Path: globalone.no!uninett.no!online.no!not-for-mail Subject: Re: Best Dylan Interview in Years... From: Dag Braathen Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 17:03:01 +0100 Organization: I don't need your organization X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) The Edna Gundersen Interview 1997 How are you feeling? I'm feeling better. It's a slow process of getting altogether better. I'm not sure if I'm going to get altogether better. Wherever that altogether place is, I'm heading towards it. How did this medical crisis unfold? We hit a freak storm on the Ohio River, and I guess I got a really bad taste of it. It went into the wrong area. When a virus goes in your stomach, you can get rid of it easier. Mine went into [my heart], where there is no way to flush it out. It got unbearable. Were you reluctant to go to a hospital? No. I had complained that I had pain, and the pain was diagnosed as insufficient to do anything about. I accepted that, but the pain didn't go away. It puts you in a frame of mind that you can't imagine. Pain can do that to you. It was intolerable pain, where it affects your breathing every waking moment. I couldn't sleep. In the early stages when it first came on me, I thought it might be a heart problem and I didn't want to jeopardize my health by taking anything to go to sleep. People who experience a brush with death often feel transformed in some way. Was that your experience? No, no. I was so sick, my mind was just blanked out. Once I got rid of the pain, I had to recuperate by just lying low for weeks and weeks and weeks, unable to even step around my yard. I didn't have any philosophical, profound thoughts, really. All those thoughts happened when I was going through the pain. It stopped me in my tracks. It fried my mind. I'm getting better, that's all I can say right now. I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. How did being sick impact the making of Time Out of Mind? The record was recorded in January and the songs were written before then. We didn't really do anymore after that. It was just a question then of what songs were going to be placed on it and left off. When I got sick, I let it go at that point. I didn't have the energy to decide anymore. Up to that point, we were working on it, shuffling some songs around, when this happened to me. I was a little bit confused at that point. I wasn't really sure what the final outcome was going to look like. I decided that whatever it was before I got sick, that was the way it would be. Are you pleased with the album? I think so. It says what it needs to say. We did most of the things that we tried to do, in terms of how we needed to put these songs across. They are not the types of songs you hear every day, and they needed some thought going into how they should sound. I think they sound like they were meant to be played. Is this record a natural extension of the two vintage-folk collections you recorded before it? No, those records were made in a different time, a different place and with a different purpose. This particular set of songs had more compatible musicians who played everything live. There is no trickery to it. I mean, Dan [Lanois] has his wizardry that he does. But there is nothing contemporary about this record. We went back to the way a primitive record was made, before the advent of technology. It takes a certain amount of bravery to do that. And it takes musicians who understand the process. It's almost a revolutionary concept these days. Usually everyone has his own little space. We disregarded all that, so there is no separate tracking, which is very unorthodox. We'd put two or three instruments though one amplifier. You won't find that being done, but it all adds up to a certain effect. And the whole record is live. That adds a certain ambiance to everything. We had open mikes in a very big room. You get an echo of the guitar and it fits in somewhere. Was Lanois immediately receptive to your approach? We talked about this last June [1996]. I had the songs for a while, and I was reluctant to record them, because I didn't want to come out with a contemporary-sounding record. I didn't feel that type of sound would be useful for these songs. So we came to an understanding that these should have an identifiable sound and that sound should not be a futuristic type of sound, but more traditional, like a record played on a record player as opposed to a CD you hear on a fabulous sound system. Dan makes very stately-sounding records, so he is perfect for serving the song. He's just interested in the song, not the personalities or any fabrications or iconic things. Is the song there? That's all he cares about, and then he can work that magic. Were these songs written in one unbroken block of time? No. I write on the road. I write thoughts and things down. Then I'll get somewhere and look at it and see what it seems to be saying. A lot of people can't do that on the road, but I like the movement. I have a band all the time, so we can always play it here and there. If I want to see how something is going to sound, I can hear it right away. There was no pressure on me to write these songs. There was no one breathing down my neck to make this record. So like everything else, it happened when I had the time. How autobiographical are these songs? I recall these things from my whole life. I can identify with different people and different situations, and if I want to go that way, I can, but I tend not to. I would rather recall something from memory. I don't have to force myself, because just being in certain environments triggers some kind of response in my brain of a certain feeling I want to articulate. These songs are not allegorical. I have given that up. I don't even want to go into that area anymore. Philosophical dogma doesn't interest me. How did the song "Highlands" take shape? I understand the musicians didn't hear the lyrics until the song was being recorded. I don't think we had a full ensemble playing on that, as I remember. There can't be more than four people playing. I can't say that the musicians didn't know the song or the lyrics. I don't know. They all understand this kind of music. Every musician there was compatible with this kind of music. I mean, I can listen to Jimmie Rodgers, and then I can listen to Robert Johnson, and I don't hear any dichotomy. It all comes to the same place. "Highlands" was not a melodic song. It's an old country guitar pattern that you don't hear every day. That's what makes it kind of hypnotic. Nobody has extracted a pattern like that and played it with a certain rhythm. It's more country, and it's older, and that's why it mystifies you. It's got that hypnotism that sounds like it would go on forever. And that's the point. It can go on forever. It shifts from humor to despair to surreal vignettes and yet seems very cohesive in the end. Did you compose the lyrics in one sitting? No. That particular song, if you want to call it a song, had a lot of lyrics to it. You hear maybe one third of all the lyrics to it. Nobody had gone to this area before, and I thought, let's go there. I didn't think anything like this had ever been captured on tape. I had to scramble around to find the right types of lyrics and basically moved lyrics around and put together the puzzle. It might sound Byzantine in its way, but it seems to make sense, doesn't it? Themes of heartbreak and mortality seem to thread through every song. Did you intend to convey those issues? Not really. I'm not responsible for the interpretation. I don't think they should or could be interpreted that way, if at all. You can't interpret a Hank Williams song. He's done the interpretation and the performance, and that's it. Now it's for the listener to decide if it moves him or not. That's something you don't even decide. That happens to you unconsciously. Do you put much stock into the opinions listeners hold? I find a lot of people say they like one thing but in reality they like another. Whatever somebody professes on one hand, a lot of times if you penetrate into their inner beings, they are not so enthralled with that. You ask about mortality. The soul has a worth, but we don't know what the intrinsic value of a soul is. Nobody knows and nobody even wants to think about it. But people do think about it in their innermost spirit, whether they say they do or don't. I let the songs fly and people respond. Whether they make a valid interpretation or look at it with a false eye, I'm not concerned with that. Do these songs lend themselves to the stage, and will you be playing them on tour? Absolutely. I don't record a record and then go on tour and play it. But eventually the songs find their way into my stage show, one by one. That means something else will have to go. This record is not a blueprint. This is it. This is the way these songs should go, every single last one. This record went through different evolutions. What you hear comes through that whole maze, that labyrinth of fire that it takes to perfect the arrangement and the structure. Do you worry that new songs don't hold up against such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Mr. Tambourine Man"? The songs I play night after night are proven to be true and strong. Otherwise I couldn't sing them night after night. They can be performed over and over because there is a truth in them. It's not like I can do anything to eclipse that. It's not going to happen. I'm not looking to do that. But in order to record new songs, they have to be in that arena, but not on any superficial level. So that's why it took a long time. I was constantly thinking, "Am I really going to accomplish something? Will any of these songs stand up with what I'm playing night after night?" Was there something particular you wanted to say when you were putting these songs together and forming this album? For some reason, I am attracted to self-destruction. I know that personal sacrifice has a great deal to do with how we live or don't live our lives. Maybe in the back of my mind, I was thinking that. You have been on the road almost nonstop in recent years. Do you still have a strong commitment to touring? I'm comfortable out there. In America, that is. I'm not sure I want to continue touring overseas. Being on the road to me is just as natural as breathing. It's rewarding to thrill the crowd. That's all I can tell you about it. I never think about the shows after they're done. You've been hailed as one of this century's greatest songwriters, yet you tend to accept the praise reluctantly. Why? I don't consider myself a songwriter in the sense of Townes Van Zandt or Randy Newman. I'm not Paul Simon. I can't do that. My songs come out of folk music and early rock 'n' roll, and that's it, no more. That's the foundation. I'm not a classical lyricist. I'm not a meticulous lyricist. I don't write melodies that are clever or catchy. It's all very traditionally documented. What keeps you close to those roots? I'm constantly listening to [early folk]. I have never strayed from the path of that old traditional music. Do you agree that the songs on Time Out of Mind are more emotionally raw and direct than anything you've done in the past? Yeah. I have always had it in me to do it, but I never really gave myself the opportunity. Opportunities don't last forever, but I had to wait for the right time. I always felt I wanted to make a record the way I like to hear a record. All these songs could have been recorded with a different producer and in a different place and time, but they wouldn't jump at you like they do. I was tired of the old [recording] methods. I hadn't recorded for a long time, because I really couldn't find somebody who could work with me in some other role besides patrician. Are you dissatisfied with some of the records you've made in the past? Oh, yeah. I can't say that I've made any great-sounding records. A lot of the older songs were just blueprints for what I'd play later on the stage. Jerry Garcia proved that to me. He took a lot of the songs and actually recorded them and sang them a step further than they were on my records. He heard where they should go. I would hear his versions of songs of mine and I'd say, "OK, I understand how it should go." Then I would play that and might even take it a step further. There have been other artists who have recorded my songs and shown me the way the song should go. Are you surprised by the amount of attention the new album is drawing? There are plenty of other people out there getting attention. I'm under the impression that people aren't really paying attention to my records. I'm aware that I don't sell records like I did in the '80s or the '70s, and that's OK as long as I can play and the right crowd is going to come and see it properly. I don't follow what records are at the top of the charts. I ceased doing that a long, long time ago. On your last album, you wrote in the liner notes that technology now exists that can wipe out the truth. Are you worried that high tech is threatening folk tradition? Very much so. You see all this electricity speaking, all this wizardry, all these pedals on stage. Pull out the plugs and probably very few of these people could move you, because they can't play. They are dominated by the electricity. Guys like Elmore James played acoustically and used electricity so they could be heard in a crowded room. They weren't depending on electricity to hide talent they didn't have. I don't want a bunch of flaky sounds. It's a dead end. It's dead weight. The last show you did before you were hospitalized was a Jewish benefit. You played in a Buddhist temple a few years back, and now you're performing for the pope. Naturally, fans are speculating again about your religious stance. I don't know what people are wondering about. I've always felt an unseen presence, all the time, ever since I was small. I'm not a big fan of diversity. Everyone has a heart. We breathe the same air. We have the same organs. That unifies us. I play where I am asked to play. Playing for the pope is just a show. I don't judge who asks me to play. That's not my position. I'm grateful to be asked for whatever reason. How do you feel about fans who were outraged when you sold rights to "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to an accounting firm? It depends on who they are. It depends on who is saying it. Let's check them out, let's see what their values are. Before they start to criticize, let's see how deep their sins run. I don't know how to respond to something like that. It really doesn't even enter my mind. I have no feelings against [selling song rights], especially songs that are like 40 years old. You've been playing guitar a great deal more lately, both on record and on stage. Does this reflect a new passion for the instrument? Hmmm, I play stuff. It's not incidental stuff and it's not inconsequential. I don't play lead guitar, like you have probably heard a lot of people say. I don't see that. What I do is restructure a song and my guitar is more or less like my vocal style. It's really only based on a structure, and I don't vary from that structure, ever. I used to look for someone to do that in my band, and I couldn't get anybody to do it, to just play the structure of the song. It's not lead guitar in any sense of the word. My guitar playing isn't really noteworthy in any way. It only works in my musical setting. More books have been written about you than any other 20th-century songwriter. Do you check out the biographies about you? I'm not going to read a book about myself. I mean, why? I'm with myself enough. I wake up every day and I'm still me. It would be torture to read about myself. I would rather read about anybody else but me. Why don't you do more interviews? I'm not uncomfortable doing interviews, but it would be preferable to me that I just do one interview because you don't want to tell the same thing to every person interviewing you, and I run out of things to say. When I used to do more interviews, I found myself saying the same thing over and over. I was like, enough of this. This is stupid. Besides, there is already so much written about me. We'll be booked in a town, and there's two pages of the newspaper devoted to me. For the amount of space they give to these essays, you'd think I was selling out 12 Madison Square Gardens. They've got me in this celebrity category. Well, I'm not a celebrity, really. I lead a very insular existence. I don't want to be a celebrity. I'm not one, and I don't ever want to be one. It mortifies me to even think I am a celebrity. Why does it mortify you? Because basically you lose your anonymity, and it's a dreadful thing to do that. It short-circuits your creative powers when people come up and interrupt your train of thought. They consider you completely approachable. And you can't be rude to people, so basically you shut yourself down. I know I do. I shut myself down when people come up and want to shake my hand or want to talk. That's just dead time. For someone with your kind of fame, how have you managed to keep your private life so private? If we [hadn't had] to cancel those shows [in Europe in June], you would never have known I was sick, because I most likely wouldn't have told anyone. Those shows were like two days away, and I was ready to make those shows � that's how sick I was. I was out of my mind. I didn't tell anybody that I was sick, even though I could not function, I could not walk. I just don't talk to make small talk. I really don't feel I have to shield anything. My motivation is to go out and thrill people night after night on the stage. The other side is a side I've never cultivated. Your son Jakob has been very much in the spotlight this year. Do you worry about him? I'm proud of his accomplishments. He's still young, and he's come a long way in a short time. I worried about him when he started out. I just didn't want to see him get roughed up. This business can really throw you into deep water. He's had his ups and downs. What he does with the future remains to be seen, but he and his band have done rather well. In [the] contemporary music scene, they have got a voice to be heard. What about your own future? When I'm off the road and not playing, I can't say I truly miss it. But once I get out there, I realize that this is what I'm supposed to do. I have an inner exhilaration by doing it. And I can step to it without any down time real quick. We don't have to seclude ourselves and gear up and rehearse for two months and make such a big deal out of touring. It's relatively effortless. But I may wake up saying that I'm never going to do it again, not because there is any kind of harshness to it, but because that's the way I am. I'm different all the time. Talk to me tomorrow and I'll give you different answers to the same questions. I'm not the same person from one hour to the next.