page thirteen

BF: Does that mean you create outsider art? Do you think of yourself as a cult figure?

BD: A cult figure, that’s got religious connotations. It sounds cliquish and clannish. People have different emotional levels. Especially when you’re young. Back then I guess most of my influences could be thought of as eccentric. Mass media had no overwhelming reach so I was drawn to the traveling performers passing through. The side show performers – bluegrass singers, the black cowboy with chaps and a lariat doing rope tricks. Miss Europe, Quasimodo, the Bearded Lady, the half-man half-woman, the deformed and the bent, Atlas the Dwarf, the fire-eaters, the teachers and preachers, the blues singers. I remember it like it was yesterday. I got close to some of these people. I learned about dignity from them. Freedom too. Civil rights, human rights. How to stay within yourself. Most others were into the rides like the tilt-a-whirl and the rollercoaster. To me that was the nightmare. All the giddiness. The artificiality of it. The sledge hammer of life. It didn’t make sense or seem real. The stuff off the main road was where force of reality was. At least it struck me that way. When I left home those feelings didn’t change.

page twelve

1. bringing it all back home
2. freewheelin’ bob dylan
3. highway 61 revisited
4. blood on the tracks
5. the times they are a-changin
6. blonde on blonde
7. time out of mind
??

listening to: bringing it all back home
first one i bought: blonde on blonde
first bob dylan song consciously experienced: just like a woman
first to make the room spin: ‘vision’s of johanna’, ‘it’s alright ma (i’m only bleeding)’ & ‘desolation row’ one right after the other; like ‘bang, bang, bang’. palatable. dizzying.

page nine

on meaning
“the world don’t need anymore songs. there’s enough songs. unless someone’s gonna come along with a pure heart and has something to say. that’s a different story.”

on perspective
“that’s another way of writing a song, of course. just talking to somebody that ain’t there. that’s the best way. that’s the truest way.”

on a place to write
“the environment to write the song is extremely important. it has to bring something out in me that wants to be brought out. it’s a contemplative, reflective thing.”

on getting out of the way
“creativity is not like a freight train going down the tracks. it’s something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect… you’ve got to program your brain not to think too much.”

on time of day
“a lot of the songs were written after the sun went down. and i like storms, i like to stay up during a storm.”

on structure
“once the architecture is in place, a song can be done in an endless amount of ways.”

on listening
“sometimes i’ll go out & say, ‘whatever else i do today, i’m going to write down all the lines that seem interesting to me.’ either that i think of or that i overhear.”

on being an artist
“they say, ‘dylan never talks’. what the hell is there to say? that’s not the reason an artist is in front of people.”

on writing
“writing any kind of book is a lonely thing. you cut yourself off from friends & family to find that necessarily quiet place in your mind.”

on what comes out
“this is how i feel? why do i feel like that? and who’s the me that feels this way? i couldn’t tell you that either.”

on artistic risk
“it becomes risky. i mean, you risk you life to play music, if you’re doing it the right way.”

on intention
“let’s face it, you’re either serious about what you’re doing or you’re not serious about what you’re doing. and you can’t mix the two. and life is short.”

on learning from others
“if you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.”

on inspiration
“it’s like a ghost is writing a song like that. it gives you the song and it goes away. you don’t know what it means. except the ghost picked me to write the song.”

on performing
“some songs are better written in peace and quiet & delivered in turmoil. others are best written in turmoil & delivered in a peaceful, quiet way.”

page eight

“i look at people as ideas. i don’t look at them as people. i’m talking about general observation. whoever i see, i look at them as an idea – what this person represents. that’s the way i see life. i see life as a utilitarian thing. then you strip things away until you get to the core of what’s important.”

page five

page two

page one

“If you want to know what I’m like you usually have to ask other people.”
“How would you like to be remembered?”
“Only as someone who tried to love somebody.”
“What’s love mean to you?”
“Love to me is an active thing. Love to me is a an action type thing. It’s not a word. It’s not a passive thing. If you love something or someone you prove it. Romance is a dead end.”