your songwriting? You seem to like that.
Oh, we all like motorcycles to some degree. I do.
Do you think of yourself primarily as a singer or as a...?
I think of myself more as a song and dance man.
You know what a song and dance man...?
Oh, I don't think we have enough time to really...
That you're quoted in the Chicago Daily News as saying that uh, when you're really wasted you may enter into another field. How wasted is really wasted, and do you foresee it?
No, I don't foresee it, but it's more or less like a ruthless type of feeling, very ruthless and uh, intoxicated to some degree.
Uh, the criticism that you've received for more or less leaving folk music for folk rock uh, hasn't seemed to bother you very much. Do you think you'll stick with folk rock or are you going on into more writing?
I don't play folk rock.
What would you call your music?
I call it uh, um, I like to think of it more in terms of vision music. It's a mathematical music.
Would you say that the words were more important than the music?
Uh, the words are just as important as the music. There would be no music without the words.
Which do you do first ordinarily?
Uh, the words.
You think there will ever be a time when you will paint or sculpt?
Oh, yes. Oh, sure.
Time to be hung as a [Laughter] thief. You weren't supposed to say that.
A mat...we have a match. Thanks. I...
If you said when you, you always do your words first, and you think of it as music when you do the words, can you hear it?
Can I hear...? Can you sort of hear what music you want with when you do your words?
Oh, yes.
Do you hear any music before you have words? Do you have any songs that you don't have words to yet?
Um, sometimes on very gentle instruments, not on the guitar though, maybe something like the harpsichord or the harmonica or autoharp, I might hear some kind of melody or tune which I would, I would know the words to put to.
You say that? Yes. Not, not with the guitar though. The guitar is too hard an instrument. I don't hear too many melodies based on the guitar.
Do you sit down just to write a song or do you um, just write it on inspiration?
I'm more or less written on u, on a lot of things.
What poets do you dig?
Oh, um, Rimbaud, I guess. W.C. Fields, the, the family uh, you know, the, the Traes family in the circus, um, Smokey Robinson, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie uh, Rich. This good poet...
In a lot of your songs you're hard on a lot of people, like in "Like a Rolling Stone," you're pretty hard on the girl, and in "Positively Fourth Street," you're pretty hard on the supposed friend. Are you hard on them because you want to torment them or because you want to change their lives and make them know themselves?
I want to needle them.
Do you still sing your older songs?
No, no. I just saw a songbook last night. I don't really see too many of those things, but there's a lot of songs in those books I haven't even recorded, you know. I've just written down, you know, and uh, put little tunes to, and they published them. I haven't sung them, them. I, a lot of the songs I just don't even know anymore, even the ones I did sing. There doesn't seem to be enough time, you know.
Did you change your program when you went to England?
No, no. I finished it there. That was the end of my, my uh, uh, my older program. I didn't change it; it was developed. Remember the time we got there? Was all, it was more or less I knew it was going to happen all the time, you know. I know how many encores there was, you know, how which songs they were going to clap on loud and all those kind of things.
On a concert tour like this, do you do the same program night after night?
Oh, sometimes it's different. I think we'll do the same one here in this area though.
Did you in England do any of the songs like "Subterranean...?"
No, I didn't work with the band there.
Will you be working with the band here?
Oh, yeah. Thank you very much. [Music]
In a recent Broadside interview, uh, Phil Ochs said you should do films. Do you have any plans to do this?
No, I don't uh, I do have plans to make a film, but not because anybody said I should do them. Yeah.
How soon will this be?
Next year, probably.
Can you tell us what it'll be about?
It'll be just another song-you-dig flick.
Who is your, who is, who are the people making films that you dig particularly?
Uh, to...uh, I really can't think of any more people. Italian movie directors, you know, but not, not too many people in England or the United States which I can really think that I would dig.
You did a Champlain bit as an exit line one of your concerts once.
I did. That's, that must have been an accident. Stay away from that kind of thing.
Oh, that's pretty well. Thank you very much. Was that taken right here with you? Pull right...H, good God, I must leave right away.
What do you think of people that analyze your songs? Do they usually end up with the same meaning that you wrote?
Or...I welcome them with open arms. University of California...mograph the lyrics to all, all the songs on the L.A., on the last album, on how a symposium discussing them. Do you welcome that?
Oh, sure. I'm just kind of sad I'm not around to be a part of it, but it would have been pretty...well, if you had been.
Josh Dunson, in his new book, *Freedom in the Air*, implies that you have sold out to commercial interests and a topical song movement. You have any comments here?
Well, I've no comments, no arguments, no uh, I certainly don't feel guilty.
If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose, Bob?
Have...um, ladies' garments.
Bob, have you worked with any rock and roll groups uh, professionally or just sitting in or on concert tours with them or sitting in their sessions?
No, I don't usually play too much.
Do you listen to other people's recordings of your songs?
Sometimes a few of them are heard. I don't really make it a, I don't really come across it that much though.
Is that a strange experience?
No, it's like more or less like a heavenly kind of thing.
What do you think of Joan Baez's interpretations of your earlier songs?
Uh, you mean the one she...I haven't heard her latest album or one before that. I heard one uh, she does them all right, I think.
What about Donovan?
Colors? Yeah.
Do you think he's a, a good poet of love ballads?
No, he's a nice guy though.
I'm shattered, huh.
I'm shattered.
Well, you needn't be.
Are there any young folk singers or rock groups that you would recommend for us to hear?
I'm glad you asked that. Oh, yeah, there's uh, the Sir Douglas Quintet, I think are probably the best that in uh, that are going to have a chance of reaching commercial airwaves. They already have with a couple songs.
Uh, what about Paul Butterfield?
They're, they're good.
Mr. Dylan, you called yourself a completely disconnected person. Would you like...
No, I didn't call myself that. It's, that's uh, I should've drawn those words in my mouth. I saw that in the paper.
Uh-huh. How would you describe yourself? What is it that you, you have, you analyzed this why you feel people...?
I certainly haven't.
No. Mr. Dylan, I know you uh, dislike labels and probably rightly so, but uh, for those, those of us who are well over 30, could you uh, label yourself and perhaps tell us what your role is?
Well, I sort of labeled myself as well under 30, and my role is to, you know, to just stay here as long as I can.
Mr...you share...Phil Ochs' concern uh, that he expressed in the recent Broadside having to do with the fact that, well, he feels that it becomes increasingly dangerous...you can't hear...No, Phil Ochs wrote something in a recent Broadside magazine to the effect that you have, that you have twisted so many people's wigs that he feels that it becomes increasingly dangerous for you to perform in public before an audience.
Well, that's the way it goes, you know. I don't uh, can't apologize. Certainly.
Did you envision a time when you would give five concerts in one area like this within 10 days?
No, no. This is all very new to me. If uh, if you were draftable at present, do you have any feelings of what your actions might be?
No, I probably uh, probably would just do what had to be done.
What would that be?
Well, I don't know. I never really speak in terms of what if, you know, so I don't really know.
You're considered by many people to be symbolic of the protest movement in the country for the young people. Um, are you going to participate in the Vietnam Day Committee demonstration in front of the Fairmont Hotel tonight?
I'll be busy tonight.
You planning any demonstrations?
Well, we thought of one, we thought of one. I don't know if it could be organized in time. Des...it uh, well, it was a demonstration where I make up the cards, you know. They have um, have a group of protesters here uh, perhaps carrying cards with pictures of jack of diamonds on them and ace of spades on them, pictures of uh, mules, maybe words and uh, oh, maybe about uh, 25, 30,000 of these things printed up and just picket card signs and picket what? In front of the post office.
What words?
Oh, words uh [Music] camera, microphone loose. Just, just words.
Do you consider names of some famous people?
Huh? I'm sorry.
Oh, do you consider yourself a politician?
Do I consider myself a politician? Well, I guess so. I have my own party though.
Have a name?
No, there's no presidents in the party. There's no presidents or vice presidents or secretaries or anything like that, so it makes it kind of hard to get in.
Is there any right wing or left wing to that party?
No, it's more or less in the center, kind of on the up, the scale.
You think your party could end the war with China?
Uh, I don't know. I don't know if they have any people over there that would be in the same kind of party, you know, so it might be kind of hard to infiltrate. I don't think my party would ever be approved by the White House or anything like that.
Anyone else in your party?
Anyone else in this party? No. Most of us don't even know each other, you know. It's hard to tell who's in it, who's not in it. You recognize...in...same...oh, you can recognize the people are there.
Still tickets available for your concerts?
I don't know. I would imagine so. Some, I guess.
How long do you think the for party will win? Do you...?
I don't know. I could answer that, you know, but it would mean something different probably for everybody, so we want to keep away from those kind of things here.
What did you mean when you said, "I don't think things can work out," interview recently in Chicago?
I don't know what things we were talking about.
You said, "I don't think things can turn out." I've accepted it. It's a sadness.
No, no, no, no, no. It's not...I don't think things can turn out. I don't think anything you plan ever turns out the way you, you plan it. That's all.
Is this your philosophy?
No, no. Doesn't mean anything.
Do you think that it's uh, fun, an audience...?
I don't know. I've never done it.
Wrote a song called "Baby, You've Been on My Mind," uh, you didn't record it. Uh, do you sing at the concert? Have you...?
No, I haven't. No, I haven't.
Are, are the concerts fun still?
Yeah, concerts are much more fun than they used to be.
You consider them more important uh, than your albums, for instance?
No, uh, it's just a kick to do it now. The albums are the most important because they reach more people. No, because uh, it's all precise, very concise and uh, and it's easy to hear the words and everything. There's no chance of the sound uh, interfering, whereas in the concerts we've played some concerts where uh, sometimes they have very bad uh, very bad halls, you know, in microphone systems, so it's not that easy for somebody to come and just listen to a band as if say we're listening to one person, you know.
Will you make all those lyrics of songs available in a book sometime?
Oh, they all are. Yeah, they are. You say you uh, no longer sing your older songs. Do you consider them less valid than the ones you're putting out now?
No, I just consider them uh, something else to themselves, you know, uh, for, you know, for in another time, another dimension. It would be kind of dishonest for me to sing them now because I wouldn't really feel like singing them.
What's, what is the strangest thing that ever happened to you?
You're going to get it, man.
What is the weirdest thing, friend? I'll talk to you about later. I wouldn't do that to you.
What areas in music that you haven't gotten into do you hope to get into?
Uh, writing uh, uh, symphonies, u, with different melodies and different words, different, different ideas, it's all being the same which just roll on top of each other and underneath each other.
Mr. Dylan, when will you know that it's time to get out of the music field and into another field?
When I get very dragged...when you stop making money? No. When my teeth uh, when my teeth get better or God...but just when something makes a drastic uh, when I start to itch, you know, when something just goes to a terrifying turn and I know it's got nothing to do with anything and it's time to leave...write symphonies...this in terms...we think...I'm not sure...u...well uh, I'm just thinking I songs which are all written, you know, as a part of a symphony, different, different melodies, different uh, changes with words or without them, you know, but the end result being uh, a total uh, I mean, they say my songs are long now, you know, well, and sometimes it's just going to bound to come up with one is going to be, you know, one whole album consisting of one song. I don't know who's going to buy it. That might be the time to leave.
What's the longest song you recorded?
Uh, I don't know. I don't really check those things. They just turn out long, I guess. I've recorded one about 11, 12 minutes long. "Hollis Brown" is pretty long on my second record, and uh, "Who'll be on Your Side" was kind of long, but but none of them are uh, I don't think there was as much into anything as "Desolation Row" was, and that was long too. Song shouldn't seem long, you know. It just so happens that it looks that way on paper. That's all. The length of it doesn't really have anything to do with it.
Doesn't this give you a problem in...?
No, they're just, they're just ready to do anything that I put down now, so they don't really care. But what happens if they have to cut a song in half, like "Subterranean Homesick Blues," for the...?
They didn't have to cut that in half, but they didn't have to, but they did.
No, they didn't. No. You're talking about "Like a Rolling Stone."
Oh, yeah. Oh, they cut it in half for the disc jockeys. Well, you see that song, it didn't matter for the disc jockeys if they had it cut in half because uh, the other side was just a continuation on the other side, and if anybody was interested they could just turn it over and listen to what really happens, you know, uh, but we just made a song the other day which came out 10 minutes long, and I thought of releasing as as a single, but there was just...they would have easily released it and cut it up, but it wouldn't have worked that way, so we did...we're not going to uh, turn it out as a single. It's called "Freeze Out." You'll hear it on the next album.
Of, of all the people who uh, record your composition, who do you feel does most justice to what you're trying to say?
I think Manfred Mann. Manfred Mann um, they've done, they've done the songs, they've done about three or four, and each one of them has uh, been right in context of what the song was all about.
What's your new...?
Oh, it's about uh, just about all kinds of different things, rats, balloons...they're about the only thing that come to my mind right now.
Is that the same...?
Yes. Yes. No, I don't really do too many of them. I wouldn't do it if I was oppressed or depressed or...there's nothing, nothing wrong...