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Rebellion & Revolution: Bob Dylan In The '60s [Episode 271] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: On this episode of Booke Don Rock, author Sean Egan
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Speaker 1: explores Bob Dylan's nineteen sixties music that shaped rock and culture,
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Speaker 1: from iconic albums like Highway sixty one revisited in Blonde
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Speaker 1: on Blonde to timeless songs like Blown in the Wind
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Speaker 1: and Like a Rolling Stone. We covered all next We're
0:16
Speaker 1: totally bummed rock and Roll.
0:19
Speaker 2: I mean gotta leave you.
0:20
Speaker 1: You're reading Little Hands says it's time to rock and
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Speaker 1: roll rock Roll. I totally booked. Welcome back to Book
0:33
Speaker 1: Don Rock. I'm Eric Senach. This episode's guest is Sean Egan.
0:37
Speaker 1: He's the author of Decade of Descent on nineteen sixties
0:40
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan changed the world. Thank you for being here, Sean.
0:44
Speaker 1: Going back to when Dylan arrives on the scene in
0:46
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixty one early sixty two, Well, little we
0:49
Speaker 1: know about Bob Dylan through Columbia Records, press releases, and
0:53
Speaker 1: early interviews is that he's quote a young man who's
0:57
Speaker 1: rambunctiousness stemmed from the grievances of material under privilege. But
1:01
Speaker 1: over time we would find out that wasn't the true story.
1:04
Speaker 1: What was Dylan's early life like and how would that
1:07
Speaker 1: provide the impetus to his early songs like Blowing the Wind,
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Speaker 1: Masters of War and the Times They Are Are Changing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he certainly can't be described as being
1:15
Speaker 2: materially underprivileged. He came from a middle class household up
1:21
Speaker 2: in Hibbing, Minnesota. His dad owned a furniture store, and
1:26
Speaker 2: he never wanted for anything. I mean, he was driving
1:28
Speaker 2: cars and motorbized when he was still a teenager. So
1:32
Speaker 2: on that score, he was certainly a lie that he
1:35
Speaker 2: spanned two early interviewers, that does seem to be bound
1:39
Speaker 2: up in a certain unhappiness with his hinterland. His dad
1:44
Speaker 2: was quite an authoritarian figure. Seems to have got on
1:47
Speaker 2: okay with his mum and his grandmother as well. But
1:51
Speaker 2: there's some deep seated anguish and grievance on Dylan's part
1:58
Speaker 2: towards his dad, and that does seem to be manifested
2:03
Speaker 2: in the songs that he started writing in the early sixties.
2:06
Speaker 2: The Protest song. He was basically in his early days,
2:11
Speaker 2: maybe his entire life, he was very anti authoritarianism, anti racism,
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Speaker 2: and he had sympathy for the underdog. His dad used
2:22
Speaker 2: to have to repossess furniture that he'd sold to people
2:25
Speaker 2: on higher purchase, and Dylan had to go and help
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Speaker 2: retrieve that furniture, and that was one of the most
2:31
Speaker 2: hated aspects of his childhood. He absolutely detested having to
2:35
Speaker 2: do that, and that seems to be the perfect summary
2:41
Speaker 2: of how despite the fact that he was privileged, he
2:45
Speaker 2: had sympathy always for the underprivileged.
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Speaker 1: Dylan's self titled debut was released in March of nineteen
2:51
Speaker 1: sixty two. Dylan known as an original songwriter, but that
2:54
Speaker 1: first album mostly cover songs eleven covers, two originals, and
2:59
Speaker 1: there are contrasting perceptions of its quality. What are those
3:02
Speaker 1: contrasting perceptions.
3:04
Speaker 2: Well, it was quite well received at the time, and
3:06
Speaker 2: it was quite well liked. I mean people like the Animals,
3:10
Speaker 2: the UK R and B Group and Rod Stewart in
3:14
Speaker 2: his early days when he was a folky. They loved it,
3:17
Speaker 2: and it's got good reviews down the years. The Rolling Stone,
3:23
Speaker 2: the first Rolling Stone Record Guide, if you remember that,
3:26
Speaker 2: they put it higher in its rankings than The Times
3:29
Speaker 2: They Are a Changing, which is a much more famous album.
3:33
Speaker 2: But an odd album, not just because we now perceived
3:39
Speaker 2: Dylan as his talent as being an original songwriter and
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Speaker 2: there's only a couple of new songs on the record.
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Speaker 2: It's also it contains a lot of songs about being
3:52
Speaker 2: an old man looking back on life and having lived
3:56
Speaker 2: a long life of hardship and getting read to meet
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Speaker 2: his maker. I mean that runs like a scene through
4:05
Speaker 2: the album, and this is a kid who's still got
4:08
Speaker 2: puppy fat on his cheeks and certainly hasn't lived a
4:12
Speaker 2: hard life materially sos. It just seems that Dylan was
4:16
Speaker 2: trying to get his grievances off his chest and not
4:20
Speaker 2: having the artistic wherewithal of the time to do that.
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Speaker 2: He was choosing to cover songs which he felt somehow
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Speaker 2: addressed his grievances. So it's a joker in the pack,
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Speaker 2: and it's certainly not representative of anything we perceive about
4:38
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan these days.
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Speaker 1: The Free Wheeling Bob Dylan was released in late May
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. Where the original had eleven covers to originals,
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Speaker 1: this has eleven originals to covers. The opening track Blown
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Speaker 1: in the Wind. It became an anthem for Dylan's generation.
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Speaker 1: You're right quote. The only line that doesn't have a
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Speaker 1: question mark at the end of it is the one
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Speaker 1: that appears at the clone of each verse, which states
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Speaker 1: that the answer to the preceding litany of inquiries is
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Speaker 1: blowing in the wind. In other words, the narrator is saying,
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Speaker 1: merely beats me pal or, as the British would put it,
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Speaker 1: don't ask me mate. That's from the book, non committal
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Speaker 1: and ambiguous. The suspicious minds may assume he was pulling
5:17
Speaker 1: a fast one on his listeners, but others say he's
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Speaker 1: questioning humanity and in a sense saying that we need
5:23
Speaker 1: to wake up to the reality that war and oppression
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Speaker 1: can be avoided. What is your interpretation of the lyrics?
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Speaker 2: Well, people think that Some people think that he was
5:32
Speaker 2: only inspired to write protest songs by his girlfriend at
5:37
Speaker 2: the time, Susie Rottolo, who was a bit of a
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Speaker 2: left wing activist. But you can't really fake that kind
5:45
Speaker 2: of passion and commitment and the kind of songs that
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Speaker 2: he was rioting, the emotion behind them. Blowing in the
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Speaker 2: wind is probably a bit unrepresentative in his ambiguity. He
5:58
Speaker 2: lists justices and it says, what's the answer? You know,
6:04
Speaker 2: how many times can the cannon balls fly before they're
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Speaker 2: forever band? While the answer was blown in the Wind,
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Speaker 2: So it's ambiguous. And if he'd only written that one
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Speaker 2: protest song, we could say, well, he needs himself open
6:19
Speaker 2: to the suspicion that it was all fake. But of course,
6:22
Speaker 2: something like the Times They are Changing, or when the
6:25
Speaker 2: Ship comes in or Masters of War, I mean those
6:28
Speaker 2: those are pretty straightforward declarations of sieving hatreds to the
6:36
Speaker 2: perpetrators of injustice. So that's in no way phony whatsoever.
6:42
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing about Blowing in the Wind, of course,
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Speaker 2: is that he wrote it mere weeks or months after
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Speaker 2: the Bob Dylan album was recorded, So he suddenly blossomed
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Speaker 2: into this great songwriter. He was suddenly writing songs destined
6:58
Speaker 2: to be world famous. That, of course is stuff like
7:02
Speaker 2: a hard range is going to fall, and the material
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Speaker 2: like that Masters of War. Suddenly he made this transformation.
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Speaker 2: It must be one of the most extraordinary development growth
7:15
Speaker 2: bursts in the history of recording music.
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Speaker 1: Talk about the song's importance in terms of how it
7:20
Speaker 1: would shape the way that pop music would be received
7:23
Speaker 1: from that point on.
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Speaker 2: Well, that kind of sophistication and intellect and political commitment
7:29
Speaker 2: was not unusual within folk music, But the crucial thing
7:34
Speaker 2: happened in nineteen sixty five when he merged folk and
7:37
Speaker 2: rock stroke pop together. I mean that had never been
7:41
Speaker 2: done before, simply because it never occurred to anybody that
7:45
Speaker 2: the kind of people who listened to folk would be
7:47
Speaker 2: interested in songs with a backbeat in four or four
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Speaker 2: time and decorated with a pretty instrumentation or raucous instrumentation,
7:57
Speaker 2: and of course vice versa. There was no reason to
7:59
Speaker 2: believe that the people who bought Beatles and Stones records,
8:02
Speaker 2: or had bought Elvis records in the past, would be
8:06
Speaker 2: interested in listening to songs that were either political or
8:10
Speaker 2: written in a poetic style. But he merged the two
8:15
Speaker 2: successfully together. People today don't quite understand just how revolutionary
8:20
Speaker 2: that is, because within a very short space of time
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Speaker 2: it became absolutely commonplace for poetic and political and intellectual
8:28
Speaker 2: lyrics to form the basis of a song popular song,
8:34
Speaker 2: chart song. But it was absolutely icebreaking at the time,
8:39
Speaker 2: and he was the person who did that pretty much
8:42
Speaker 2: single handedly.
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Speaker 1: The album title free Wheeling Bob Dylan, that has more
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Speaker 1: than one suggestion of new values. You say, can you
8:49
Speaker 1: expand on that?
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Speaker 2: Well, it's another of those things open to interpretation. You
8:54
Speaker 2: could even see it as a sort of sexual thing
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Speaker 2: because he's a portrayed on the front car with Susie,
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Speaker 2: very unusual imagery. I mean, some people must have looked
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Speaker 2: at that and maybe not knowing so much about Dylan
9:10
Speaker 2: because he wasn't that famous, then they might might have
9:13
Speaker 2: thought that Susie was Bob, short for Bobby, the female Bobby.
9:18
Speaker 2: It was a very odd piece of iconography. Has becomeing
9:23
Speaker 2: a piece of iconography. But yeah, free Wheeling, it just
9:27
Speaker 2: seems somehow in that odd period that was the overhang
9:32
Speaker 2: of the McArthur era to possibly be charged with political
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Speaker 2: meaning and or sexual meaning.
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Speaker 1: Book Down Rock Podcasts will be back after this and Creating.
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Speaker 1: We'll go up on Act after our short intermission. Dylan's
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Speaker 1: third studio album is The Times They Are a Changeing,
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Speaker 1: released in February of nineteen sixty four. Almost everything about
9:54
Speaker 1: that album is stark and serious, the humor of Free
9:56
Speaker 1: Wheeling completely absent. I'm curious as to what you attribute
10:00
Speaker 1: that too.
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Speaker 2: I think for a very brief period he fell in
10:03
Speaker 2: love with this idea of being the voice of a generation.
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Speaker 2: The Free Wheeling album had given him that image, that aura,
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Speaker 2: and you know, if you're suddenly having journalists beating a
10:18
Speaker 2: path to your door, you know, nodding sagely as you
10:22
Speaker 2: tell them what you think is wrong with the world.
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Speaker 2: That can turn anybody's heads. He was a young man
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Speaker 2: with a plenty of ego, and plenty to have a
10:31
Speaker 2: lot of ego about. And I think The Times They
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Speaker 2: Are a Changing is a very self conscious album. That's
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Speaker 2: Dylan saying to himself, Yes, I am the voice of
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Speaker 2: a generation, and I need to write a certain kind
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Speaker 2: of song in order to underline that fact. And so,
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Speaker 2: whereas the free wheeling Bob Dylan showed a quite rounded
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Speaker 2: human being who, as well as being politically committed, was
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Speaker 2: irreverent and horny and all the rest of it that
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Speaker 2: you spect to find of a young man in his
11:01
Speaker 2: early twenties, this one was apart from a couple of
11:06
Speaker 2: love songs, it was straight ahead protest music, some of
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Speaker 2: it which was very stark and depressing. I mean, the
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Speaker 2: title track is absolutely intuxicating. It's an exhilarating anthem of
11:21
Speaker 2: his generation. And people forget now that in the sixties
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Speaker 2: the values between the older sets the younger generation was
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Speaker 2: an absolute chasm. So that perfectly summed up that as
11:35
Speaker 2: much as well as my generation by the Who for
11:39
Speaker 2: the rest of it, it's not exactly enjoyable stuff, and
11:43
Speaker 2: it wasn't necessarily meant to be enjoyable stuff. It's very
11:47
Speaker 2: well crafted, but the political commitment was far more important
11:54
Speaker 2: in those songs than whether or not they were enjoyable songs.
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Speaker 2: And I think even his audience would have agreed with
12:01
Speaker 2: that at the time, because social commentary was very rare
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Speaker 2: in the media in those days.
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Speaker 1: In early August nineteen sixty four, another side of Bob
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Speaker 1: Dylan was released. This deviated from the socially conscious style
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Speaker 1: of previous albums. What are your thoughts on that?
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Speaker 2: I think his mind works five or six times faster
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Speaker 2: than anybody else's. And we all go through this idealistic
12:24
Speaker 2: phase when we're young, and then we grow out of
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Speaker 2: it a little bit and we realize that life is
12:29
Speaker 2: not black and white. We don't lose our sense of
12:33
Speaker 2: compassion necessarily, but we do lose our conviction that there's
12:37
Speaker 2: easy answers to the world's problems. Well, Dylan came to
12:41
Speaker 2: that conclusion within the year eighteen months of deciding that
12:46
Speaker 2: they were easy answers to the world's problems. That's just
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Speaker 2: how fast he was moving, and he articulates it perfectly
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Speaker 2: in the song My Back Pages, which is on that album.
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Speaker 2: He denounces he was now calling pejoratively finger pointing songs,
13:04
Speaker 2: and he denounces lies that life is black and white.
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Speaker 2: To quote from the song, he had just gone through
13:10
Speaker 2: that phase and he'd come out the other end, and
13:13
Speaker 2: now he was onto something new, which, by the way,
13:15
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that he was doing conventional stuff. I mean
13:19
Speaker 2: the songs on that album they're still irreverent, they're still alternative.
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Speaker 2: They would have been perceived at the time if it
13:27
Speaker 2: wasn't for the controversy about abandoning protests, they would have
13:31
Speaker 2: been conceived as a very bohemian song. He was still
13:36
Speaker 2: a very alternative figure.
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Speaker 1: For some of the album's closing track, Me Babe could
13:40
Speaker 1: have been Dylan's anthem. Is it about a woman? Maybe?
13:44
Speaker 1: Maybe not? It could be about protesters. Who do you
13:47
Speaker 1: think it could be about?
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Speaker 2: This will forever be a topic of discussion. Dylan doesn't
13:52
Speaker 2: interpret his songs for us. We have to do that,
13:55
Speaker 2: and many of his songs are very ambiguous, and when
13:59
Speaker 2: he uses the word you, it's quite clear that if
14:04
Speaker 2: you concentrate on the lyrics and you replace the word
14:07
Speaker 2: you with I. He's actually talking about himself, and that
14:12
Speaker 2: even applies to something like to Ramona, which on one
14:15
Speaker 2: level just sounds like a beautiful love song, and it
14:19
Speaker 2: even applies to like a rolling stone. Arguably, you know,
14:23
Speaker 2: people have interpreted that as a denouncement of a former lover,
14:28
Speaker 2: but he could just as easily be talking about himself.
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Speaker 2: With regard to a me babe, it's either a put
14:37
Speaker 2: down of a woman who expects him to behave in
14:41
Speaker 2: a traditional male breadwinner provide a protector role, or it's
14:47
Speaker 2: a denouncement of the fol Key protest fans who wanted
14:52
Speaker 2: him to provide answers to the world's problems. So you
14:57
Speaker 2: can say, you pick and it works, I away whichever
15:00
Speaker 2: way you want to listen to it. We should point out,
15:03
Speaker 2: of course, that Babe was his song. It was basically
15:06
Speaker 2: his trademark. It is now part of the common mexicon.
15:10
Speaker 2: But he was the first person to put that in
15:13
Speaker 2: popular song, which a couple of years later, or it
15:17
Speaker 2: was the following year, wasn't it led to You Got
15:19
Speaker 2: Me Babe? Sonny and Check and a lot of people
15:22
Speaker 2: when they first heard that song they thought it was
15:25
Speaker 2: either Bob Dylan or a cover of a Bob Dylan song,
15:28
Speaker 2: because that word was so bound up in his image. Plus,
15:33
Speaker 2: the melody line is a very Dylanesque melody line for
15:36
Speaker 2: the period. And again it's one of these things that
15:40
Speaker 2: have been forgotten by history.
15:42
Speaker 1: This episode's guest is Sean Egan, the author of Decade
15:44
Speaker 1: of the cent nineteen sixties. Bob Dylan changed the World
15:48
Speaker 1: sixty years ago this month. Dylan's Bringing It All Back
15:51
Speaker 1: Home was released April nineteen sixty five, his first album
15:55
Speaker 1: to incorporate electric instrumentation, Side one electric side two. In
16:00
Speaker 1: the acoustic Subterranean Homesick Blues Maggie's Farm Mister Tambourine Man
16:04
Speaker 1: from this album, the title refers to I suppose Dylan
16:08
Speaker 1: returning to his rock and roll roots. But you say
16:11
Speaker 1: the title has been interpreted in several ways. What's the
16:14
Speaker 1: most common interpretation.
16:15
Speaker 2: Well, people assume that the sart that the title is
16:19
Speaker 2: Dylan saying that the Beatles have reinvigorated and recalibrated rock
16:25
Speaker 2: and roll, but now Dylan is bringing it back to
16:28
Speaker 2: the land where it originated. Will never know, of course,
16:31
Speaker 2: because he'll he'll never interpret that for us. But that's
16:35
Speaker 2: the common assumption, and it seems a reasonable assumption. It
16:39
Speaker 2: does seem logical to assume that that was because he
16:43
Speaker 2: was running a real big risk of alienating his old
16:47
Speaker 2: fans by embracing rock. It wasn't necessarily the case that
16:52
Speaker 2: pop fans and rock fans would buy his records because
16:56
Speaker 2: there'd never been a pop up rock artist like him
16:58
Speaker 2: writing lyrics like his, So it does seem to be
17:02
Speaker 2: a hedge betting exercise. The ironic thing, of course, is
17:06
Speaker 2: that the second half of the album, the acoustic folky side,
17:11
Speaker 2: is easily the superior side. I mean, it's got four
17:14
Speaker 2: epic classics, including Mister Tamburine Man, but also including It's
17:20
Speaker 2: all right, ma, I'm Only Bleeding, which may well be
17:23
Speaker 2: his greatest ever song. Although the first side does have
17:28
Speaker 2: Subterranean Homesick Blues, which is a rock record like no other.
17:33
Speaker 2: It sounds a bit like Chuck Berry, but Chuck Berry
17:36
Speaker 2: as though he's decided to suddenly go all political and
17:40
Speaker 2: street wise instead of writing these anthems celebrating rock and roll.
17:44
Speaker 1: It's all right, mar to me. He's just brilliant on
17:47
Speaker 1: that song.
17:48
Speaker 2: And that's the point where Bobdynn, and the poet truly
17:51
Speaker 2: starts with songs like that, especially that. I mean, his
17:55
Speaker 2: first few albums, he'd been poetic, he'd been opile first
18:00
Speaker 2: of all. Then he moved into a more elliptical style
18:04
Speaker 2: of writing, such as on Chimes of Freedom. But suddenly
18:08
Speaker 2: you can look at the lyrics that he's writing and
18:11
Speaker 2: you think to yourself, if I saw that on a
18:13
Speaker 2: printed page, I might conclude that that was written by
18:18
Speaker 2: Verlaine or Rambo or any of the great poets. Beautiful phraseology,
18:26
Speaker 2: very intricate rhyming schemes, and he's learning about construction of
18:32
Speaker 2: songs as well, because he doesn't just end arbitrarily on
18:36
Speaker 2: a verse that could have been in any part of
18:39
Speaker 2: the song. He builds to a climax, and the last
18:42
Speaker 2: verse is usually a big statement and a big concluding point.
18:48
Speaker 2: So he is really learning his songcraft.
18:51
Speaker 1: Like the Rolling Stone is the lead track on the
18:53
Speaker 1: next album, which is considered among the greatest ever recorded,
18:56
Speaker 1: if not the greatest. Nineteen sixty five is Highway sixty
18:59
Speaker 1: one Revisited. You do write about the ways that Like
19:01
Speaker 1: a Rolling Stone was groundbreaking, talk about that this was
19:04
Speaker 1: unprecedented in that it's over six minutes.
19:06
Speaker 2: Long, and it was relieved as a single. He stood
19:10
Speaker 2: his ground on that, he demanded that not be cut.
19:13
Speaker 2: We were talking about his poetry just now, but this
19:15
Speaker 2: is a very colloquial, gritty, street wise song, albeit with
19:20
Speaker 2: that ambiguity to it because Dylan works on so many levels.
19:25
Speaker 2: It's an absolutely venomous song that it's got this refrain
19:30
Speaker 2: of how does it feel? Which is almost like a
19:33
Speaker 2: childhood taunt, and you almost feel guilty for enjoying the
19:38
Speaker 2: malice in this song, but it's the kind of song
19:43
Speaker 2: that had never been heard before. He got to number
19:46
Speaker 2: one on the Cashboard charts, only number two on Billboard,
19:50
Speaker 2: and the trouble is nobody remembers cash Box anymore. But
19:54
Speaker 2: it was effectively a number one single, and for a
19:57
Speaker 2: record like that to go to number one, the popular
20:01
Speaker 2: music and the culture were changing profoundly.
20:06
Speaker 1: Booked on rock podcasts, We'll be back after this When
20:09
Speaker 1: when will Picha peaches.
20:13
Speaker 2: Absence makes the Heart Grow Fonder?
20:18
Speaker 1: Blonde on Blonde released in June of nineteen sixty six.
20:21
Speaker 1: One of Us Must Know Sooner or later. Rainy Day
20:24
Speaker 1: Women number twelve and thirty five, I Want You just
20:27
Speaker 1: like a woman leopard skin, pill box hat or the
20:29
Speaker 1: five singles. There's a quote from the book. It's dated
20:33
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, and this is something that Dylan had said.
20:36
Speaker 1: He said, quote, the closest I ever got to the
20:38
Speaker 1: sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands
20:41
Speaker 1: in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that
20:44
Speaker 1: wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold with whatever
20:47
Speaker 1: that conjures up. That's my particular sound. When he says
20:51
Speaker 1: individual bands, I believe he's referring to the different bands
20:55
Speaker 1: that he recorded the songs with for this album.
20:58
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I'vetherwise interpreted that bands in that quote as
21:02
Speaker 2: meaning cuts tracks, but you've actually maybe you're right, Actually,
21:07
Speaker 2: maybe that's what he did mean. It had a very
21:09
Speaker 2: awkward gestation. He was using the Hawks later to become
21:14
Speaker 2: the band. They were his backing band on that tour
21:18
Speaker 2: that he embarked on in sixty five sixty six, going
21:22
Speaker 2: around the world and being booed to the rafters by
21:24
Speaker 2: the folkies in the audience who didn't like the fact
21:27
Speaker 2: that he quotes sold out by going rock and roll.
21:32
Speaker 2: Although his name is inextricably linked to the band. Now,
21:37
Speaker 2: because of that tour, because of the Basement tapes, because
21:40
Speaker 2: of the tour seventy four where they went on tour
21:44
Speaker 2: together after an eight year hiatus, they just weren't getting
21:48
Speaker 2: it together in the studio for the tracks that would
21:52
Speaker 2: eventually appear on the album that became Blonde and Blonde.
21:55
Speaker 2: His producer actually said to him, Bob Johnston, and look,
22:00
Speaker 2: why don't you come down to Nashvilleville, which is where
22:03
Speaker 2: Bob usually recorded, because they've got great musicians there and
22:07
Speaker 2: they can new the song instantly. Now that might sound
22:11
Speaker 2: like a banal and trivial suggestion today, but he just
22:15
Speaker 2: didn't do that in those days. If you were although
22:18
Speaker 2: he came from Minnesota, he was now a New York
22:20
Speaker 2: hipster and very much seen to be on the left
22:23
Speaker 2: in society, whereas Nashville, the Deep South and everything that
22:30
Speaker 2: was considered to be very much on the right. As
22:33
Speaker 2: I say, there was a big schism in society in
22:35
Speaker 2: those days, not just old and young, but northern and southern.
22:42
Speaker 2: But Dylan didn't care about those things, and he didn't
22:45
Speaker 2: care that he was treading over sacred ground. He took
22:49
Speaker 2: up the suggestion. They decamped to Nashville. He brought with
22:53
Speaker 2: him Robbie Robertson from the band and Al Cooper, who
22:57
Speaker 2: played on the Highway sixty one and Famous Like a
23:00
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone. But the rest of the musicians were the
23:05
Speaker 2: muso's who you found on music Row, and they turned
23:09
Speaker 2: out to be as good as Bob Johnston's word. He
23:13
Speaker 2: was presenting them with these weird songs, with these weird
23:16
Speaker 2: lengths and these weird signatures and incredibly weird lyrics, and
23:22
Speaker 2: they just went with the flow. And what resulted is
23:26
Speaker 2: what many people consider to be Dylan's masterpiece. A double
23:29
Speaker 2: album came out in sixty six. The world is divided
23:34
Speaker 2: between people who think Highway sixty one Revisited is Dylan's
23:37
Speaker 2: masterpiece and people who think Blonde on Blonde is his masterpiece.
23:42
Speaker 2: Highway sixty one is a much more in the round album.
23:47
Speaker 2: It's got tracks like Desolation Row on it and the
23:51
Speaker 2: Tombstone Blues, which look at the injustices in the world,
23:55
Speaker 2: whereas Blonde on Blonde the songs are really all about
23:57
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan. So you can take your pick the.
24:01
Speaker 1: Title Blonde and Blinde. There are various theories behind that.
24:04
Speaker 1: What are some of the common interpretations of that title.
24:08
Speaker 2: It could be nothing more banal than the fact that
24:13
Speaker 2: the initials spell out Bob. Dylan's a sort of mischievous character,
24:18
Speaker 2: and he'll have known that people were interpreting his stuff
24:23
Speaker 2: even at that early stage. But again we'll never know,
24:26
Speaker 2: because Dylan is not the kind of person who says
24:30
Speaker 2: that stuff. We just have to interpret it. It's probably
24:33
Speaker 2: not that important, it's just a title. It can be
24:36
Speaker 2: annoying if you're researching Bob Dylan, because you'll find he'll
24:40
Speaker 2: say something about one project, one album, one event in
24:46
Speaker 2: his life, and then he will completely contradict himself in
24:49
Speaker 2: another interview. I believe it or not, I've seen quotes
24:52
Speaker 2: from him where he says that self portrait his nineteen
24:56
Speaker 2: seventy album is a great album, whereas most people people
25:00
Speaker 2: think not only is his worst album, but one of
25:02
Speaker 2: the worst albums ever made. And in fact, he's given
25:05
Speaker 2: quotes that suggest that he thinks it's one of the
25:07
Speaker 2: worst albums ever made, and that he deliberately made it
25:11
Speaker 2: so in order to get rid of all the fanatical
25:13
Speaker 2: fans who were at the time pestering him.
25:16
Speaker 1: The Greatest Hits album, released March of sixty seven, while
25:19
Speaker 1: Dylan retreated from the public eye to recover from a
25:21
Speaker 1: motorcycle accident. Sometime between March and June of sixty seven,
25:25
Speaker 1: he started jamming on songs with the members of the band,
25:29
Speaker 1: and then December nineteen sixty seven, he returned with his
25:33
Speaker 1: eighth studio album, John Wesley Harding This includes All Along
25:37
Speaker 1: the Watchtower you'reret quote. The unprecedentedly long eighteen month gap
25:42
Speaker 1: between albums had created a mystique around him that only
25:44
Speaker 1: made the reception to the record even more reverential than
25:48
Speaker 1: it would have been in the ordinary course of events.
25:50
Speaker 1: Do you feel at this point Dylan was trying to
25:53
Speaker 1: distance himself from being the voice of a generation? Or
25:56
Speaker 1: had he already been trying to do that?
25:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, he'd been doing that ever since ninth sixty four.
26:01
Speaker 2: He was trying to distance himself also from Albert Grossman,
26:04
Speaker 2: his manager, who had given him this grueling schedule, which
26:09
Speaker 2: he went along with quite willingly. He'd being very ambitious.
26:13
Speaker 2: But those three albums that we mentioned, bringing him All
26:15
Speaker 2: Back Home, Highway sixty one, Blonde on Blonde, they're referred
26:19
Speaker 2: to by a Dylan fans as the Amphetamine Rock Trilogy.
26:23
Speaker 2: You can interpret that and understand precisely why you can't
26:28
Speaker 2: maintain what was it fourteen months he released those three
26:31
Speaker 2: albums in plus he was still touring. You can't maintain
26:35
Speaker 2: that kind of schedule without and plus he was being
26:38
Speaker 2: boo to the rafters, which must have had a psychological
26:41
Speaker 2: effect on him. You can't maintain that without some artificial stimulant.
26:46
Speaker 2: And then it was due to make another go on
26:49
Speaker 2: another world tour when Blonde on Blonde had just been released.
26:54
Speaker 2: He could possibly have ended up dead if that had
26:56
Speaker 2: gone ahead. He came off his motor bike while riding
26:59
Speaker 2: the background loads of woodstock where he now lived, and
27:02
Speaker 2: he just basically exploited that to cry off all commitments.
27:06
Speaker 2: He exaggerated how injured he was, and Grossman said, well,
27:12
Speaker 2: if you're not going to tour and you're not going
27:13
Speaker 2: to record, can you at least write some songs that
27:16
Speaker 2: I can selt to other recording artists. Because he was
27:19
Speaker 2: the most covered recording artist, the most covered songwriter in
27:22
Speaker 2: the world at that point, everybody wanted to record a
27:25
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan song. So that leads to the basement taps,
27:28
Speaker 2: where he just slaps down in the basement with musty acoustics.
27:34
Speaker 2: These quirky new songs that he's writing, they're not just quirky,
27:38
Speaker 2: they're also full of self reflection, condemnations of somebody, an
27:44
Speaker 2: authority figure that seems to be Grossman, but also condemnations
27:48
Speaker 2: of himself because he hadn't exactly been a benign figure
27:52
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years in his treatment of people.
27:56
Speaker 2: And then although the public don't get to hear those songs,
28:00
Speaker 2: discover versions, they get to hear similar songs on John
28:04
Speaker 2: Wesley Harding. The John Wesley Harding songs don't have the
28:10
Speaker 2: humor of the basement tape songs, and they don't have
28:13
Speaker 2: the sexual content of those songs, but they're all basically songs,
28:19
Speaker 2: but trace a journey from idolatry to humility and then
28:25
Speaker 2: finally domestic bliss. And it's really a concept album. Although
28:30
Speaker 2: it doesn't get mentioned in the same breath as things
28:33
Speaker 2: like Tommy and Quadrophenia, it is definitely a concept album.
28:37
Speaker 1: His last album of the sixties was a country album,
28:40
Speaker 1: and that's nineteen sixty ninety Nashville Skyline, which features Lay
28:43
Speaker 1: Lady Lay and Tonight I'll be Staying here with You.
28:46
Speaker 1: There's also the re recording of Girl from North Country
28:48
Speaker 1: with Johnny Cash. And there's a quote in the book
28:51
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. I want to ask you about john
28:53
Speaker 1: You write quote in a way, if Nashville Skyline had
28:56
Speaker 1: been his final long player, it would have been a
28:59
Speaker 1: perfect ending to Bob Dylan's career. Can you talk about
29:02
Speaker 1: why you feel that way?
29:04
Speaker 2: Well, it traces a journey because Nashville Skyline sees him
29:09
Speaker 2: embracing domestic bliss. It also sees him embracing the kind
29:14
Speaker 2: of banal songwriting that he's been the antidote to his
29:18
Speaker 2: entire career so far. He basically wearied of political commitment,
29:23
Speaker 2: he'd wearied of celebrity, he'd wearied of his own behavior
29:28
Speaker 2: when he was drunk on fame for a couple of years.
29:31
Speaker 2: And he's now married, he's got a brood of children,
29:36
Speaker 2: and all he's interested in doing is celebrating that. I mean,
29:40
Speaker 2: you mentioned three of the songs on the album. They're
29:42
Speaker 2: probably the only decent songs. Late Lady lay as a classic,
29:46
Speaker 2: and it showed that he could pull it out of
29:47
Speaker 2: the hat when he's still tried. But the rest of
29:50
Speaker 2: them are banal and in hindsight, looking through the prism
29:54
Speaker 2: of self portrait. He probably deliberately banal. He was trying
29:59
Speaker 2: to portray a different image while keeping his hand in
30:03
Speaker 2: as a recording artist. It's an odd album, and it
30:08
Speaker 2: does trace that trajectory of being ambitious, achieving his ambitions,
30:14
Speaker 2: writing great songs, and then wearying of everything that was
30:18
Speaker 2: attached to that rise into the stratosphere. So it would
30:23
Speaker 2: have been a really interesting way to end his career.
30:26
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, if he had ended his career like that,
30:30
Speaker 2: it would have suggested that he'd sort of been beaten
30:33
Speaker 2: by life, that he'd been beaten down by everything, and
30:37
Speaker 2: he'd abandoned any kind of intellectual capability. But it certainly
30:44
Speaker 2: ended one phase of his life.
30:46
Speaker 1: Decade of the sen how nineteen sixties Bob Dylan changed
30:49
Speaker 1: the world. It's out now. You could find it wherever
30:51
Speaker 1: books are sold. Also look for it at your nearest
30:54
Speaker 1: independent bookstore. You can go to bookdown rock dot com
30:57
Speaker 1: to find your nearest bookstore on Egan.
31:00
Speaker 2: Thank you nice here, thanks love m HM. That's it.
31:14
Speaker 1: It's in the books.