Path: globalone.no!uninett.no!newsfeed.nacamar.de!newsfeed.ecrc.net!news-feed1.e u.concert.net!skynet.be!not-for-mail Subject: Interview Der Spiegel in English From: Bernard Neyens Date: 16 Oct 1997 00:01:29 GMT Organization: SKYNET SA/NV X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1157 Hi, here's part one of the English translation of the interview in Der Spiegel. Enjoy! Orginal text: http://www.spiegel.de "Life is like that - it happens" Interview with Bob Dylan about popmusic, politics and his new album "Time out of mind". Q: Mr. Dylan, in the spring you almost died of a heart disease. How are you today? A: I'm better now, but for a certain time I was in for some serious worrying. Q: Did you think that Elvis had enlisted you in his heavenly choir? A: Absolutely! Q: Your new album 'Time out of Mind' is considered to be your best in more than twenty years. But it sounds bitter, dark and very lonely... A: I don't agree at all. What's happening in Bosnia or in South America, that's bitter. Q: You sing: "Walking through streets that are dead" and "the party is over, there is less and less to say; you complain "My sense of humanity is going down the drain"; and you don't even care much for the women. While you don't care much for love you sing you have to live in "the same old cage". A: On my first album I already dealt with unhappy relationships. People shouldn't take everything so literal. Elvis sang: "You ain't nothing but a hound dog". It would be very stupid to ask Elvis whether he was serious. You just change from minute to minute. A record catches the atmosphere of the moment. An hour later, everything is different. Whatever is said in this collection of songs - it somehow fits. Q: Your call "Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters" was back then in the sixties a super trick because after that you were worshipped even more by a lot of your fans. You're considered to be an incorruptible artist who hates commerce, whose work is authentic and truthful. A: I sure would like to be spared of the burden to muse about what my fans think about me or my songs. But it's true all right, I seem to be one of the few artists who attract that kind of people. Q: Since the middle of the sixties it seems that you have enough of being the icon of the counterculture or even their mouth-piece. A: I don't take these titles as a compliment. I think that words like "icon" or "legend" are just other terms for guys of the day before yesterday of which nobody wants to know these days. Q: Is it getting to you to be Bob Dylan? A: It's easier to be me than someone else. But just like most famous people, I just want to be left alone most of the time. Q: Are you still interested in politics? A: No. All I care about is my performance as a musician and as a singer. Everything in my life is about the music which I love. Q: Is it still possible nowadays to influence the world by songs? To be political by means of messages? A: No, there are newspapers for that. When people want to deal with the world, they should watch television. Q: That's very passive. A: The world has become like that. People are going to the football stadium, they don't play themselves anymore. Q: Did you ever think you could be politically active through your songs? A: No, no, no. If I had wanted to do that, I would have gone to Harvard or Yale, would have studied and would have a become a politician after that. Q: But then again you did write songs like "Masters of War", in which you threaten the politicians to spit on their graves. And in "The lonesome death of Hattie Carol" and "Hurricane" you protest against race justice. A: To tell you the truth, I really don't know what politics are. When I am seriously dealing with something, I find my self to be on the side of the right this time and the next moment I am completely on the side of the left side. Q: Your fellow performers of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are convinced that they stopped the Vietnam war. A: I believe that immediately. They were that kind of guys. Q: How was it for you to be playing for the Pope in Bologna a few weeks ago? A: A great show. Q: Why? A: It just was. Q: Isn't it strange that a great enemy of the establishment suddenly performs for the Pope? A: Why? It's not the same Pope as back then. End of part 1. Part 2 soon to come if you are still interested, that is. Email me, if you will. German readers, feel free to correct me! Peace, Bernard -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Path: globalone.no!uninett.no!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!195. 99.66.215!news-feed1.eu.concert.net!skynet.be!not-for-mail Subject: Part two of Der Spiegel Interview From: Bernard Neyens Date: 16 Oct 1997 21:19:24 GMT Organization: SKYNET SA/NV X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1157 Here we go: Q: So, in your view of the world there is still a past and a future? A: Yes, but actually people haven't changed since Moses. Feelings don't change. Q: Before the Pope you played your songs honestly and pure like on the record. Normally the audience should be aware that you might massacre your own songs. Are you bored to play your songs as close to the original as possible? Or do you want to punish your audience? A: Above all, the critics are the problem. They come with ears that are tuned to 1975 or even more back. And then, my songs lead their own lives, they have an inner truth which is changed from evening to evening. That's why people don't recognise all of the songs. I have recorded my albums at various points of my life, with various musicians using various instruments. If I was to replicate all of that in the original way, I had to drag onehundred people up on the stage. Q: At the end of the eighties you announced the so-called "Never Ending Tour" and up until now you have performed about 150 times a year. Isn't that becoming just a little bit too much? A: It's my job, my craft, my trade. Being on stage is to me as natural as breathing. Besides, I am the only one to play this kind of songs. Popular music nowadays is in the same situation as when I was beginning to perform. When somebody is a serious musician, nobody listens to him. Back then we knew when something sounded wrong and we were strong enough to look for people who told the truth. I am a musician, not someone who buys a record every now and then.To me it is all more than just entertainment. Q: Recently you said: "Sometimes I feel just a little bit above a pimp." A: When you are up there and you look at the audience and the audience look back, then you - willy-nilly - have the feeling to be in a burlesque. I am pretty sure Pavarotti feels the same way. Q: Are the people in the audience in Vienna different from a crowd in San Francisco? A: When I'm up there, I just see faces. A face is a face, they are all the same. Q: Do you envy the 17 year-olds in your audience for their youth? A: I am a grandfather. I have grandchildren who like other singers. That's the way young people are. I play for people who understand my feelings. Q: On your new record that sounds a bit darker. There you sing the line: I wish somebody would push back the clock for me." A: Don't we all feel that way? I for one feel like that plenty of times. I would prefer to start my life anew over and over again. Learn a new trade, marry another girl, live in another place. Q: Isn't that just what you did during your career? In the early sixties you were the folk singer of the movement for civil rights. A few years later you took the electric guitar and sang "Like a rolling stone" mocking the counterculture which had you for a hero. People yelled "Judas" at you and you took to the countryside, got settled with a family and played country rock. In other words: during your career you always reinvented yourself and never stayed the way your fans wanted you to be. A: That is just human nature. Q: But did you do that consciously or did it just happen? A: Everything in life just happens. That's the way life is; it happens. Q: Without meaning or goal? A: I am sure that there is a great divine meaning behind everything. Q: Where do your songs come from? Do they come to you just flying through the universe? A: The folksinger Woody Guthrie was the first to have that idea and I think he is right. Q: Which music is an influence to you these days? A: Simple music from the twenties and thirties and a little bit from the fifties. The influence is very limited: american folkmusic, Blues, some Rockabilly. But certainly not Rock 'n Roll. I think Rock 'n Roll never was of any great importance to my work. Q: Do you listen to the radio these days? Or are you annoyed by popmusic? A: Every now and then I listen to old radio shows. Sometimes they play the same theatre companies that I grew up with. I think that will come back now. Q: Would you recognise a contemporary popsong, for example a song by Bon Jovi? A: No, really, no. Q: On your new record there is a song that lasts for over 16 minutes and is called "Highlands". It sounds as if it was improvised. How well do you prepare yourself before you enter the studio? A: I haven't recorded a song like "Highlands" in a long time. I wouldn't say "Highlands" is improvised, but while playing many ideas were connected in a different way than they were written down. Actually it's just a simple blues which can go either this way or that way. Q: In these cases, don't you wish sometimes you could work again with writer and musician Sam Shepard, who helped you writing songs in the eighties? A: Well, in the course life you find yourself with different people in different rooms. Working with Sam was not necessarily easier, but it was certainly less meaningless. In every case writing a song is done faster when you got someone like Sam and are not on your own. Q: It seems, though, that you and Sam would not be able to work it out these days. A: Sam does his thing, I do mine. He is a writer and I am on the road. It's not that we see each other a lot. OK. That's it for now. Part three features: the blues, Woody, his old stuff, commercials and golf... (Tomorrow) And now I am going to listen to "Time out of Mind", thank you... Peace, Bernard