Bob Dylan 1965 interview with Nat Hentoff

For years, the conventional intellectual position, as well as the so-called sophisticated position, has been that popular music in this country was declining. Because things like rhythm and blues and rock and roll and the like were mechanical and decadent, and were the kind of things that, uh, adults manufactured for the kids. The kids didn't really have any say in it. What's your view about this? In other words, what is the kind of popular music that moves you, and where does it come from?

That I just like to listen to. Yeah, I'll listen to, and also increasingly, as you know, in terms of what people call folk rock, the way you're broadening your bases, a way, um, whatever this folk rock is, you know, I don't I don't really listen to that that much. You know, it's more in terms of, uh, terms of sound which, uh, you know, a few years ago, when it wasn't such a big folk folk rock or or whatever have you, when there wasn't really hardly much of anything, um, when there wasn't people talking about music so much, was it's because, uh, you know, there wasn't any kind of sound really. But whereas the sound could be, you know, transformed in a lot of things, a lot of ways you can get sound, you get sound was words, you know, you get a sound with just plain bare sound.

What about rhythm and blues and and and and rock? Well, rhythm and blues particularly, uh, what do you find in it of value? In other words, it's been put down by authority. You know, I just listen to it; that's about all I, I, uh, I don't listen to hard, straight rhythm and blues in terms of, uh, D satin motions, those kind of people that recorded a long time ago, just a straight four-chord thing. I mean, it's advanced pretty much farther than that now, and that seems kind of old, you know. Yeah. Now blues would would be uh much more contrived, kind of chords and different sounding things. Me, I still don't think we're getting anything. Yes, you are. Yeah, want to check it. Just [Music] Okay. All right.

Well, what about the people who, uh, who still say, you know, that there aren't any good songs anymore, like Cole Porter or Jerome Kern? You know, you know, they're just looking for that kind of that kind of music, uh, they're probably right, you know, if they if they think, you know, there are no more good songs like the ones Porter wrote and George Gershwin, I guess they are right, you know. But what is the music that's popular now, um, and it's increasingly by by people who come out of the rhythm and blues scene? What is that music saying to the to the younger generation? 'Cause I've never seen anything quite like the kind of response there's been to the music that's being played now.

Yeah, you know, I really don't know. I really have I really have no idea. I know one thing: know everybody around a certain the certain age I'm at now, it's about 24, everybody around 24, 25, 26, 23, no matter what they were doing in the past, you know, years, I mean I know, has been, uh, was turned on to rock and roll a long time ago, you know. I mean, it's just it's just something everybody's tried to hide for a long time. You know, what was there in the rock and roll that, uh, that really moved people of your age?

Well, it was just a, you know, rock and roll, country western music, which is just a a total kind of feeling, which is not the same as, um, you know, watching TV or, or being taught anything in school or, you know, just a total other kind of form of of sound and and which puts your head in a different place, uh, it, you know, the reason it died out is because it was, uh, you know, you know, it got, uh, saturated and it got, you know, drawn to to a degree there was no way to make it in it anymore, like you had to have friends to play with, you know, you had to have money to buy electricity, you had to, you know, you have to keep a band, which costs money, and uh, that's all very hard. While I was going, you think it's accurate to say that the music, that kind of music, also had more emotion, more direct feeling than most what else was around?

Oh, sure, it still does, you know, that's, you know, it still does. You just can't take that away from it. That's, you know, that's why most people, you can just about pinpoint the people that don't like it. You can just about usually walk on the street and see people and know who wouldn't like it. I mean, it's a it's they wouldn't like that, they wouldn't like the people that play it, probably, you know, it's, uh, it's got to do with more than just, uh, it's got to do with a lot of things really, which overlap. You say you can pinpoint the people who don't like it, like how? You mean the way they walk, way they hold themselves?

Oh, sure, the way they light a cigarette, you can tell like what they like, mean inhibited, uh, inhibited really. It's just a whole other thing, um, something which I don't think's ever going to be brought across to anybody, I mean, because deep down, you know, people either, most people do like it. I mean, they have to like it. A lot of people are, you know, just represent something. A lot of people are don't want to even think about, probably. That's why they're very such a commotion, but it, when you think about it really, it comes down to, comes down to it is everybody just putting themselves on really. Because if, uh, they didn't like it, you know, they, the people that, they have to let their kids do something. We're speaking now of people that go to school and high school and buy all records, Mhm, you know, uh, they have to let them do something because, you know, they really don't really give them too much of anything else, so they let them buy records, you know, they already know what they're listening to, but now I guess they're they're finding out what they're listening to now. They could easily distinguish the whole thing by just cutting with their allowances, and there would be no more records.

So when you say they don't give them much of anything else, you mean much of a feeling of what do you call it, interpersonal? Well, I mean, who takes, who treats their kids like they treat their friends, you know? Yeah, yeah. That says, um, who are some of the people in the country and western, the rhythm and blues field? I don't mean influences now, but people that you just enjoy listening to, especially? Well, I don't like to listen too much country and western people, uh, I like I like to listen to some of their songs, yeah, that's a thing, but I get little, but not nice, but this, I like Buck Owens, so he's all right, and [illegible]. They're all all the time usually you can, they make some sort of sound, you know, but uh, the other people just songs they sing, I think.

How about in the rhythm and blues and and rock and roll fields, whom do you especially, you know, who strikes you especially? Oh, you just name a name, just, you know, if if you almost like free association, if you're thinking in terms of just pleasure and listening, who would you think of? Uh, listen to all the Motown records. Mhm. That's Wilson Pickett. Oh, Redding. I guess Charlie Rich. Yeah. How about Chuck Berry? Seems to be rediscovered by a lot of people. Well, he's okay. Great. This goes back to something you started to say before, and it's about the generational gap. I've seen it among some of the kids who work, u, in SDS, you know, where you you can't trust anybody over 30.

Well, that's not really true; that's that's just a fallacy. What's the right word? Fallacy. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's it's ridiculous. How much of that gap though does exist? This feeling that the older generation just is, I don't know many of those people. I never really have. That was just a thing from the newspapers. Newspapers seem to say that nobody likes anybody over 30, and the people that read it believed it, but I don't know if that's true. I don't really, we never sit around and talk about anybody over 30, you. I'm almost 30 myself. So you wouldn't go with a thesis that all adults are almost square by definition because they they are over a certain age? No, no, I would, I don't, doesn't, I have no prejudices on age. Yeah, communication depends on two people, right, essentially. Well, if if it's such a thing as communication, you were saying you're almost, uh, well, you, but six years from 30, are you at all concerned about, u, somehow not becoming insulated, rather being not as open as you are now, you know?

No, I have no fears about that. The, you know, everything will still be the same. It's too too late to change anything like that. It's, uh, I certainly not going to cop out though and become any kind of, you know, school teacher and out in Vermont, you know, living in an old cottage, teaching English once a week, reading poetry to, uh, girls or something. I'm not going to do anything like that. Yeah. So far as you look ahead, if you do, do you intend to pretty much stay in what you're doing now? Yeah, I'll be taken to some other degrees, making a making a movie sometime on that. I have a book coming out, but it's just, uh, I mean, it's very average to me, you know, I can't really be excited about it. I've worked on it kind of hard at certain times, but now it's all done, and now it's me. Very little. Is that the one that Macmillan's putting out? Was it about Los Angeles? Or no, it's not about anything; it's just there's a book of, uh, words. What's the movie going to be like?

Well, the movie will be like a song, really, uh, it's not going to, it won't be any kind of, well, this is the first movie here, and we have to, uh, set an example for the rest of the movies. This is going to be like a song; it's going to be a straight movie and, uh, maybe a horror movie or something, something very natural. Are you going to write it? I'll write some of it. Yeah. And who's going to produce it or put it together? That's not decided yet. Yeah. Um, once when we were talking, you were saying that you have no particular feeling of support for groups like the NAACP because they're too middle class, too slow. What civil rights groups are you that interested in?

I'm not really interested in any of them, I tell you the truth, uh, um, I used to know some of the people in SNCC, it's about 1960, you know, and, uh, I've lost all contact. Evidently there was something wrong someplace, or else, uh, you know, I I I I would have been a president of SNCC right now, but, uh, I I don't know. I can't go along with all this. I mean, it's just a laughing matter. Everybody that's, u, you know, I mean, a lot of people take all that very seriously, L.Y. Jones and all this kind of, but kind of it's sort of it's kind of funny, you get to think about it, because even L.Y. Jones is going to die, you know. I mean, whoever L.Y. Jones is, I just saw him my television. Oh, yeah. So your feeling is that these social movements or whatever tend to get kind of exaggerated in importance?

Well, not exaggerated importance, of course, people are starving, you know, people are a lot of people are in bad trouble, but, uh, is either you make your choice, you know, and you go through with it, or you don't, to [ __ ] around, you know, in other people's lives, you know, uh, I got my own life that, you know, and, uh, I tried my best to handle that, you know, to try to handle somebody else's life, uh, you really have to, you know, be a a very powerful person, you know. Yeah, you have to sort of, uh, have you got a lot of responsibility on your hands, and, uh, the more people's lives you're, you know, you're responsible for, know, the bigger the weight is. Mhm. Look at President Johnson, look at him, he doesn't seem like a very normal fellow to me. You you can understand why. Really not very normal. In what ways? Well, you take a look at him, you can just see a picture of him, you can see that he's a little he's a little worried about something. Yeah.

What about, um, well, like Joan Baez, for example, has for a long time been involved in things like Vietnam and peace demonstrations and the like. Do do you have any, um, particular interest in that? Well, you know, might sound very funny, but, uh, you know, like, uh, um, I can only talk about it in terms of me, you know. Sure. It's like I, it's like if I if I was if somebody told me right now, uh, you're going to have to die in an hour, you know, that would really be nothing. I have to clean up, you know, unfinished business. No, uh, you know, I could very easily accept it. I mean, know, and that would be the way it's going to be, uh, you know, like it's, uh, I don't really know, you know, like, uh, on who who who is going to be better for all the, uh, I mean, I don't know how long people want to live, you know. I I don't I don't know, uh, you if they're looking for eternity and looking to be more ized or whatever have you, what why they do these things? You mean people who get involved in the peace things, you mean?

Well, no, not this especially. I'm talking about, uh, um, I'm talking about people that, uh, aren't really not really completely straight, you know, people are afraid of something, but act as if maybe they're not, and, uh, you know, I think that's fine, you know, that's there are peace demonstrations and all this kind of thing, in know, this is a little more complicated in my mind, uh, I I know where where it is in a feeling, but or to put that feeling into words, I really can't do it too good, and if I even attempted, I know it wouldn't come out the right way, and and then all in all, I know if even if I did it wouldn't matter anyway to anybody, you know. So so it, uh, I mean, I think what Joan Baez is doing is just marvelous, but, uh, it's not your way, it's not your, it's just, I mean, I think that's just wonderful, but you know, I if there was if there if she ever needed my help for anything, you God willing that she'd come and ask. But but you're not going to go out looking for demonstrations or things like that?

No, I've done most of that, you know, I've went through that too, and, uh, uh, you know, it definitely has to be done, yeah, but you know, everybody he talks about, uh, you know, I mean, just the names strike familiar chords, you know, like Jesus Christ, you know, like with all the good he did, you can say, but you know, what good where, you know, for who, how, when, you know, and then look what they did to him, and and everybody's talking about him, you know, but, uh, how does anybody know the way he really felt, you know? Mhm. It's such a long time ago that I think it's just about impossible to even find out anything about him. It's just been so, uh, you know, people have written so much that, uh, I don't know, you just have to believe, you know. Yeah, that's dangerous business, there, just believing. You, you're sacrificing a whole lot. So that for you, the thing is to live your own life as best you can and stay as straight as you can.

Yeah, stay, you know, just, uh, I guess so. I mean, in terms of those words, we're not the best, uh, best words, but, uh, it it's like, uh, it's like one time I wanted to write a novel, you know, and so I spent a lot of time there, that's about six months off and on trying to put this novel together, but I never, you know, and I finally one day I come to a conclusion like, uh, okay, you know, so I got this novel play together, you like, is this going to be, you know, the novel, the statement, you know, I'm, is this my message, my thing? And, uh, no matter how many, I had about thousand, you know, not thous, about 500 pages of it, I said no, you know, it's of course not, it's [ __ ], you know, this is nothing. I'm just, if I finish this novel, I'm just going to have to write another one. If I finish this novel, it's not going to come out until at least a year and a half to two years before before, you know, now, uh, it's going to be a completely different thing by the time it does come out, and by the time it does come out, everybody's going to say how great it is or else they're going to put it down. Meantime, I'm not even going to be there anymore, and I won't it won't even be me that that wrote that novel, and, uh, from there, I don't have to live up to that novel, you know, and, uh, to be writing another novel, people going ask ask me what what I'm doing, I'm I'm going to have to say I'm writing another novel, you know, um, you know, it's, uh, it's a and and when you even get it done, all does is it helps you to get to parties, go to more parties, and, uh, you know, uh, can sign autographs and give away for the copies of the book, and, uh, you know, you can have a ball for a couple of weeks, but I meant through all that with records, you know, and, uh, things, and, uh, it's not the same thing. Every time I write a song, it's like writing novels, just takes me a lot less time, you know, and I can get it down, know, to where, uh, you know, I can reread it in my head a lot, and, uh, believe me, you know, like they're not the songs that are written are just not, that's what they are of me, 'cause, uh, you know, it's, uh, I stand, I can't stand on any of them, you know, I mean, like they're just, uh, songs.

You don't feel them as if you have to compete with yourself every time you write another one? No, no, I know, uh, I somewhat do in in a very funny way, but I I don't really, once I can get to in the the movement of what I want to do with the music, it comes very natural. That's it's not really a competition thing. Um, getting back for a minute to do to the opposite of Joan Baez, a lot of the things you hear now from, let's say, from the American Legion to Johnson is, uh, how come these kids don't realize that, uh, they be, how does it go? Do they are they saying they they'd rather be red than dead, remember? You know, that whole how that whole thing goes. How do you feel about that kind of slogan?

Rather be red than dead? Yeah. In other words, you got to you got to fight this SoCal. I don't really go for slogans in any kind of way, but, uh, you know, I mean, I'm sure if there it's a slogan there, I'm sure there's another slogan that says I'd rather be dead than red, which I wouldn't go for that slogan either, you know. Mhm. The slogans are just, uh, you know, misuse of time, really. It's a, um, is nobody's going to help out the world any, you know, there just is nobody. I mean, you're going to, you know, you just take a look out on the street, and then things change, you know, you can open up that curtain, so the room would be different, you know, it's, uh, there's too many people, you know, that that, uh, have things to do.

Are you ever bothered by things like the Dominican Republic and Vietnam in the sense that the whole the whole thing may yet blow up? Yeah, well, I'm I'm sure it might, you know, but, uh, it's going to happen probably, you know, and when it happens, I the most I can say is that it wasn't me, but that's, uh, you know, that's about all. I mean, uh, I I don't want I certainly don't want to be walking around with any kind of, uh, you know, any kind of nuclear, uh, thing on me, you know, any kind of my grin up, you know, six in and my elbow, uh, you know, magnetized a thousand times and, you know, six legs and anything like that. I don't want to be caught in that position. I I would have to get somebody to, uh, I'd have to have a good friend along, you know, get me get me out of that, but, uh, I don't know. Let me try fantasy for for a minute. Suppose you were somehow in in a position like Johnson's, and you had a deal with, let's say, the Chinese Communist, what what what would you do?

Well, first of all, like I never talk in terms of if. Yeah, I mean, I answer your question this for the sake of fantasy. I'm not going to I'm not going to think that, you know, first of all, if I mean, if I was President Johnson right now, uh, let's say if you were president. If I was President. Yeah. Well, let's see, if I was President, uh, first thing I do, I have all my friends in the White House. Right away, I completely completely revised the whole White House, and everybody that works there would just look a whole other way. Everybody would have have to wear high-collared shirts; they they would, uh, have to be a section where everybody wore flowers on their tie, and there there would, uh, there'd be a whole different set of heroes right away. Like who? Well, like, u, I think u, instead of talking with Martin Luther King about anything, I would have to talk to Robux Staples, you know, he would be the spokesman for the, you know, for that, and I would have, uh, all all, you know, just all the the whole place just redecorated completely with swings and and teeter-totters. Yeah, and for the first week, we just have a party to get straight, you know, and, uh, you know, um, then I'd probably send for, uh, Mao, tell them to come over and see what we were like.

What else would you do, like in foreign policy? Foreign policy. Mhm. Oh, you figured then like if he saw what we were like, then things could be a little less, uh, dissonant. Um, well, I don't know, you know, I don't even know what he's like to begin with. That would. Well, you know, you see those pictures of all guys, all chicks and carrying guns and, uh, and, uh, you know, I know that probably has, uh, know they likes women to be tough, you know. Um, he would probably come over here and be flabbergasted, you know, have to have some tough women waiting for him, you know, on the lobbies. I'd fix it up nice for him, you know, if he came over. No doubt about that. What did you think of the, um, of the Free Speech Movement and all that of the University of California and the way that sort of thing is spreading to a lot of other colleges? Is that a good sign?

It doesn't mean anything. Well, it's college, you know, it's it's that's nice, you know, that's that really is very nice that they do that at college, uh, but, uh, it's, um, what exactly does it do though, you know, for for for other people that don't go to college? Mhm. You know, u, I think it's tremendous, but they they would have enough courage to do what they did, but you know, I I I don't really know too much about it. I have all those things that they're, Mhm, I can't possibly imagine anybody, you know, uh, wanting what they were wanting, that's all. What do you mean? Well, I guess they were wanting to, pict, or wanting to have free speech. Yeah. Well, I have free speech, you know, I I I don't I don't I don't have those problems that they have, you know, like they they I don't have I don't really have to put up with any teachers, you know, I don't have to have any degree, I don't have to take any tests, I don't have to, uh, sort any kind of philosophies out of my mind, I don't have to memorize anything, you know, I don't have to, uh, you know, look like the next person, I don't have to, uh, you know, I I just don't have these problems. I don't have, you don't have to join a free speech movement. Well, I I don't really have anybody that's that's supporting me.

You know, so I don't have I don't have to I don't have to uh rebel against this, you know. Do you ever have any uh, not regrets, but let's say curiosity about college, about going yourselves? That'd be silly with it. I I have no regrets about it. I I uh I played it some, you know, but I never really got out to see too much. And you know uh, you know, it's a nice place to be; the colleges are really nice, you know uh, they they're certainly a lot uh a lot quieter than the city. They the the ones out in the country are fantastic, like you know, like old AG homes, you know uh, they're nice. I would like to go to one, you know, just to relax once in a while, but uh you know, just to sit on the banks of some river, most of around the rivers and uh you know, just do that. But I can't imagine going to any classes or reading any books that they would give me. I imagine I'd start up a few friendships with some people around, but that's, you know, you just pick up on what interests you in terms of books or anything else.

I take, yeah yeah, I I do. I don't really read that much, and when I do read anything, it must be small. But uh, you know, I know I I go see movies once in a while, I guess, stuff like that. I remember you're reluctant to give advice to anybody else, but you think some of the people either in college or about to go might think a while about whether they ought to go, you know, looking at your yourself for example, not as a model, but things were different, you know. When I didn't go to college, you know, things really were much different than they are now, you know, like and then uh there was a group of people sort of they know that were just buming around the country, you know, and uh I was one of them, you know. But uh things are seem to be different than they are now. Like I can't imagine, you know, coming around the country now with any of these people that are fing around the country now.

You know, what's the difference? Well, see, and know back then to make it, you know, was just out of the question, you know. M, that was more or less a thing of uh, you know, from here to there, and that's what it was. It was groovy, you know, and uh and it seemed a lot of the people were groovy then, but now you can still see people that are still doing it, and they're just totally whacked out, you know. Like uh, they're still there, they're doing it, but but they're all they all twist it up, and and they don't want to get the feeling; they don't want to do it anymore. And even even the, well, you know, you can uh take that whole the Beat Generation thing. I just read a little bit of that kind of stuff, but you know, like uh what stuff really was there except for Allen Ginsberg, you know. Yeah, or uh you know uh these that's but you know, I can even think I can't really think of any of those other people that did their thing. I mean, I mean the ones who are doing it now don't even get any don't seem to get any any kicks.

Well, it is a kick, you know. Like you do it, you do things for a kick, you know uh that's why you really do things; you do things for a kick. M, you don't want to do anything you don't want to do, you know uh the hangup comes in is when most people they get out get involved in something, they get attached, you know. And then sooner or later they come to the conclusion that they're not getting any kicks anymore, and they see other people getting kicks. Well, that's fine, you know, like that I guess just happens. But the problem comes in is when you want to stop other people from getting kicks. Yeah, you know, just because you know it it hangs you up, you know, like it drives you farther the suicide, you know. But uh I can, you know, I don't get too many kicks anymore nowadays, you know. Once in a while I do. I want to stop anybody else from getting [Music] up.

It's funny to to hear these people talking next things on be country rock, you know, country rock, you know. Was Elvis Presley hard Elvis Presley, you know? I how can they say the next big thing is going to be country rock? Elvis Presley's first record. You have a better name for him, you know. There is no better name uh this all this has been done before; it's just a a you know it's like another another time going over only with different times. Yeah, did you like those first Presley record came out? Sure, everybody liked those. I just didn't like him anymore after Teddy Bear and stuff like that. Yeah, but I I got all the Z records. You were saying that um you don't get as many kicks now as you used to. Why is that, you figure the fame or well the kicks, you know, like I've done everything that I really want to do, you know um like like no, I mean it's like I don't get any kick out, you know. Like first time I say I was in Rome, I saw you know I was standing there digging the you know the what call that big St. Coliseum; it was a kick, you know. Just just being just a whole thing, you know, the whole the whole feeling of being around there and whatever happened whatever else happened. The second time I was there, you know, like it just distracted me, you know. Like this Coliseum, how beautiful it was; it was distracting, you know. I and then something else in Portugal, man, all this beauty was just very distracting, you know. Just uh it's a do you ever get tired of big SE? Do you find that distracting? I've never spent that much time out there, but I do find it a little distracting.

Yeah, well you were saying you've done just about everything you wanted to, and yet you're 24. What do you got to look forward to? Well, I don't know, I have to think about it. I might start me a bubblegum factory or something with different kinds of cartoons inside. You so you haven't you haven't lost the expectation that there may be more kicks ahead? Oh no, nothing like that. Well, it's like it's it's it's like, you know, it's not like I can go any place now, you know. And something was usually bound to happen, you know uh you know, take your chances, you know. But now I can't really go any place, you know. And even now when I go any place, it's not where you know it's more of a chance anything's going to happen because it's uh it's a little different now; it's now it's sort of like strike and split, you know. It's a it's a whole different thing. I I I know, and I can see through most of the people, you know, that you know, and it's just uh it's not any fun, you know. And uh like it's more fun just stopping in a red light and watching the people walk by, you know. That's really a lot of fun in the sense that what but they don't see you. No, it's like when you say kick, you know, like uh I would think in terms of kicks, you know. Just getting on a Greyhound bus for 3 days, you know, but uh you know and going someplace. Can you do that? I can't do that anymore, you know. It's a it's have to you know get the Greyhound bus to come to me, me and uh I have to hire the bus, you know, and uh stuff like that. It's ridiculous, but I mean it's not it's not really I'm not complaining or down about it; it's just a a thing that's all; it's got to happen to somebody I guess.

Yeah, we were talking about college and I wonder this isn't quite fantasy because well, suppose not that you were in charge of a school, but if if somebody were to ask you what what should a school be and do so that kids don't get all tied up and uptight the way they they often do. It shouldn't really be that way, like school, you know. Someone wants to be a doctor now, they got to go to school, you know. I mean, obviously they got to go to school and they got to learn how to do all these things to be a doctor, but I wouldn't send anybody I know come to go to school, man, unless they wanted to be a doctor. I mean, I don't care what they want to be, but they want to be a doctor, they want to be something like that, you know, lawyer or uh you know, something like you know something really hard, you know. M, tell to go, you know, do it, you know. But if you're going to do it, you know, do it. But the other thing, just going to school and reading and writing and taking tests, I guess, you know, learning learning you know why things happen, it's just uh ridiculous in in face of things are going to happen whether you know you you know you know why they happen or not. So what should what should you be doing during those years years if you're not going to be a doctor or something you know specialized? Well, you should be it's not what you should be doing; it's you can do anything you want to do, you know. You can hang out in Mexico for 4 years, you know, and uh it's uh you should know about a lot of things uh which you don't know which people keep you away from until you get to be a certain age. Like for example, like for example everything, you know, just about anything you can imagine uh it's not if it's not it's not going to many things they're looked at as if they're going to kill you, you know. So many many habits and things like we're not going to kill you at all, you know. Might check you up; it's not going to kill like sex or pot or like anything absolutely anything; you're doing a handstand; it's it's uh you know I don't know it's when you come to the think of it, you know. When a person even goes to college to me like I remember I got out of high school, I didn't think about them, but I think about now like what did I really know I got out of high school, and what did the school teach me? Yeah, you know, and I can truthfully say that you know I haven't used any of that stuff which I've learned in 12 years uh except you know adding maybe and reading you know and writing and how you know and that's all though, you know. Like uh the rest of it it just seems to be a thing to take up your time, you know uh which you know it's got to be I mean it can't be other way, but who's going to come around and say okay we're going to put out courses going to be much harder now, and everybody's going to graduate by the time they're nine, you know. And then they'll be ready ready to go to college, which could easily be done, you know, because all you have to do is teach somebody how to read and write; you put them in college, teach them a little math, and that's really all you have to teach them really.

Mhm, you know, know who cares who the first president in the United States was; who cares where Africa is in terms of always look it up right; you carry AIA around, you know. But uh you know I wouldn't want that happened to anybody that I knew; I wouldn't make you know I mean most people can't really afford to have their kids be total outcasts, you know. So they wouldn't do that, you know uh most people I guess would want their kids to be you know with other kids and normal having a good time and birthday parties and stuff like that. Well, that's all fine you too. How would you raise your kid? How would I? Yeah, I have no idea. I certainly you know wouldn't uh hide anything from or anything like that. I mean a kid would you know would couldn't open his eyes anyway, you know, tell about 5 years old, five six years old. I wouldn't imagine I even be around by that time. So so I wouldn't have that problem. Why why do you think you won't be around by that time? Well, obviously it could happen, you know. I mean I'm not counting on being around; I'm not counting on being not around, but you just don't look ahead that far anyway. I can't look ahead that far; that's this is interesting me. You're you got out of that lock step uh you know the whole education career thing, and as a result you're a lot freer in many ways than a lot of people. What was it in your background and and how you would grow how you grew up that U let you do that? Cuz you started I guess like everybody.

Well, where I come from is different than around here, you know. It's you can do just about anything you want, you know. It's it's more or less there's no there's no distinguish there's no there's no uh lines of you know poverty and that kind everybody's more or less the same; all the towns are you know it's just a whole other thing, you know. It's not you don't really have that much you know I mean uh nobody had that much. No no, but still most of the people kids you were growing up with I'm sure went a lot of oh sure sure uh I just was uh I just I don't know I have no idea. My uncle is a professional gambler; I've seen him once a while; that something to do with it; I don't know um I don't know really what it was. I'm you know there are a lot of people; I'm not the only one that left there traveled around like me; there's people that everybody left there. I don't know really if anybody that that stayed there; there's nothing really there. Everybody my age I know left; I don't know where they are. Once in a while I hear from people, but I don't uh I know that there's nobody nobody stayed there to uh you know. So in a sense there was an advantage in the way it was cuz get you to leave from my very first uh time consciousness I know I wanted to get out of there. CU really, you know everybody did.

Well, you first hit the road when you were quite young; was it about 12? Well, it's just running away, but that's just a a thing because it's not there doesn't mean too much here because it's not like hitting the road from uh New York for the West Coast or anything like that; the towns are only 10 miles apart, you know. There thousands of them, so you can't really get too lost; it's just a say, you know, it's running away; everybody runs away from. But then as I remember you went farther distances a little later on. Yeah, but everybody else did it; it wasn't my own idea; it was a common thing to do. I think everybody ran away at least once or twice in their lifetimes, you know. It's I mean I remember that very distinctly; everybody did it. Mhm, was there anything that you learned just in the process of doing that, you know, not only the traveling but in doing it and Having the courage to do it that uh didn't really take much courage; you just took you know that feeling, you know, let's get some kicks, you know. That's about all it was. Yeah, you could actually hop trains where I come from; they were freight trains, box cars or trains; you could actually hop them and go for a ride, you know. I have done that. So is it kind of a a mobile existence to start with? Yeah, well I mean if you know where what part of the country it is, it's it's there's nothing there, you know. I mean it's not it's a great thing; it really is. I mean if I was here in New York City, I probably wouldn't have done that; probably turned out completely different going to Bronx High School of Science. Sure, you know, I would have probably been a lawyer by now if I stuck to I would have been more lucky to be born here, but really you know it's nothing special. You once said uh that you didn't want to work too often; you'd rather have most of your life and time to yourself. It seemed in the last year haven't the tours been increasing and that kind of yeah yeah they have. I'm working now a lot because I dig it now more so; it's a different thing now. I was going to quit when I was playing all by myself; I wasn't I was going to play; I was very mixed up on how long I was going to really do it to play by myself uh it's another thing altogether; I would never want to do it again; it's really is a whole other thing; it's not it's a see what it comes down to is uh is that uh um I written long songs, you know. And uh the thing about writing recording them that's one thing, but to get up on stage and sing them MH right after night gets a little hard because you're not really there, and you write mind you know half the time, and to get up there and sing all these songs which uh what do you mean by not being in your right mind? Well, just being in a in a mind that's uh is but we can put this way like people come to the concert they're are ready to see the concert, but you're not really ready to see them.

Yeah, I I do, you know. It's uh you know it's you can TRS like that in terms of you know somebody coming over ringing your doorbell you don't want to see right like it just happens this night that 3,000 people R in your door. So you travel with a group now all the time? Yeah. What's the name of it? Well, they're they're they're uh they they we call Levon and Hawks. How spell the Levon l e v o n? Levon, he's from Arkansas; he's a drummer, and uh he Robbie Robbie's lead guitar player. I' I've known Robbie for some time uh and what that comes down to is just that you know uh you can't really get people to play with unless you can pay them. Yeah, and I wouldn't want to cheat anybody and don't promise him anything. No, it doesn't cost anybody anything; I mean it'd be foolish not to you know pay them not to play with them, man, you know. So that's one of the reasons you're working were H? Yeah, it is also I know what what's happening is not totally it is see before I used to go to concerts; I used to play these concerts; I used to say well would I come to see me tonight, and I used to have to be very truthful and say no I wouldn't come here; I'd rather I'd rather uh do something else; I really would, but that was just me, you know. Now the way so now I want to I want to I want to I would think well would I want to come to hear this tonight, and I got I got to say I would. I mean having them with you increases your own enjoyment and Performing. Well, no, not really; it's uh it's it's another thing too; it's U it's uh you know it's the songs are all uh they don't have any influences you see. I mean I know this to be true; these songs most of them and you know on this all of them really like on the stage now uh that what they are and being like is not influenced you know by it's not a it's not a trying to be something else kind of thing, you know. Whereas a lot of stuff is like you can listen to a lot of records and things or go see a lot of shows, and it wouldn't really matter who was doing it, you know. It would do it uh you know could you could easily find the same thing down a block, which is all right, you know. That's I'm putting down stuff you know anything cuz it's all very good, but I know what we're doing is is different; I don't know what exactly is we're doing.

Mhm, I know it's different though; it's not folk rock or this kind of thing; it's if you want to Define it as that; it's that's all right too; it doesn't matter. But but I've listened to it, and I actually dig it. You know, what would you say aside not talking influences, but what are some of its roots? Like negro blues and country music and no the roots are are hard hard a little bit harder to Define than that; it's not uh it's everything really, you know. It's just a uh I don't know I I can I can least look at the other lot first songs were like hey Woody gby I wrote you a song was definitely influenced by Woody gby. Yeah uh you know uh Highway 51 on our first record was definitely influenced by Everly Brothers and uh you know um Charlie Pickett um on the second record you can still see the influences, you know. Oh uh stuff like that like the first record there was Muddy Waters influence it but now but now there aren't any influences really now the influences all sort of mashed up, you know. Like the influence isn't in its given form anymore; the influence is that I know it all now; I've known it for quite a while, you know. I know it all; I don't really play too much, you know. It's just a thing now; it's a I know how to do it now; I know the music; I know I don't have to think in terms of where what a kind of tune I want these words to you know it's uh it's more or less of a I don't have to hold anything back now. Before I used to have to hold things back; I had to hold melodic things back; I snuck them through, but not many people really realized it, you know. I snuck through on my second record; it's not a very pretty Melodies In but why did you have to hold them back? Well, I still had to make it then; I still have to you know survive, you know. I still had to uh you know but you mean you thought it might be too far out? Not too far out; I didn't want to really uh you know uh I didn't really want to uh you know if uh somebody was going to give me 350 you know you know and if I did a certain thing which wasn't that hard for me to do I'll do it yeah you know they wouldn't give me the 350 you know uh you know if I went along with what you want to call ideals so my ideals aren't that important to me; I don't really care I have any you know so it didn't matter if if uh some is going to give me 3 fths you know you know and if I did a certain thing which wasn't that hard for me to do I'll would do it yeah you know other they wouldn't give me the 350 you know uh you know if I went along with what you want to call ideals some my ideals aren't that important to me; I don't really care I even have any you know so it didn't matter and like uh that was that was just a certain thing I a personal I just transer personal thing into that; it wasn't really that big. When I started I was just playing; I had had no idea I was going to be playing now. No, I started playing out; I was just playing acoustical guitar, you know. Easily understandable that is, and the songs are very understandable too. I make bread, you know, have to scuffle. I mean if you figure if some of the songs that you're doing now where the lyrics well they no no they are in their perfect form now; they're not in their you know they're not in their form of uh hearing it perfectly; they not in the form of uh of uh Perfection, but they're in a perfect form; they're where they're supposed to be now; they're not you know in any kind of you know uh any kind of attempt to disguise anything; there there's no uh it's all straight right down there; it's all another what I meant was do you feel if you had started with that kind of song it might have been harder to get? Well, I did start with that kind of song; I did start that way, but I couldn't make it that way; it's impossible; totally impossible; it would been total failure, you know. I didn't really think I didn't look look look ahead and say well ha if I do it this way now I

Can do it this way later. Plan it all like that. I mean, cuz you know, but uh, that's what it is. I mean, you know, it's you know why would it have been so impossible? Well, like I say, you know, it's uh, you have to pay everybody. You have to, you know, to have a band makes music. Well, first of all, if you have somebody, you know, playing with people, you know, you're playing with people you know. When you don't have anything, that means you're all together. You don't everybody just doesn't hang out in their house and you come on over. Like if you're going to make something, you know, uh, you really got to make it by yourself, you know, or else have it all set up for you.

Well, do you think that the songs you're doing now would have been harder for large numbers of people to to understand at the beginning? Oh, sure. Also, I couldn't have written those songs back there. Yeah, so all these stuff I go together, but I oh yeah [ __ ] if I just came out and sang Desolation Row 5 years ago, man, I probably would be murdered. How did how did you feel like at Newport and at Forest Hills when some of the let's say the old audience or they thought they were the old audience got so upset at hearing the the electric guitar and on all that and the new kind of this a little boo in all of us, you know, and uh, you know like uh, you know, if they had a good time, you know like uh what can I say? You know what can I say? If they had a good time booing, I mean there's just nothing I can say then I feel happy about it. I mean, if they didn't have a good time booing, I got to I got to think something's wrong somewhere, uh, you know like first of all when you say old fans, I know they're not my old fans of boo. I know they're not my old fans. They can think of themselves probably my old fans, but they're not my old fans really. The old fans are people that they like were in that we're in that, you know, 1,228 people that bought my first record just are old fans. Yeah, you know, old fans are are the, you know, 67 people that came into Gertie's, you know. Yeah, you know, the people down the gas like they're the old fans, but the people that were at the, you know, just hung around on the east side, you know, it's some State Apartments people I don't even see anymore. People I haven't seen who thought, you know, I had it made on my, you know, second record, you know. Okay, Dylan's got made, you know, and then that's it on the second record. That's that's what success meant then. Yeah, you know, when I made my second record, how come you they don't see you or you don't see them anymore? I have no idea where they are, you know, it's just scattered. I hear from them too once in a while. I I I I don't know, you know, I see them once in a while. They're scattered all over. They really are.

Have you heard that thing Murray the K has been saying in the air? It goes in going a pull them and I can't remember, but the idea is the people who boo Dylan are as prejudiced as the KKK. I I believe that by all means. Um, are you at all ever concerned about the fact that now that you're making it in the lot, you know, the way most people talk about making it a lot of bread and U all that stuff, that it'll be at all difficult to not to be tempted to keep on being popular; in other words, to stop going your own way? Yeah, there's always that temptation, but you when you know I just know too well, you know, that it's just going to, you know, it's it's just now, you know, it's not it's not uh I refuse to be any kind of I know Lawrence Welk or something like that. I I don't know what else I can do. I'll continue making the records. They're not going to be any better from now, and they're going to be this different. That's all. This was the last record I made was a I can't imagine them. Whereas when I made my last record before this, I still knew what I wanted to do on my next record. I know what I'm going to do in the next record, but I know it's going to be the same kind of thing, just a little different.

How can you be so sure it's not going to be better, that you're not going to find something that beyond because on on this last record it's just too good. There's lot of stuff on there which I mean I that one uh Highway 61 Highway 61 Revisited. Yeah, um you don't call what's Happ what you're doing now folk rock, but how did you get move in that direction, you know, bringing in the electric instruments, having that kind of rhythm, that kind of base? Well, I've always done it, even you know, it was there on the second record for one session if you remember, and the reason it wasn't done anymore is because I I just couldn't I didn't have the bread to pay anybody else to come in. We just did it for that one session. I I didn't want to pay anybody else, so it's not so new at all. That mean no, it's not new in my mind. It's new in a lot of other people's mind, but I guess it's not new in my mind.

What's your reaction? I I think now of Irwin Silber to me it's an idiotic position, but it's it's taken uh Dylan isn't singing the pro protest songs anymore. That must mean he's he's sold out that kind of job. Well, that's his problem, you know, it's it's it's I have really no reaction to it at all. It's it's just a, you know, it's it's a totally other thing. It's it's I'm glad that he's I mean if he's happy, you know, I wish him the best, but he can, you know, I don't care. It doesn't matter what they say about me. It really doesn't. I mean, if anybody if anybody could really understand that, you know, as soon as uh as as long as there's trouble about me, I'm going to be around. You know, as soon as everything gets straight. Would you elaborate on that a bit? Well, as soon as they, you know, start to, you know, I don't really know what they say, you know, I really don't know the the ridiculous things they say. I know I know some of the things I do wrong, you know, I do a couple things wrong once in a while. I do something really wrong, you know, which I really can't see when I'm involved in it, and after look at later I know what's wrong. I say nothing about it. It's got nothing to do with music though. Yeah, you know, um, you know like that kind of thing is the only thing that means anything to me. What I do is wrong, you know, and but this thing about, you know, not saying protest songs, this this, you know, I you know, they want to do that, you know, that's I have absolutely no contact with that. Yeah, um I I have no respect for for anything that, you know, that stand for for to begin with, you know, uh it's not in terms of that, but in terms of uh not in terms don't mean for them personally, but like I have I have no respect for for the uh conversation on on on uh, you know, on on you know what if somebody got something to say, you know, MH I mean I to just don't have any respect for it. I think it's vulgar, obscene, you know, this the idea of somebody having something to say a message a message it's uh then again, you know, like we have the literary world or whatever have you, the museum types and uh this kind of thing which he also have no respect for, you know, I just I just can't make it, you know, it's just a total, you know, thing which I just can't see uh in my mind, you know, if something is uh, you know, artistic or valid or groovy or or or you know nice to be with it should be out in the open, you know, it should be, you know, men's room and it should be in know places like that. It's uh

You were quoted as saying like what you have in the museums and what are in the books now really have no relationship to what's happening to what's real and well it never has, you know, it never never really has. I mean, I don't see how it could uh I really don't understand, you know, uh I'm not involved in that side of it, but see the Sing Out World just overlaps into that kind of world, where whereas that that is really why I can't really pay too much attention to it. It's just a stagnation thing of putting books on the shelf, you know, like uh like like once you read a book, you know, you just put it on the shelf and there it is, you know, if you want to buy a painting then you got to go out and pay a lot of money for painting. You want to see paintings, you know, you got to pay, you know, you got to pay to go to the museum. If you want to, you know, see dancing man you have to go to you have to mix with these theatrical people go you want to see a play look look who look lot of people you have to sit next to if you want to go see a Broadway play, you know, like uh look at all this stuff which is really in terms of just you know, like no nobody with, you know, $1.98 can go out and have anything to do with it, you know, it's like uh I think a person is more lucky if they can buy a car, man, buy a car with a radio, they much better off than if they have, you know, straining to go see all these Broadway places and in museums and stuff. It's, you know, it's because the same thing is on the radio. Yeah, I I remember you being quoted is saying that it's on the radio and on records that you get a sense of what's Happening.

Well, it's not a sense of what's happening. It's like the things now I don't know if you know, you know the Motown Music Company. Yeah, yeah, I get all their records. Well, you know, just like to listen to one of those records, you know, like granted like the Met sound the same and stuff like that, but that's like uh listening to one of those records, I mean if you can't can't uh, you know, if you can't if you can't understand the whole total uh the whole total thing, you know, on on uh on what it's all about, you know, then then you better go to plenty of museums, man. You're really you got to go to museums, drink a lot of coffee and uh wear a banana, man. You somebody was saying though he said he's sted to play some of those Motown records at a very slow speed and he said he was quote shocked unquote because some of those lyrics were very what was the word lewd? Does that bother you at all? I don't think they're lewd on Motown. They're there us not lewd. Say I've had many stuff I've had stuff banned for me being lewd, like all depends on what you think it's lewd. How would you define was the name of person lewd? John lewd? H, know John lewd. Is there anything in words, you know, like lny Bruce will say there's nothing in word that can be bad which is just a word. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I don't see how thinking there, you know, I don't I'm not afraid of words. I mean, maybe a lot of people are afraid of words, but that's you know, that's who you're dealing with. Yeah, people are afraid of words. That's a lot of people are afraid of words. Well, you know, you know that's that's that's a shame. That's worse than being fighten up a dog, you know, that's that Line's going to last um H and McCall had a thing where he said that you were so eager to get immediate success you deliberately wrote down to your audience and he said you avoided during the protests on perod you avoided basic issues cuz you had no real anger, your passion was manufactured. Oh, who's y Mall? He's that Scottish actor and fol, you know, is he famous in in Scotland? Well, I don't know, you know, like uh I've never written down to anybody. Yeah, well, I certainly uh if he says I wasn't angry, you know, I never met him really. I don't know what what he does for living, you know, cuz he uh he plays clubs in London and he uh Records that kind of thing is is is he famous uh among the real hardcore folk people? Well, he's probably a little bit angry, you know, that he's not really famous, you know, really famous, but well, you know, I certainly can't uh I he's not I don't even know the fell. I can't really comment on. I'm sure he's got good intentions, but yeah.

Do you ever feel awaited at all at the fact that there are all these kids who who um they not only listen to the records but it's almost like some of them try to absorb as much of what they think is going on on those records as possible and if they don't make you a model that they're certainly being very influenced by what they think is you. Does that ever well I think it's a good thing some think I I know that, you know, first of all you mean what do you mean like well I I know kids starting 12 up and they say that uh this is this guy is nobody manipulates him. He goes his own way and that kind of thing. Yeah, well that's right, but they can't very well do it at 12. Yeah, but do you feel any responsibility in that sense? No, no, I have no responsibility that the music just says what it says and that's it. It's is the music. Yeah, I'm certainly not going to tell them to go out and do anything vulgar, you know, it's I have no responsibility towards the fans, you know, they're they they they're big grown-up people. He was saying that a me a message song is is vulgar, using message in another sense though. So far as you could put it into words, what is it you're trying to say through through the songs you're doing now? Well, I'm not trying to say anything anymore, you know, like uh once upon a time I tried to say well I'm here listen to me, you know, once upon a time I tried to say I'm here I need some bread, you know, and uh and I want to I want to, you know, uh once you know I want will you let me stay at your house tonight, you know, that's what what boils down to. Yeah, you know, I I don't have to say that anymore, you know, and uh now it's just letting you know the songs are just somebody else is hearing them. That's all it is. It's like if they'd be there if anybody listened to them are not, you know, uh they're not manufactured songs. They they don't, you know, they would be there, you know, they they exist and whoever lives to them that's none of my business and what they get out of it is none of their business, none of my business either, you know, it's uh I know what they are, you know, uh but I can't I can't I can't tell somebody what they are, you know, nor can you tell anybody how to react to them or what they're supposed to get out of [Music] them.

How do you account for the cuz it's not just a passing thing at least not in terms of the 3 4 years of of this great attraction you do have for more and more young people, you know, I well young people really young people are have they they want to have free Minds, you know, they want to be uh they want to because you know uh they're young, you know, whereas people once you know like once they get out of college or go to college they get involved in their lifetime thing and they really don't have time to to be uh, you know, they sort of really know that, you know, it's all kind of useless and uh, you know, uh they they can't really make such a big fuss over somebody, you know, they can't really plan to go see a concert, you know, months ahead of time, you know, things don't have the same attraction for them, and then they have to put it out of their minds, you know, like they have they have to look down on a lot of things, you know, because it makes them feel better, you know what I mean? Mhm uh whereas kids, Man kids don't have to think like that. They're they're all they're all, you know, home and uh they want to get out, you know, they still it's still a another thing to them.

Do you have any expectation that the kids listening to you now and and being moved by what what they hear that some of them anyway may be somewhat different that they won't get trapped in that kind of adult box and that maybe you've helped not getting them trapped? No, I don't think so. It's uh it's it's not that kind of thing, you know, um um I guess we got to stop till yeah yeah I had started to ask about um whether you thought there was any hope that at least some of them the kids now particularly those listening to you might not get into that adult box and and maybe if they don't one of the reasons is the kind of stimulus you gave them. Yeah, but it's it's it's not in my mind though my my way of thinking I don't really I I I don't think in terms of of of uh uh the people that listen to me, you know, I don't think in terms of the records of who buys the records, you know, like when it comes you know time it's it's all in terms of what what's happening here around here. It's you know a total other world than than uh than a teenage Market. I'm not going to fall for for being any kind of spokesman for them or or trying to teach them anything because it'd be kind of silly, you know, it's it's it's a whole other thing uh if if it happens that way, you know, then fine, but it's it's you're not out to save them. No, no, I certainly wouldn't run over them on the street or anything, you know, if somebody don't need somebody needed a mouthful of water I probably you know, but you can't you can't uh save their souls for them. No, I can't save their souls. I can I can't save their souls. Yeah, there's a there was a quote in the Newsweek piece where you said uh I've never written a political song songs can't save the world I've gone through all that when you don't like something you got to learn to just not need that something. Is there anything to add to that? No, that's that's pretty much what you feel. Yeah, then the idea that, you know, like the Pete Seeger idea that you can change men's hearts and that sort of it's not true at all. Yeah, can anything I mean do you have any hope that there might be new Society is to use that kind of old terms? No, I don't, you know, I don't know. I don't even think in terms of society uh, you know, it's a society, you know, fights among itself, you know. Mhm all societies do I guess and uh I'm not really even part of any society like that. I don't really know, you know, I know the early writeups used to say well here's Dylan he's a social critic he's showing us the hypocrisy in American life and all and the yeah but see it's never was really valid. They could say that very easily about me. You see it doesn't take much, you know, balls to say that, you know, or to write me up like that because in fact like it's very easy to see I wasn't even a part of the society their society, you know, they could come around and see the concerts and write stories about me and see me at a party or something, but but it's very easy for to say here's he's condemning this society when I wasn't a part of that Society. It's very easy, you know, for for to somebody to for somebody to get kicked by somebody who's not a part of that Society. Now let's say somebody like, you know, General McNamara he starts criticizing the society now they're going to take that they're going start worrying about a little bit, but nobody has to worry about anybody from the outside that's very evidently on the outside criticizing their society because he is on the outside and you know he's not in it anyway and so they can just keep themselves happy, you know, and and think that something, you know, is is you know, romanticize things but it's not true at all.

Do you or did you consider yourself from the outside a social critic or was just just no I wasn't really a social critic. It was just like, you know, it's like uh it's like I knew where where to put the song, you know, I knew where the slot was, you know, that's all nothing more to it than that. Yeah, speaking of being outside the society, one of the things that that Joan Baez is doing is herself and trying to get other people not to pay income tax as a way of protest foreign policy. What's your view of that kind of criticism of the society from the outside? Well, if she doesn't live in this Society, you know, you can't, you know, you can't you can't go around criticizing things you're not a part of, you know, like if that's no way to make something better, you know, uh I'm sure you know that she's you know got a very good point there, you know, keeping not paying her money to the, you know, tax department, but if that's if that's more uh if that's a question like, you know, am I going to do it, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to pay. I'm not going to get in trouble with those people, you know, you know I mean I I live here. I wouldn't be I wouldn't be, you know, I wouldn't have what I have really in this country unless it was this country. Wouldn't have it in another country uh I'm not, you know, going to go along with I'm not going to go along with anything they do. I'm just not going to be a part of a lot of these things which they do. That's all, but but that's not not trying to find away of any flag. That's just me, you know, you know if I was going to, you know, not pay my income tax that means first thing all the papers are going to come up and they're going to say Bob Dylan doesn't pay his income tax, you know, it's you know, it's like uh, you know, that's what good that going to do? I mean, they don't need my money. It's just a form of, you know, saying what you do. That's all. It's not going to make a dent or anything. Yeah, um you know I I you know somebody doesn't want to wants to pay their income tax that's F that's fine. If somebody doesn't want to pay their income tax that's fine too. I'm certainly don't condemn anybody that doesn't pay their income tax. Yeah, I mean most people don't really pay their rightful income tax, you know, it's to come out. I think it's kind of kind of a bad point to come out and stress it because it's going to be hard on a lot of other people who really don't pay a lot of their income tax. You mean there people going to start looking more closely all down? Yeah, yeah.

Um another thing and this is squareville but people who say well isn't Dylan in a sense playing a role cuz he's not a country guy or whatever but the the dress is is informal and and to uh let's say the Columbia record context it's uh if not bizarre at least you know very distinctive and is is that a kind of a stance or just more comfortable? Well, his clothes I wear, you know, that's that's something I certainly don't hey I dressed in blue jeans for a long time right, you know, I dressed in shirts and clothes and everybody say look how funky he looks, you know, he made a big point out of it. Well, you know, like it doesn't take much thinking is, you know, like I didn't really have many clothes, you know, back when I played on back, you know, I didn't really have many

Clothes? I don't even know what clothes were, you know? Like, no, I'm not going to walk around like I used to walk around. I got money to buy better clothes now. Why should I walk around like a, you know, like a clown? I look like a normal person. No, I want to look like—but also, you're not going to go for Brooks Brothers or whatever, cuz that's not your—your—I don't like that style. No, I mean I don't like that Ivy League style. No, I don't like that.

Um, what about the—the feeling among some people that you become, in your—in a way, your own kind of establishment, you know, surrounded by people kind of—uh, hard to get to? And does this jive with, you know, the feeling that you're talking about everybody being egalitarian and—and no P.P., you know? No, I'm not talking about anybody that's—that's their own paranoia. You don't feel that you become that—that much of like the old movie star thing with the hangers-on and so on? I haven't got hangers-on, stuff like that.

Getting back to the—the look thing again, I like Sonny and Cher. Is there any significance, do you think, to the long hair business and the—all that? No, there's not really that much significance. It's just—it's just—uh, either you like to, you know, wear your hair a certain way or you don't, you know. It's certainly infested a lot of minds with, you know, with—with trouble, but, you know, I see no reason for it.

You don't think anybody's trying to prove anything? That—no, no, it's not that thing at all. Well, I must admit it looked pretty incredible at first when you see—uh—uh, you know, you went—if you went to England and see people—people just look a whole other way over there, you know. They really look like—they're ancestors or whoever. The Prince Valiant and all kinds of weird people. Over here they don't—there's nothing—can't even compare it with the look over there. They had a thing in some magazine a while back—sh—a long hair showing—long hair first in the United States group—and they showed where—they showed Beach Boys kind of people with hair that comes down a little bit, you know, and back of their neck, and—and they show some kids in Chicago rebelling—have their—their hair coming down a little bit on their forehead a little bit—and somebody else, you know, in—um, Hollywood, California with a little bit over their ear—show, you know—and—uh, then they last—P—they showed a picture outside of a pub in England—man, kids about 17, 18 years old were just standing around and just—no comparison in terms of people, man. Like they're just—I mean you can tell that they—they didn't have—that wasn't—they—they weren't about long hair, you know. It's not rebellion or anything like that. No, no, it's not a rebellion kind of thing. It's a—it's just a—another way of—kind of thing which I don't know—I guess most people can't really see themselves doing, you know. It's a—it's an attitude, I guess, you know. The attitude being that—attitude of, you know, of why not, you know.

Yeah, that's it—why not? Like I could ask once a week, why you got a beer—why not? Um, this—why not thing. Do you feel that among the—the younger generation there maybe is becoming more freedom and—like, for example, the—the kids—more and more the younger people using pot or—or—or LSD or being—aot about—I don't really know that many of the younger people, you know, like that. That really is—it's fine that they use pot and LSD and heroin and sex and everything. I mean, that's groovy, but I mean like I don't really know any of them, you know.

Mhm. Even speaking of young people now, you mean, you know, kids in high school and stuff like that? Yeah. I don't—I don't—I know—I don't—I don't really—uh, I really have no contact with them directly, you know. I don't—I don't—I read about them in the papers, yeah, you know, but I don't really—from what you read, does it—do you think that—that g—gives some hope that there'll be a—again when they grow up there'll be less hung up with conformity and—safe—yeah, yeah. But what it comes down to now is that somebody learned something so fast—by the time they're 21 they know that they—self-bullshit, you know—and—and you got to really think of something to do, you know. You mean the thing like—pot or LSD isn't going to be that—yeah. Well, most people like, you know, like you get to it like—a lot of people get turned on when they're 45 and they realize what a waste everything has been. I know some people like that, you know. They're really—really, you know, I mean they're happy that they—they kind of really know a few things, but like they really, you know, they really go—show—say—go to pot, you know, like they quit their jobs and they just sit around the house and laugh. What's this with pot, you mean? Well, I mean—no, I mean people that really sort of understand that at 45 that they've just been really hung up their whole life, you know. It's necessary to think about—if the chick is with somebody else, man—if—uh, you know, just the world is filled with too many people, you know, and if—and—uh, but by turned on you don't mean to—anything—just to—realization of things, you know. There's many thousands of ways to realize things, you know. They have even groups across the country—they have self-realization groups that you can become a part of. Yeah, and—and there's no guarantee that if you trip—that's going to turn you into any kind of realization of—of all—yeah. Well, I guess everybody smokes pot—I mean, pot is like—sort of behind the times now, you know. It's like—to get busted for pot is just—it's kind of like a—it's not really—it doesn't really—much of a status anymore. But what does LSD—nothing really—good—bust of any of that stuff. It's just—it's kind of like—it's—uh—just a sign of very uncoolness, you know, unless they planted on you or something.

You were saying the—with the kids now—they learn it so fast that by 21 it—it really has no meaning anymore in the sense of—what—that they realize that that too doesn't—they realize that it's really a drag to—plan for tomorrow their whole life. Yeah, and realizing in terms of really hard reality—tomorrow never comes. Like you can—all you always wake up and it's today, you know. Like tomorrow just never seems to come, and—uh, you know—and there is no yesterday. Yeah, so—so what's left is just, you know—nothing—live on the present. Yeah, yeah. But—uh, you know, I know a lot of people know this—I—I know a lot of people know this—I didn't know this really, so, you know, when I went to—when I was 16, 17—a lot of people know it now—a lot of people at 16 really know now that—uh, you know, the communication is so great, you know. Communication of—TV, you know, and radio and—and letters can get across the country fast and telephones, man—it's like there's no reason for anybody not knowing anything really by the time they're that age—and a lot of people don't—and a lot of people—and you know, by knowing anything you mean knowing—again that it's all pres—not—it's on presence. Like to know pot—or to know any drug—he is—is—is uh—to know—to know any drugs is fine and it's not going to [ __ ] you up, you know. I mean that's one thing. M—but to know in terms of—not saying anything about it—that's another thing, yeah, you know. Anybody you know—smoke you pot—you remember smoking pot the first time—in—whoopie—and you got to tell your friends, man, this kind of stuff—I—me—that's not really, you know, so great or anything like that, you know. Uh, it's like what counts is not whether—whatever it is you're using or not using—but again that realization about the futility of planning for tomorrow. Yeah. The thing is like it doesn't even matter, you know. Like if—uh, you know, it's—it's a silly thing to even—to discuss. I mean you see lectures all the time in the Village Voice—lectures on everything—absolutely everything—they talk about, you know, the relationship of Gandhi to—uh, you know, to pipe tobacco, man, you know—and—and—and I'm sure they're going to get a hall filled—you know—reasons for the—you know—reasons for the—the coming of the camel—and you know, like—uh, there's thousands of people there going to go see it—and they—of course they all wear glasses, you know—and—uh, you know—and—uh, this is not really a valid world—this is, you know, this is a—this is a—you know, very—what you going to call it—I don't know—I love people call intellectual kind world—it's not—it's—it's boring, you know. It really is boring. They don't do anything. Then I know some of the kids—uh, in Students for a Democratic Society, you know, who are working in the—in the ghettos—and they say, well, the kids who figure they have the answer through pot or whatever are really running away from everything. Well, nobody feels—have to answer through pot—and—no, this—I don't want to make this kind of a drug interview or anything, but like LSD—like—uh, once you take LSD a few times, you know, I mean LSD—it's a—LSD is a medicine, you know. Like take it—you take it and you know—you know—you know you don't really have to keep taking it all the time—it's nothing like that—it's not that kind of thing, you know. It's, you know, whereas pot, you know—I—nobody got any answers to pot—pot is, you know—pot's not that kind of thing. I'm sure the people that say—people—the people that say that—the people who figure they got their answers to pot, you know—first of all those people who say that—and they're just inventing something—and—and the people that think they really—actually think they got their answers through pot—never even smoke pot, you know. I mean it's like—it's—pot is—is you—who smokes pot anymore anyway, you know? Pot is—it's—getting back to music—uh, you were saying that you like the early Presley—I wondered about somebody like Johnny Cash—Now how does he affect you—cuz he's a guy—that's funny thing to—I—it's—I—I can't really—really talk about it too much—say I like Johnny Cash a lot. Yeah, uh—I—I—I like everything he does really. Yeah. I've just begun to pick up on him—his early records were much better, I think, than his latest records—although he's written some fantastic things—he's really written some great things—he wrote—rewrite Frankie and Johnny—did you ever hear that? No, that's better—much better than even the traditional version—he wrote—he wrote Big River and all those—SS—that—what about—U—you know, the Rolling Stones and the Animals—how—how strongly do you react to them—what they're writing and singing? They just—they so just recently began to write—I don't think the Animals have written anything. Yeah, uh—well, I don't know—I don't think the Rolling Stones consider themselves writers or anything. How about the music itself? Music is just hard—straight music—it's—uh, you dig it? I—personally dig it. Yeah. Well, I—I—I, you know, I would—yeah—I did some of it. Mhm. I—I did—I did some of it—some of the music—I did some of the Animals' music and The Beatles—and you've got to see them—I guess fairly often—in fact I read somewhere—George Harrison—some—he said—Y—what you did mostly was laugh all night. Yeah, that's true. What kind of communication's going on there? Um—not—is—you know, communic—there's nothing—know about communication—it's just—let me put this—you know—I could just laugh all night—that's—what about—all—how do you feel about—Lennon and McCartney as writers—cuz some of the jazz guys are finally finding that their tunes are pretty interesting. Oh, their tunes are—yeah, their tunes—they're really not good. Um, yeah, they—they're all right. How would you—I'm going to ask you to be like a musicologist, but where do all these things fit in—where's the mainstream in terms of—you—country and western—rhythm and blues—bluegrass—all that—how do you see it all in—in—in some kind of perspective—or does it matter? Uh, it doesn't really matter, you know. Uh—I—I—I—I don't really think about it, you know. Um, I—what does that mean—mainstream? I don't know—I never knew. Well, that puts an—whole other life—well, I certainly wouldn't know—I have no idea—that stuff to you is—is just irrelevant—depends on how it sounds—one thing—that—another thing—I wanted to ask about jazz—which seems to have lost the—the kids entirely—uh, you appeal to them—the Beatles do—the Stones—The Righteous Brothers—but jazz seems to have gone and passed the young—almost all the—all the way—why is that? Well, jazz is—I mean, we—I don't know what you mean by jazz, you know. Like the—are—Aus—M—that kind of thing. Well, I don't know—it's more like a—a little room kind of thing, you know. I would think—I've—I've been in some of those places—and you got to take the full trip—I mean you can't just come in, you know, in the middle of a song or—and get excited, you know. You got to start from the beginning and you got to—ready—it's like you got to sit down there and you got to say, okay, I'm going to read this now, you know. It's—it's music, you know. It's—a lot of people really aren't equipped to deal with—sounds, you know, in such a—a way that—they—they have no—they can't see any lead—they can't see any follow. Mhm. They—whereas they can only follow straight chords—they don't want to follow anything else, you know. They don't care how far out it is as long as they can follow it in some kind of way—like—a lot of the jazz—you just can't follow. MH—I mean you can, you know, if you sit down and take it from the beginning and—and—and do that, but I mean that's a whole—that's hard—that's—that's work, you know. Like who really wants to do that, you know? What about—do you figure your songs are at all work—like the images—no—was—oh, that might be work, but like they're all easy to follow. Yeah—music—yeah. I mean—I mean they're all easy to follow—I know—because—because I can follow them, you know. I can't—and if I can follow them, man, anybody can follow them, you know. Uh—you—you're through the protest thing, you know—but what's your reaction to this growing thing of—you know—like Eve of Destruction—somebody like P.F. Sloan who says—U—what he—his inspiration comes from being bugged most of the time? You think this is a passing thing? Yeah, that's passing—that'll just go so long—that—that protest thing—it'll—you know—even Destruction, you know, it's—it's nice, you know. It's good that stuff like that is being on a radio, but—uh, it's—I don't know what it means, I mean, you know—uh, it's—it's protest music—and protest music is—we—we've been playing protest music—it's been—that—in New York for 5 years—that comes from California—that's the whole California thing now—which—when California gets hit to something like—they really go—go all out, you know—and—uh—but—why do you think it's going to fade away? Well, because people are just going to get tired of it, you know. Like they get tired of anything—they don't want to hear stuff all the time, you know—protesting all the time—I mean, you know—do you think the kids who buy the records—like Eve of Destruction—buy it cuz they agree with what the guy's saying? No, I think that was a good song—that was—that was hard—that was—that was the—the—uh, you know—and you get sick of it too—get sick of—I got you, Babe, you know—you get sick of—you get sick of—you get sick of anything, you know—anything you're going to get sick of—doesn't matter what it is—but—I—me—some of those—the other songs that aren't as good musically as Eve of Destruction—do you think the kids are digging the message or is it just part of the—F—yeah—well, it's better to have them buying those things, I guess—and thinking about something—but—uh, you know—like—Don't Step on My Blue Suede Shoes—yeah—let Carl Perkins, man, you know—like there's no comparison in which is better, you know—absolutely no comparison, you know. Like Don't Step on My Blue Suede Shoes—sung by Carl Perkins, you know, is—that's really, you know—uh—more—more listenable, you know—or you can see more in that—or I can, you know—I couldn't—Eve of Destruction—only just because my mind works that way—a lot of people, you know, can't really see as much in that, you know.

We started off talking about, you know, people like Cole Porter and Gershwin—do you think it's accurate to say that what's happening now on records is a lot closer to reality than the Porter—Vincent—human things—which was really kind of for a small group of sophisticates living pretty well? Well, that's the same way as everybody—that's—even all the—even all the—even all the—even all the intellectual books, you know—just appeal to a small group of people, yeah, you know. Even, you know, T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost, you know—e.e. cummings, you know—all—you—all those people, you know—U—even people, you know, like—uh, you know, John—name—and, you know—they all just appeal to a certain crowd of people, you know—and—and—and nobody else really—uh, you know, they only sell, you know, a certain amount of books—and they sell them to people who are just going to talk among themselves about it—but they don't really get out into places where people who don't really know each other can, you know—all of a sudden—I—swarms over by, you know—yeah. Well, what would happen, you know, if the United States was just—all of a sudden—Ulysses came on the radio one day, you know—or—or what would happen, you know, if it was just on the top 40 radio station—what would happen if they played, you know—the movie—We Are All Murderers, man—on a double bill with an Elvis Presley flick? But it just don't happen, you know. What would happen? Well, I don't know—but it actually—I mean that's, you know, like—why not—why not do it, you know? Why not play, you know, those kind of things together? But so anyway—that's why—Ralph—won—keeps writing—that—what—what's—H—what has happened is that popular music has become democratized for the first time—you've got Negro influences and country influences and—and songs that mean something to the kids. You think that's a fear of—appra—yeah—but then again, you know, like I really have no contact with the kids—I—what I'm doing is—is—uh—somebody just—is watching, you know—and listening—I—I would do it, you know—you know—if they didn't—I've always done it—and—it's that kind of thing, you know. Uh, do you have any contact with the—the kid dance—you know, the new dances—like the—the dog—on the front—no contact with that—oh, we—in a lot of times we go into clubs—some clubs and dance—but—but I have no contact with those kind of dances. Yeah. You also said that teenagers all talk a different language—I—have—name me a teenager—I have no recollection of being a teenager. Yeah. Well, I told the guy—name me a teenager, you know—name me one teenager that—who was a teenager—and he couldn't do it, you know. Yeah—you—me a teenager—I mean who knows a teenager, you know. It's like, you know, I asked him what he meant by teenager and I said—name me a teenager—who do you mean when you speak of the word teenager? Yeah, you know, you're sort of insulting a lot of people there—like who really do you mean, you know—and he—he just couldn't think of anybody that he wanted to insult—so he—and when you say that you don't recollect being one—that means that when you were 15 or 16 you were Bob Dylan—or 15 or 16—right? I wasn't teenage, you know. Yeah. Then he—qu—talking about enemies—they can crush you—they can kill you—and lay you out in 42nd Street and put the hoses on you—who—who are—who do you figure are your enemies—the enemies—yeah—uh—the enemies are those people that can crush you—and—and send you to 42nd Street—that kind of stuff—I don't know—the enemies can be, you know—the enemies are—so the enemies—I don't really—don't even know any enemies—but, you know, there's just a lot of people—we—show—without a better name—can be referred to as enemies, you know. How would you characterize them? I mean, what—well, they usually have—usually have acid coming out of their ears, you know. See—but do you—do you yourself feel that—in any specific sense—you have enemies—either in—in music or whatever—anybody—I guess there—I guess there a lot of people that want to, you know, see me done away with, you know—and you—well, the obvious reason—because there—people that want to see anybody done away with, you know—but—uh—I mean I don't—I can't really think of in terms of—that's—that kind of thing, you know. Yeah. I—thing you said is—Shelton—was—what I write is much more concise now than before—it's not deceiving—what did you mean by deceiving? Well, deceiving means that like—uh—like when I wrote these songs—like, you know, a lot of those songs I wrote before—they were written, you know, within a small—small circle of people—like Masters of War—yeah—there was a small circle of people that heard them, you know—and—uh—when some—when they were brought finally to the outside—somebody else who heard them just weren't equipped really to take it—and know it, you know—the same way—you know what I mean—I was like—uh—I mean deceiving is like straightforward—blunt—uh—kind of thing—and where somebody else could—pos—think that—uh, you know, something is happening which isn't happening—that's like—I—I don't—I can't even remember back then—I can even remember in little rooms, you know, writing those things—but also remember I was right—I took the time out to write those things—the other stuff I was doing didn't even resemble those songs at all—they resemble more what I'm writing today in terms of songs, you know—which I wouldn't consider writing that in terms of songs because I know nobody could, you know. Yeah. How would you explain the difference—although it's there to—he—but I mean if you wanted to put it into words—between then and now—between then and now—well, the difference is—back then it was me—and—no—I'm me—no better answer than that. Um, you mentioned now that you know it's hard for you to just go on a bus—say for 3 days—is there any other way that all the renown has changed your—your private life—are you still able to keep a private life? Do—oh yeah—to some degree, you know. I—I mean it's—yeah—yeah—have some private life—but it's just that—uh—I don't really—get around much, you know. Well, I guess it's—stopped because I didn't write that much, you know—and other people were—fing around us—it really—so got messed up. We were talking about—about Joan Baez, you know—in terms of her political—and all—how about music—cuz I remember you once said she changed your definition for a time of—of what—of what beautiful was—cuz you thought it had to be ugly? Well, no—you read that in the back of—L—yeah—yeah—yeah—yeah—uh—

You know, I, I wrote those lining notes. You know, I wrote those Lin notes. I can't. Yeah, well, I don't, I really don't. Haven't even looked at them. I don't know what they say.

Yeah, you, but how do, how do you um, in a sense, assess her? Uh, and also what do you think about the fact that she's using more and more of your songs? Do they sound that much different when she does them? She does them okay. You know, there's a like that uh, um, she, she s, she sings very well. You know, like certain kind of thing. Uh, she, she sings really, really very good. It's, it's not the kind of thing where, where you can really listen to all the time, you know, or anything, but it's like uh, it is a thing, you know. It's, it's a thing. It's definitely don't Bas, you know, his, you know, his sings validly, you know, and, and what she does is, is uh, you know, it's good. It really is, you know. Uh, a lot of things she thinks aren't, you know, that good, but uh, you know, have you ever had much conversation with her about nonviolence? You know, she's opening an Institute or a training center.

No, I have no, I beat her up once. That's part, all I take it then that your philosophy doesn't necessarily encompass nonviolence as an, as an absolute. I, I don't, I don't. I've never met any nonviolent person. You know, when I meet somebody that's really nonviolent, I can see how they act. I can uh, you know, I will, I will then uh, make my decision as to whether nonviolence is uh, is worth it, you know, to anybody at all, but I've never met anybody that's nonviolent.

You want to elaborate on that beating her up? And we just dropped that. Yeah, I just beat her up. That's okay. Um, she wanted me to be nonviolent.

From what you've said, it comes down to, you know, living in the present, not worrying or expending any on the future. Now beyond that, and this is a slippery word, but what, what are your values, just for yourself, not in terms of what anybody else thinks? What is meaningful to you in how you live? What makes it, what doesn't make it the answer?

Yeah, I started to ask about a hard word to, to put in the words values, what, you know, what you live by. It sounds like R di is, but what, what makes it and what doesn't in terms of your own feeling about, about what's worth doing and what isn't worth doing. Well, anything is worth doing really, and in terms of the values, I just don't have any values, you know. Uh, I really can't, you know, I can't really think of any, you know, uh, I do anything once. Yeah, but it's like uh, it's just don't, I just don't have any values, you know, in terms of the values are supposed to raise your standard of being evidently, you know.

Yeah, uh, it doesn't matter to me about my standard of being, you know. I know in my own mind, you know, that uh, that uh, I don't want to hurt anybody or anything like that. Mhm. And uh, that's about all I can say about it, you know. But then again, I know a lot of people I hurt that it's not really me that hurts them.

You know, what do you mean? Well, I mean like they're just deceived, but, but like I haven't hurt them any. You, but then again, you can actually come out and hurt somebody, you know, like I don't really worry too much about people who say they've been hurt by me because, you know, 99 times out of 100, it's not me that hurts them.

Yeah, but that's a value then, is it, isn't it? U not wanting to hurt anybody? Well, I guess so, but you know, it's uh, uh, I, I would think that that's everybody's thing, you know. But is it? M, oh no, of course not. But I guess not. No. Well, then even, you know, even that ceases to be a value, you know, when, when you, even even if there is somebody that wants to hurt somebody, you know, like what if that person goes out and finds somebody that likes to be hurt, you know, and they just keep it there on that level, like I'll hurt you and I won't hurt anybody else if you promise not to be hurt by anybody else at me.

You know what you're saying then is that everything is really relative, there aren't any absolutes. I would think so. Yeah. Do you ever envision that you might get interested in politics or in foreign affairs, like some of the folks thinkers are?

No, that's really not my thing at all. I, I can't really see myself up on MH platform with uh, with ways to help people. Yeah, that, that, that they're if you know, that aren't going to get me killed. Really, if I really wanted to help anybody.

What do you mean? Well, I mean if somebody's really got something to say, you know, and they really can help somebody out and just bluntly, you know, I mean obviously they're going to be done away with, you know.

Yeah. Do you have any um, any people in public life, not Heroes, but people that you especially respect for one reason or another in public life? Yeah, um, well, I'm sure there are some, but I don't know of any.

Are there any groups or, or musicians we haven't talked about uh, that you'd have something to say about, like I don't know, the Righteous Brothers or something? Sure. What you think about what they do? No, no, I can't really. They okay.

You know, the LA, the last thing I wanted to ask was um, going back all the various things that, that became part of your, your, your growing up process as a, as a musician and as a composer. Remember you've mentioned uh, Big Joe Williams among others, who, how did, how did all this, you know, take shape, so far as you can look back?

Well, I just, you know, made up my mind very early that uh, that uh, was anything you wanted, you know, you really had to uh, you really had to, you make an attempt to uh, sacrifice everything, a lot of things, and there was nothing really that I wanted, cuz uh, you know, you can look around and see people have got just about anything you'd want to think to have. You can see how they are, how they act, and uh, they're like, you know, how do they act? I mean, you mean? Well, they just act very uh, strange. I say people, you know, who've got it all, you know, and uh, inheritance and stuff like that, you know, and nice things, and that's all they've got, you know, is there things like that? Well, I didn't want anything like that. I knew that what, what whatever I did, it, it would, it would be in terms of uh, some kind of, some kind of uh, some kind of creating something. I don't know what it was, but it was me that did it, you know, MH something which I could also do, you know, just for, you know, me. So I just made up my mind not to have anything, you know.

How old were you when, when this was? I, 18, 17. I knew there was nothing I ever wanted, you know, material you mean? Yeah, and I didn't want anything, and I just made it from there. I, so I just drifted around. I mean, I've been, I've been up a lot of times, man, in places with no place to go. It's been very early morning and stuff like that, and it never phased me. It was never like, well, here I am stuck on the highway, bumming down the railroad line. Know, I feel sad, you know. It wasn't that kind of thing at all. It was like, right out of my mind.

Well, does all this bread now, like I read you're going to make a million and a half in the next 18 months, does that mean anything to you?

Well, yeah, all it does is it, it enables me to uh, to stay away and not get uh, you, not really go insane with all the people that grabbing at you, and it's honest, you know. It's honest bread. I mean, it's honest in terms of when you said we were talking about all the bread, what we're talking about is not the concert money or the, or the uh, you know, the record sales money, that stuff. And terms of s, the money has come from just writing these songs, that's where most of it comes from. Most of it comes from there, and, and that all that money, you know, like it's there, I really can't, I really can't think about it one way or the other.

Do you have that scene where somebody takes care of it and invests it? Oh yeah, I don't even touch it, man. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't, I don't, I don't want to be like that. What do you think's going to happen to it eventually? Well, eventually it'll probably just blow away back where it came from.

Do you think your renown is going to blow away, you know, the way things sometimes just dis? Oh, sure, to, you know, a whole crowd of people just buying the hit records now. I, majority of those people probably would have heard of me for a couple years, probably, and then maybe a new generation of kids might find somebody else. Yeah, I don't really worry about fading in or fading out though, that's, that's another thing.

In a way, would you welcome being anonymous again? Well, I would to a degree, but not really. I mean, I wouldn't want to be anybody except me. I'm anonymous only in the sense that you could walk down the street and uh, oh yeah, well, anybody would welcome that, that's, that's another thing. But, but then again, being me, I can get all sorts of little things, you know, favors and stuff like that for other people, you know. So that's, oh, we, we didn't go back to that, the various kinds of musics that as you were growing up uh, help shape what you were going to do. R Joe Williams was one.

Well, that was later, that was when I was, when I left there. Well, the only music I heard up until I left Minnesota was uh, I didn't hear any folks music at all. Yeah, I just heard uh, country and western music, rock and roll, and poker music. Who are the ones that you heard them that you especially done country in western, let say? Oh, just about all the people, Marty Robins. No, Mar Rob, I didn't think Le brael M, know fair and young, all those people like that. Rock and roll, all the people that were around Elvis Presley and K perin Dean Vincent Buddy Holly. Mhm. JY Lewis. And then what was added on like in the folk field? Well, then, then it came down to the fact that uh, to make it alone you had to, you know, play alone. So they discovered folk music where people actually played alone. Mhm. You know, then, you know, first it started with, you know, Odetta. No, no, it starts with her bany. Yeah, t with fun to hear him, and right away, you know, that he's not really where it's at.

Why? Well, I mean, you know, you know, right away you haven't got that much time to spend on Harry B aony. I mean, you know, that he just doesn't know that many songs. Yeah, Thena, Thena, and you go through these stages, Josh White, to finally you arrive at Woody Guthrie, who, who, who sounds pretty weird. Yeah, you know, and obviously who looks like uh, you know, looks like you to some kind of degree, and I went through, went through all gy songs, then, you know, then the folk music which I heard somewhat to a degree. I knew people that sung Barbara Ellen and stuff like that, and uh, you know, listen to all that music. A lot of it I've heard before. I mean, I really actually have heard before. I've actually heard old people singing a lot of the folk songs that, that like uh, Lord Thomas and stuff like that. I've heard these songs before when I was young.

I mean, around where you grew up? Yeah, I've heard people sing. I know pretty much attention, you know, to, to people that did with people, you know, the people sitting in their porches, man, sometimes, you know, when you walk by they wouldn't be singing anything what you hear on the radio, they'd be singing folk songs, you know. But who wanted to hear them, man? Like they were a drag, you. But I remember hearing them. Yeah, you know, and, and uh, you know, there was stuff like that.

After Guthrie, was there anybody particularly uh, no, not really. Woody Guri really has an influence that where, where I'm do what I'm doing now. He hasn't, he hasn't had much to do with the influence of these past two records. Uh, in fact, he really hasn't had any influence at all on the past two records. Yeah, I haven't heard any. The influence has all been on the first record, second record, third record. The fourth one was kind of wearing off a little bit, but uh, that's was still in confined to the folk music Circle. When I say infl, I mean total influence, I mean either writing or, or singing, you know. Uh, I mean his influence is, is, is in his uh, is in his uh, manner of speaking, you know.

Yeah, his influences in his, in his topics that he writes about. His influence lies in his uh, phrasing, you know, and stuff like that. Uh, now there's really no influence anymore. I don't know what it is anymore. It's not, it's not influenced by him really at all, as much as the songs are influenced by sounds, sounds. Yeah, the, the songs are just, are the songs are just uh, you know, like opening up a window, you know, and just looking out on the street, you know, like every, it's all going to be different street, or just being out on the street, just a whole, a whole kind of thing which, which is not a thing to write about. I don't write about anything anymore, as I aren't about anything.

Yeah, there's a kind of surrealistic feeling, especially in the last record. What you get are all kinds of images getting together. It's a very provocative kind of. Well, you see, I, I, they're not really images to me, you like, I, I know what they are. They're, they're real, you know, like they're, they might be Im Just other people who've never seen them, you know, like, but I know what those things are, and uh, when it comes time for me to be an Image Maker, man, you're really going to hear something fantastic images, but up till now there's been no images really.

Yeah. Well, how do you define an Image Maker? Something which I haven't seen, you know. Yeah. Oh, I say where it comes entirely out of your imagination. Yeah, these SS are not out of my imagination, out of experience. Yeah, we can call it experience I guess, or something. Yeah, what you've seen or whatever. Yeah. How do you feel when you hear kids coming up now who try to sound like you? You know, all of a sudden you're an influence.

I'd like that, you know. I'd rather have, have me for an influence than uh, you know, uh, barl Baker, you know, Warren b or somebody like that. Yeah, and say I wanted to be sure I was clear on one thing. You feel more like performing now cuz the group's with you, which means that there's less of that kind of, also because I just want to, I really dig it, you know. I, I dig it, and, and uh, the Halls are all very full, you know, and this, it's, it's just a thing now. I always wanted to do it, you know.

Why do you, why do you think it's become more uh, fun for you in the last? Well, it's good because I, I'm more in control. I know what I, know what it's, you know, I know, I know what I, know more. It's like uh, I know what I'm doing, you know. Before I used to do it, I, it was, it, it, it just happened, like, like you won a concert for a long time, you know, and the first big concert I played was in Phil Philadelphia. We just went there, you, the car, and man, I got out, took the guitar, and went up to the stage, and it sank for about 3 and 1/2 hours, you know. I didn't know what I was going to sing. I was just standing there trying to think of things and sing. I, I just, you know, then after the concert, I just put the guitar back in, and we all left. Mhm. That was a town hall and uh, Philadelphia or yeah, in Philadelphia, and then we had next one, the next night, and it was like the same thing, you know. That was fine for them, but like, who can keep on doing that? I couldn't do that nowadays. I, I wear out my clothes every time I get on stage. I can't uh, you mean there's that much wear and tear? Well, yeah, it's either that or else I really, I play it now, you know. Now it's like every, I got not just standing there and thinking of what to play, like it's all down now, and I know it sort of, you know, and uh, you're a professional.

Well, I hate to think of my ter myself in terms of that, hate to think of my terms and self of that really. Do you think of yourself in terms of being a folk singer? Does that mean anything to you? No, it means absolutely nothing to me, folk singer. I know what folk music is, you know, that's why I really can't call myself a folk singer.

Why? Well, you know, it's like uh, people, they're talking about folk music nowadays, like most the people talking about they don't even know what they're talking about, you know. It's like when they, they always say that in folk music you can keep something simple so the people can understand it, right? They, they actually, they're insulting a bunch of people by calling them people, right? They still people can understand it, you know, whereas when they really want to look at folk music and the folk songs, there are some really strange, weird folk songs, you know, that have you come down to the ages based on nothing, based on a, on a legend or Bible or, you know, plague or, you know, religion, man, just based on mysticism. There are a lot of those folks on, really a lot of them. But, and it's, you know, I don't understand where all this businesses, you know, got to just keep things simple. This is like a labor movement kind of thing, which is all just total, you know, waste. Yeah, look at all these labor people, they're all, they're all rich uh, suburb uh, people who told their kids not to buy Bob Dylan records.

You mean the ones who came up with the simple labor songs of a 30 days? Yeah, which side are you on? I'll ask which side are you on, and which side can you be on? I mean, it's really only two sides, anything, you know. Why don't you consider yourself a folk singer then, in terms of what you know about folk music? Well, because I got a very deep respect for it, you know. I, I respect folk music. I mean, I really do, you know. It's great, it's great music, you know. There's no doubt about it, you know. I'd rather listen to it sometimes than anything, but it's not a thing to play with. You can't play around with it and have folk song groups and have folk Gatherings and sing a bunch of folk songs. It's not that kind of thing at all, and you know, it's just not that, people just lost the point, that is not that, is not the point of, of what a folk song is, and who a folk song is.

You know, what, what is the point and who is a folk singer? Well, you know, you have a lot of these people in the South like, who just sit around on places and uh, they don't want to be bothered with any collectors or Al noax or like that, man. They're not going to sing any songs over tape recorders, they're not going to do that. They sit around, you know, and uh, they can sing up by themselves or, or if somebody's in the room, they, they won't even know you. They're like a writer, you know. They're like, they're like totally in a world of their own. They sing songs about things which, which mean something to them, but don't mean anything to anybody else. They talk about roses going out of people's brains, you know, and uh, you know, lovers who are, who are geese, and you know, and uh, swans who turn into angels, and you know, and uh, know some very hard stuff, you know, like uh, but much more harder than that, that's, they, they really talk about things which, you know, they know about, or if they don't know about, can feel it. That's what folk, that's a folk song. A Folk sing, you're singing a folk song, that's what I would think of. I certainly wouldn't think of any, you know, 22-year-old kid going to, you know, a labor rally and singing some Union songs. This is, you mean folk, folk singer is where it comes out of a, a whole in, know World, a whole world really background s in somebody's head, you know. Whether folk singer, you know, it can be a gas station man really, you know. We don't have to call folk singers, you know, Southern Mountain Farmers. We, we don't have to call a folk song, you know, a song that has been living for, you know, 1,800 years. We can call anything a folk song, you know, providing it's, providing, providing that it's just, it is, it is in a rhythm of its own and in a time of its own, and somebody else is uh, uh, whoever listens to it is allowed to listen to it, you know.

Allowed you mean uh, they're allowed to listen to it, not, not even to make a comment on it. It's not, it's not a performance in other words, right? It's not a performance at all. Then what, what do you call yourself or consider yourself? Well, obviously when I'm on the stage, I'm performing. Now the records aren't performances. We could have made this last record a lot better than we did, but it's all down there, you know. Uh, but are you a folks singer then on the records? No, I'm not a folk singer really at all, you know. I, I'm, I'm not, I could call myself a folk singer, I mean if it would mean anything, but it doesn't mean anything.

What do you call yourself? I don't call myself anything. I mean, I really don't. I'm sort of a slot machine uh, slot machine Wonder. Uh, what do you mean? I, I don't really have any, any, any titles which, which I would really want to claim, you know. Is there anything I haven't asked that you think would be relevant or irrelevant? I don't know. Well, no, it's really, I don't know, somehow, I mean, somehow even the, the, you know, the idea of where this is even going to go, this interview is just, it's just uh, say some more about that. I want to, who's even going to read it, you know. I mean, like you take the kind, kind of people that are going to read it. Yeah, how much is the magazine first of all cost, what, you know, a dollar or something, qu something like that. There's going to be a certain crown of people that's going to read that magazine, certainly, you know, like, you know, like uh, 3 million. I don't want to, you know, it's fine that I'm in the magazine, make some bunny chick someplace, you know, be in the magazine, but like I don't see any, anything that's really going to be done, you know. Uh, anybody cuz to know anything cuz I can't, I don't know where the outlet is for what I do, you know. The only Outlet I know of is records, and I don't know who buys the records, the same the magazine. I have no idea really who buys the magazine except that I know it's a very funny looking group of people, you know. I mean, people which I don't really associate with. I don't know anybody that Associates with. And we, we go to towns and we see Playboy clubs, we see the people going to the play play clubs, but God, man, like it's, that's, you know, who wants to go in the playb club, you know, you was. And this is the very last thing, do you think anything can be done by any one person to change anything?

Well, I don't know, like I used to spend about to change things, you know, like uh, used to be that for days and days I would walk around in the same clothes, you know. Nowadays I change clothes, you know, once a day, and you know, if I can possibly get to that, changing more, changing more, you know, and I think that's a big step. That's about the, that's about the one possibility of change, that's, that's

About the only change I see. The other change is destruction, you know. And you think that might happen? Well, I don't think it'll happen here. I just don't think people are ready for it, you know. I don't think uh everybody is so destructive as it is. That if anybody wants to destroy something, there are enough people around to destroy whoever destroys, you know.

But if you want to change something, man, you what, what's all this talk in business? You want to change something? You just Wham, you just destroy it, you know. What else? Don't talk about it; sing about it. Right, thank you very much. Had a lot of patience.