The Idler

THE FREESPIELING BOB DYLAN

By Paul Hamilton and Karen Morden

‘Hell is other people’ said some absolute pain in the barking spider that everyone in the entire world hated. But surely Hell - or a version thereof, at any rate - is finding oneself in an alien environment, with no easy way out. In fact, there’s no way out. Adapt to the environment and shed the shouting pants of your individuality and you’ll be labelled a spineless blancmange for not standing up for yourself and your briefs. Refuse to conform of course and you’ll be branded a freak.

This is the dilemma that faced Bob Dylan on his 1966 world tour. Bored of solo protesty acoustic strummy glummy, buoyed by Beatlesbyrdstones twang meringue and seeking a similar bite of the pop pudding, he put a tentative toe in the waters of wattage with 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home LP (Side 1 ‘electric’, side 2 ‘acoustic’) and plunged deependily with Highway 61 Revisited, speedfreakin’ poetics hollered over Marshall stack-crackin’ guitars of purest mania. Yummy.

Bob performed his 1966 gigs beginning with 45 minutes of solo unpluggery and then another three quarters of an hour of mad, majestic noise aided by five musicians, four of whom later became The Band (purveyors of fine granddads-with-pipes music) The genius is bottled in all its raging glory on the 1998 CD release of Live 1966: The ‘Albert Hall’ Concert with its schizoid audience responses - silent, awed, slackjawed wonderment at the hallucinatory acoustic half; the raucous caucous of slowhandclapping and boos (culminating in the ultimate ‘JUDAS!’) punctuating but not puncturing the slow motion car crashing twisted metal mercury wildness of the second half.

The reception greeted Dylan by the world’s Press was no better, probably worse. They wanted this fiery little upstart togged out in his best John Cooper Clarke finery exposed as a fake, a sham, a man of Mammon, and the press conferences were duels of vicious verbal swordplay. And if ‘pain surely brings out the best in people’, as Dylan opined in She’s Your Lover Now, the following extracts of interviews from twenty pounds of headlines display the finest quicksilver mind in Rock’n'Roll. By turns surrealist and straight, the Zimbo’s responses are prime examples of his codes to life and how to live it: ‘Keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb’ and ‘To live outside the law you must be honest.’

Sydney Airport, 12th April 1966

Q: How does it feel to be a popular hero?
A: I don’t regard myself as a popular hero. I know I’m not, so how could I be?
Q: How would you describe yourself?
A: I don’t describe myself. How do you describe yourself?
Q: I have no idea but I don’t have to sell your talent.
A: Neither do I. Write whatever you like. I’m a tree-surgeon if you like.
Q: Why have you started playing rock’n'roll?
A: Is that what they call it?

Q: Why have you gone commercial?
A: I have not gone commercial. I deny it. Commercial - that’s a word that describes old grandmothers that have no place to go.
Q: Are you a professional beatnik?
A: Well, I was in the brigade once - you know, we used to get paid money but they didn’t pay me enough so I became a singer.
Q: Why do you wear those outlandish clothes?
A: I look very normal where I live. I’m conservative by their standards.
Q: Does it take a lot of trouble to get your hair like that?
A: No, you just have to sleep on it for about 20 years.
Q: What would you be if you weren’t a songwriter?
A: A ditchdigger called William Joe Zimmerman.
Q: What’s your real name?
A: William W. Kasonavarich.
Q: Why did you change it?
A: Wouldn’t you change yours if you had a name like William W. Kasonavarich? I couldn’t get any girlfriends.
Q: Is there any general theme behind your songs?
A: Yes. They’re all about the Second Coming.
Q: When do you expect that?
A: When people don’t wear clothes any more.
Q: Do you like The Beatles’ songs?
A: They’re side-splitting.
Q: What are your impressions of Australia?
A: Australia isn’t a very nice place for lots of people - people like Orientals and Negroes.
Q: Perhaps you’d better be careful what you say.
A: I don’t care what I say. I don’t live here. Australia has about 11 million people, right? America is about the same size. There must be some reason why there are only 11 million people in Australia. Maybe it’s because they don’t play baseball here.
Melbourne airport, 17th April 1966

Q: How would you describe yourself?
A: I am a storyteller.
Q: What’s your greatest ambition?
A: To be a meatcutter.
Q: Can you enlarge on that?
A: Large pieces of meat.
Q: What do you think about Australia?
A: Since I was a little boy I have heard about Australia. I once knew someone who knew somebody who knew somebody whose grandfather was supposed to have been to Australia. This gave me a tremendous curiosity to find out whether this fellow really did have a grandfather.
Q: You also came here for the money, I take it?
A: I take it.
Q: How will you present yourself in concert?
A: I play with my clothes on. That’s the only part of my act that I haven’t got under control yet. But I must admit it is not the right way to go about - with clothes on, I mean.
Q: Do you watch television, Bob?
A: Yes, I watch Roy Rogers.
Q: Isn’t that a bit below the intellect?
A: It’s not below mine. It might be below yours.
Q: Are you changing your image?
A: Yes, I’m sitting right here changing my image.
Q: What do you think of Pop Art?
A: Pop Art lasted only three months. Pop Art is the commercialisation of soup can labels.
Q: What happened to it after three months?
A: After three months people stopped painting soup can labels. After three months people stopped buying paintings of soup can labels. After three months people stopped buying soup! In fact, they picketed the supermarkets. I know cos I was there.
Q: When you were a young man you ran away from home several times. Are you still running away from something?
A: If I were running away I wouldn’t be here.

Adelaide Airport, 21st April 1966

Q: Do you sit down and think what you’re writing, or do you just go ahead and write?
A: I’ve answered that question to the television cameras.
Q: We didn’t hear that. Can you repeat it?
A: Watch it on television.
Q: Do you make money a yardstick or doesn’t it matter to you at all, money?
A: Make money a ‘yardstick’??
Q: In life. Do you think that having a lot of money is a good thing? I mean, you must have a lot of money by singing the songs you do. Do you sing songs because you can make some money out of this, or do you sing them just because you like to sing the songs, and money doesn’t mean anything at all?
A: I consider that an insult, sir.
Hotel Flamingo, Stockholm, Sweden, 28th April 1966

Q: Would you describe yourself as a protest singer?
A: No, I’m not a protest singer. In the USA I haven’t been called a protest singer since I was a little boy. I sing ordinary mathematical songs.
Q: What does that mean?
A: Mathematics? It’s things like adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying. The songs are a result of hunger and thirst.
Q: Hunger? At 50,000 Krowns a night?
A: No, but then again I don’t write as much as I used to.
Q: Do you like any of the protest singers who imitate you?
A: No. Have you heard me sing?
Q: No I haven’t.
A: Doesn’t it feel strange to sit there asking questions about something you don’t know anything about?
Q: The literary critics in places like Harvard say you’re a talented poet.
A: In Hollywood?
Q: Harvard.
A: Well, they’re just about the same thing. Let them talk.
Q: What do you think of literary analysis of your songs?
A: Well, that’s just fine. I wish I got paid for saying that.
Q: Who are your favourite writers?
A: Oh, Freddie McFarland, Muggsy Michaelson, Eddie Condor. You ever heard of them? I like Ingmar Bergman.
Q: What do you think of sick humour?
A: What’s that exactly? Hubert Humphrey?
Q: How often do you comb your hair?
A: Every time I’m in the bathroom. About every other day.
Q: Why is your hair so long?
A: Most people know that it’s warmer if you have long hair and everybody wants to feel warm. If you think about it you’ll realise that your hair is in your head, all around your brain. Mathematically speaking, the more of it that comes out the better. A lot of people who’d like to think more open-mindedly don’t realise that it’s easier to do that if your brain isn’t smothered in hair.
Swedish Radio Interview, Stockholm, 28th April 1966

Q: I wonder if you could explain a bit more about yourself and your kind of songs. What do you think of the kind of protest song tag?
A: I don’t, uh, … oh, God. No. I’m not, I’m not gonna sit here and do that. I’ve, you know, I’ve been up all night, I’ve taken some pills, I’ve eaten bad food and I’ve read about wrong things and I’ve been out for a hundred miles an hour car ride and, uh, I’m just not gonna sit here and talk about myself as a protest singer or anything like that. [...] Rainy Day Women happens to deal with a minority of cripples and orientals and, you know, and the world in which they live, you realise, you know, you understand, you know. It’s a sort of North Mexican kind of thing, uh, very protesty. Very very protesty. One of the protestiest of all things I ever protested against in my protest years.
Q: How do you feel about the Beatles?
A: Oh, the Beatles are great but they don’t play rock’n'roll.
Q: You don’t think they play rock’n'roll anyhow?
A: No, they don’t play rock’n'roll. They’re more like… Rock’n'roll is just for… is an extension of 12-bar blues. And it’s a white 17-year-old kid music. And it’s kid music, that’s all it is. That’s what rock’n'roll is. Rock’n'roll is a fake kind of attempt at sex, you know?
Press Conference, Hotel Marina Vedbaek, Denmark 30th April 1966

Q: What do you think of your audience?
A: Which audience?
Q: When do you write your songs?
A: I write when I’m alone. When I’m with a lot of people I’m so alone that I have to sing my songs to find out if it’s reality.
Q: What do you do when you want to have fun?
A: Sex. I’m a sex maniac!
Q: Who tells you what to do?
A: The Bell Telephone Company. The telephone rings and I do what I’m told to do.
Q: Are there times when you can’t stand yourself?
A: How could that be possible? I don’t know myself. I don’t know who I am. There’s a mirror on the inside of my dark glasses - otherwise I don’t interfere with my own private life.
Q: Are you married?
A: I’d be lying if I answered that question - whatever I told you. You’d make me tell lies and you wouldn’t want that, would you?
Q: Have you ever been in the army?
A: No, my feet hurt when I think about soldiers.
Q: Does the amount of money you’re earning now mean much to you? A: I don’t care about money. Nothing has changed me. I’m not a prophet. I don’t care how much money I make, only you do. I don’t spend my money on cars and boats and castles like an idiot, but people look at me like a poor fool. Well, so I am, a man of the people.
Q: Are you interested in politics?
A: No. The Oracle in Delphi was political, wasn’t it? And people who write horoscopes make money, ok? I’m a song, not a singer.
Press Conference, Mayfair Hotel, London 3rd May 1966

Q: Who do you think is the best folk-singer in the world?
A: Peter Lorre.
Q: Why don’t you write protest songs anymore?
A: All my songs are protest songs. You name something, I’ll protest about it.
Q: What about the book you’ve just completed?
A: It’s about spiders, called Tarantula. It’s an insect book. Took about a week to write, off and on. There are 360 pages. My next book is a collection of epitaphs.
Q: Do you have any children?
A: Every man with medical problems has children.
Q: What are your medical problems?
A: Well, there’s glass in the back of my head. I’m a very sick person. I can’t see too well on Tuesdays. These dark glasses are prescribed. I’m not trying to be a beatnik. I have very mercuryesque eyes. And another thing - my toenails don’t fit.

Press Conference, Hotel Georges V, Paris, 23rd May 1966
(N.B.: Dylan has an old ventriloquist puppet seated in his lap.)

Q: What did you think of your first night in Paris?
A: It was very dull.
Q: Why is the puppet here?
A: It followed me.
Q: Is it a mascot?
A: No, it’s a religious symbol.
Q: What religion?
A: It’s a symbol of the religion of tears.
Q: How much are you getting paid for your concert in Paris?
A: 350 million dollars.
Q: Tomorrow is your birthday - how do you feel about that?
A: It’s a crime to talk about it.
Q: Why do you sing?
A: Because I like to sing.
Q: Do you want to express something with your singing?
A: No.
Q: What do you think about death?
A: Very exciting.
Q: Which song will you open with tomorrow night?
A: ‘Hello Dolly’.
Q: What did you think of the American intervention in the war in Europe in 1944?
A: Do you think that’s an easy question?
Q: Yes.
A: Well, I don’t answer easy questions.
Q: What do you enjoy doing?
A: Smoking and eating.
Q: What interests you in life?
A: Nothing.
Q: What makes you happy?
A: A bowl of soup. Being kicked in the ribs by a friend.
Q: Are you happy?
A: Yes. As an ashtray maybe.

What with almost everybody getting extremely bald on him, and nothing between him and Hades but his everpresent shadies, Bob Dylan had to escape lest he get burnt up and out. (’There must be some way out of here’ indeed.) So when he fell off his bicycle and grazed his knee he seized the opportunity to retreat from the fire. Since then he has reinvented himself as redneck balladeer, gypsy troubadour and fervent God-botherer. His visionary surrealism remains in the Hell of ‘66 and has been replaced by a deep vein of black humour. (’When you think that you’ve lost everything / You find you can always lose a little more’ and ‘They tell me everything is gonna be alright / But I don’t know what alright even means’ from 1997’s Tryin’ To Get To Heaven are two of his merrier quips.)

This year’s ‘Love and Theft’ CD shows a radical uplifting in His Bobness’ spirits. He quotes a Marx Brothers gag, revives a W.C. Fields catchphrase - wow, he even tells a knock-knock joke. That may be a new kind of Hell for some people but there’s something fitting about Bob Dylan telling knock-knocks this close to Heaven’s door.