Expecting Rain

In Chronicles Dylan writes about listening to Malcolm X on the radio in 1961, lecturing about the evils of pork, and them remembering Malcolm's words at Johnny Cash's house a decade later when Sarah Carter's son Joe asks him about eating pork. "It's funny how things stick with you" he writes.

A more likely scenario is that when Dylan was doing background research for Chronicles he came across an article regarding the Muslim movement in prison that ran in the March 31, 1961 issue of Time magazine and found a line that jumped out at him.

He also appears to have liked many of the other articles from the same issue, as he seems to have incorporated a slew of elements from them into Chronicles as well.

Dylan famously said, "I don't need Time magazine" in 1965. He may not need Time magazine, but it certainly appears that he found numerous things that he liked in Time magazine. Compare and contrast:

Chronicles, page 102:
"I don't eat something that's one third rat, one third cat and one third dog. It just doesn't taste right."
 
Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
Races: Recruits Behind Bars
"When pork appears on prison menus, Muslims disdain it.*"
 
"— One of Elijah's more fanciful doctrines: the white man, especially the Jew, keeps the black man weakened by selling him the flesh of swine.

The pig contains 999 specific germs, is actually one-third cat, one-third rat and one-third dog."
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Chronicles, page 87:
"They had turned Hanoi, the capital city, into the 'brothel-studded Paris of the orient.'...The press reported Hanoi was grubby and cheerless, that the people dressed in Chinese shapeless jackets"
 
Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
North Viet Nam: Poor Neighbor
"Hanoi, long the brothel-studded 'Paris of the Orient,' is now grubby and cheerless, and the once glittering Street of Silk is deserted soon after sundown, reported TIME Correspondent James Wilde, one of the few Westerners to visit Hanoi in its six years of Red rule. Crowds flock to the 'people's stores'—but only to stare enviously at shoddy goods priced way out of reach of the average worker's 40-dong monthly salary...Dressed Chinese-style in shapeless jackets instead of the traditional silk tunic, women are almost indistinguishable from men."
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Chronicles, page 88:
"Some women wanted to be called 'a woman' when they reached twenty-one. Some sales girls, or women, didn't want to be referred to as 'salesladies.' In churches, too, things were shaking up. Some white ministers didn't want to be labeled 'the Reverend.' They wanted to be called just plain 'Reverend.'"
 
Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
The Press: The Reporter's Guide

"The Los Angeles Times, concluding that all women aren't ladies, ungallantly applies its conclusion: 'A salesgirl or a saleswoman is not a saleslady, and a washerwoman is not a washlady, so a scrubwoman cannot be a scrublady.'"
 
"In the Memphis Commercial Appeal if a minister is white, he is 'the Rev.,' if Negro he is simply 'Rev.'"
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Chronicles, page 88:
"There'd be articles about things like new modern-day phobias, all with fancy Latin names, like fear of flowers, fear of the dark, of height, fear of crossing bridges, of snakes, fear of getting old, fear of clouds. Just any old thing could be frightening. My big fear was that my guitar would go out of tune."
 
Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
Medicine: A GLOSSARY OF PHOBIAS
 
Fear of:
achluophobia darkness
aichmophobia pointed objects
ailurophobia cats
anthophobia flowers
astrophobia stars
ballistophobia missiles
barophobia gravity
cherophobia gaiety
chionophobia snow
chronophobia time
climacophobia staircases
dextrophobia objects on the right side of the body
erythrophobia red
gephyrophobia crossing bridges
graphophobia writing
hypengyophobia responsibilty
kathisophobia sitting down
levophobia objects on the left side of the body
linonophobia string
ophidiophobia snakes
pantophobia everything
phobophobia being afraid
phonophobia one's own voice
photophobia light
phronemophobia thinking
scopophobid being seen
siderodromophobia railroad traveling
sitophobia eating
stasibasiphobia walking or standing
thalassophobia the ocean
vermiphobia infestation with worms
================================================
Chronicles, page 88:
"Reputable psychiatrists were saying that some of these people who claimed to be so against nuclear testing are secular last judgment types — that if nuclear bombs are banned, it would deprive them of their highly comforting sense of doom."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
The Anatomy of Angst

"For many Bomb worriers, it seems to be a true phobia, a kind of secular substitute for the Last Judgment, and a truly effective nuclear ban would undoubtedly deprive them of a highly comforting sense of doom."
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Chronicles, pages 88 - 89
"The inside story on a man was that if he wanted to be successful he must become a rugged individualist, but then he should make some adjustments. After that, he needed to conform. You could go from being a rugged individualist to a conformist in the blink of an eye."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
The Anatomy of Angst
"No sooner had Americans learned that they must not be rugged individualists but must practice 'adjustment,' than they were told that they were all turning into conformists."
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Chronicles, page 89:
"Even the photos of Jackie Kennedy going in and out of revolving doors at the Carlyle Hotel uptown, carrying shopping bags of clothes, looked disturbing."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
People: Mar. 31, 1961

"Usually accompanied by her sister, Princess Radziwill, wife of a Polish peer turned London businessman, Jackie looked more elegant each time she came through the revolving doors of the Carlyle Hotel."
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Chronicles, page 89:
"Nearby at the Biltmore, the Cuban Revolutionary Council was meeting. The Cuban government in exile."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
Cuba: Getting Ready

"As flashbulbs popped in Manhattan's Biltmore Hotel, Manuel ('Tony') Varona, 52, coordinator of the middle-roading Revolutionary Democratic Front, and Manolo Ray, 36, chief of the farther left Revolutionary Movement of the People, shook hands and proclaimed the existence of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, in effect a government in exile, with a program and a president."
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Chronicles, page 89:
"Our tall Texan vice president, Lyndon Johnson, was quite a character, too. He'd flipped out and got angry at the US Secret Service — told them to stop..."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
People: Mar. 31, 1961

"Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson notified the U.S. Secret Service that in Washington he was not to be fenced in or followed by its agents, two of whom had shadowed his predecessor."
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Chronicles, page 90:
"The dominant myth of the day seemed to be that anybody could do anything, even go to the moon. You could do whatever you wanted — in the ads and in the articles, ignore your limitations, defy them. If you were an indecisive person, you could become a leader and wear lederhosen. If you were a housewife, you could become a glamour girl with rhinestone sunglasses. Are you slow witted? No worries — you can be an intellectual genius."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
The Anatomy of Angst

"This leads to a kind of compulsory freedom that encourages people not only to ignore their limitations but to defy them: the dominant myth is that the old can grow young, the indecisive can become leaders of men. The housewives can become glamour girls, the glamour girls can become actresses, the slow-witted can become intellectuals."
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Chronicles, page 90:
"Abstract painting and atonal music were hitting the scene, mangling recognizable reality."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
The Anatomy of Angst

"Abstract & Atonal. Two of the forces that might be counted on to reduce anxiety in U.S. life — the artists and the social scientists — are contributing to it. In abstract painting and atonal music, the modern artist has largely destroyed recognizable reality..."

These lines are all Bob's lines...original to him, great artist and writer that he is. It amazes (and angers!!!) me that Time stole these lines all those years before Bob finally published Chronicles. Plagiarism is a serious offense in journalism.

OMG!! I've just realised Bob stole all his words from The Oxford English Dictionary!!!

(except the Spanishy bit in the Desire songs!)

BLOODY OUTRAGEOUS!

Wow, great catch scottw ... very interesting.

cheers,
wendy

To my eye, the quotes in Chronicles are sufficiently different to the Time excerpts to negate any suggestion of plagiarism.

You really should've gone to SpecSavers(tm)

Chronicles, page 89
"They had recently given a news conference, said that they needed bazookas and recoilless rifles and demolition experts and that those things cost money."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
Cuba: Getting Ready

"Instructors are needed to teach the rebels how to use bazookas, recoilless rifles. Demolition experts are needed for special jobs such as blowing up bridges."

An article in the Arts section of the same issue, which Dylan does not seem to have dipped into, has a most interesting title: Song-&-Dance Man.

In error I included an ellipsis in this comparison in my intial post, here is the same comparison with the complete quote from Chronicles.

Chronicles, page 89:
"Our tall Texan vice president, Lyndon Johnson, was quite a character, too. He'd flipped out and got angry at the US Secret Service — told them to stop fencing him in, stop shadowing him, following him around."

Time, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
People: Mar. 31, 1961

"Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson notified the U.S. Secret Service that in Washington he was not to be fenced in or followed by its agents, two of whom had shadowed his predecessor."

I think, if I were writing about things which happened in 1961, things which I knew about at the time, and still remembered to a degree but without too much detail (far too many things having happened in the intervening 40 or so years, and far too many a memory-damaging substance - alcohol, dope, wotever - having doubtless been taken), I'd have to refer to the press of the day to refresh my memory. And I'm sure no one here would argue that point. What Bob seems to have done, in some of the passages quoted, is forget to rewrite the memory-jerkers that the ancient (31 March 1961) copy of 'Time' magazine provided. Lazy, but, with his crazy schedule, maybe understandable?

You took the words out of my mouth supermabel1, well at least took the words from my post.

I mean, really and truly, what is the big deal here? These are not cut and pastes, and as supermabel1 rightly notes, Bob Dylan has simply referred to a historical record to refresh his memory. So what?

This is very interesting, but a bit disheartening. I don't think Scott has ever accused Dylan of plagiarism, it's worth pointing out - he's merely reporting.

Bastard!

I knew it!

very interesting, scottw
thanks

So this: In that portion of the book Dylan is writing about his relationship with Len Chandler. Dylan writes, "His thing was writing topical songs, and his inspiration would come from the newspaper" and, "We'd drink coffee and look through the daily newspapers left behind on the counter to see if there was song material in any of it."

Dylan came up with some great songs using this strategy, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" jumps to mind. I wouldn't call "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" a great song, but it was composed using the same strategy.

I think it is interesting that with the knowledge of the particular magazine Dylan happened to be looking at while writing this section of Chronicles we can see which elements jumped out at him and which ones didn't. We get a peek into how this process works for him.

While it does not appear that Dylan got a song out of this process this time around it does seems likely that Dylan developed the story of hearing Malcolm X on the radio in 1961 and using Malcolm's comments regarding pork as a comeback to something that Joe Carter supposedly said to him at Johnny Cash's house a decade later by going through this issue of Time.

Well, it is quite interesting that some of the ideas expressed - and yes some of the exact same phrases - were retooled for the book. As I read through Chronicles (very quickly I might add, as I found it so enjoyable!) I did marvel at the substantial background info and the prose. We've known Bob is quite a poet, but his fine prose pleasantly surprised me. It is a bit disheartening to realize that some of "his words" were actually lifted. I don't know if it's a "big deal" but to the writer(s) of those Time Mag articles it could be.

Excellent research, scottw!

Fascinating, Scott. Nice research.

It'd be interesting to read the original draft of Chronicles which, from the one sample page I've seen of a unpublished readers' proof probably varies dramatically from the published version.

Back in early 2008, I had a brief email interchange with Zainab McCoy, widow of a Norwegian translator who had a copy of that readers' proof. Ms. McCoy preferred to refer to it as a "manuscript," which in my opinion it wasn't, but in any case noted to me when she passed on the sample...

.

The sample page she sent marked as "167" in the reader's proof, parallels pages 165-166 in the published U.S. hardcover edition of Chronicles with some significant changes. In the published version, Dylan simply refers to a "heated presidential race underway and you couldn't avoid hearing about it" while writing about the genesis of his song Political World. In the original manuscript, Dylan writes:



Outside of making you wonder what Dylan made of of Hillary Clinton's run, I'd speculate that a fact checker - maybe from Simon and Schuster, maybe from Dylan's team - went through the proof copy and recommended some edits, including deleting Dylan's erroneous claim that a "Governor of Massachusetts" had a female running mate selected to "ensure his defeat." Dylan seemed to have conflated the 1984 elections - when Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro were running mates - with the elections of 1988, which featured Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis and Texan Lloyd Bentsen as the Democratic candidates.

It'd be interesting to see whether the TIME details were in the first draft or somebody said, "you know, we need more details about the period he's writing about" and passed on some contemporary material, including TIME, for the edit/rewrite.

I'd love to get my hands on a copy of Dylan's original manuscript, or even that reader's proof, but being a poor but honest writer, that was unlikely when I corresponded with Ms.McCoy in `08 and even more unlikely in these TETs. As far as I know she still has it. I keep hoping that some well-ff Dylan collector will purchase it and make it available to researchers.

For those interested, you can see the sample page at my blog here...

http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/2008/03 ... cript.html

... click on the image for a larger version. Discerning readers will note that I (ahem) "plagiarized" myself for this post.

I want to weigh in on this because I've defended Dylan's beg-borrow-and-steal style of songwriting in the past--particularly when he's dealing with classic writers--because he makes something new and interesting from it. And even the lines in Chronicles that come from Fitzgerald or Twain are okay by me since he's applying the description to something else. But there's no way to let him off the hook for this. As a writer myself, I'd be f'ing livid to find, even fifty years later, that these awesome little descriptions I'd thought up, perhaps slaved over for hours to get them just right, appearing in somebody else's book. He isn't even applying them in a new context--he's using them to describe the exact same thing.

Every writer has cribbed a line or two from another writer, myself included (both ways: I've borrowed and been borrowed from). It's okay when the lines are used in another context--preferably changed up a bit-- and only used on the rarest of occasions.

This bothers me, not because it diminishes the joy of reading Chronicles, but because Dylan is getting credit for being this phenomenal prose writer.

Let's hope there will be no Chronicles 2.

According to an `08 interview, Dylan is dictating, as opposed to writing, Vol. 2. On Volume I he notes:



It'll be interesting to see if there's any significant difference in style between the two volumes when "2" is eventually published...

Full interview is here...

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 074327.ece

I'm surprised you are just discovering this.

Good work, Scott.

There are two rules pop stars should never break:

1. Don't plagiarize other people's work

2. Don't sleep with other people's children

Absolutely. I agree.

Let's skip straight to Chronicles III & IV. That's when the really good stuff begins.

I loved Chronicles. To discover that Bob has passed someone elses work off as his own is very disappointing.

Thanks for posting this, Scott. I could have read the same issue of Time Magazine and I wouldn't have made the connection(s), because I only tend to remember the song lyrics, not what's written in a magazine or a book. If you're right, you've added to our knowledge and you shouldn't care about the critics.

Scott, I notice the passages you cite are (nearly) all from the same 3-4 pages. Are you suggesting this kind of thing is happening more generally, or is it just this particular section?