Talkin’ Bob Dylan’s Muse

It was about a year ago that the sometime reclusive and often elusive Bob Dylan
began showing another side of, well, Bob Dylan.

He published his memoir, 'Chronicles Volume One,' granted CBS-TV’s Ed Bradley
his first television interview in nearly 20 years, and has most recently become the subject
of the new Martin Scorsese picture: “No Direction Home.”

With all this talking going on, imagine what could happen if Bob Dylan gives
other interviewers a chance?

Howard Stern: 'Bob Dylan, oh man, Bobby, baby, Boob-ee ! Howard Stern here, king of all media. You have no idea how much this means to me. First, can I call you Bobby?'

Dylan: 'You may call me Bobby. You may call me Zimmy. You can call me Terry, you may call me Timmy. My name means nothing, my age means less.'

Stern: 'Bobby, I remember being like, 10 years old, growing up in Queens, and everyone was doing the folkie thing. This was back in the day when you were doin' Joan Baez, right?
And right in the middle of all this, you came to play at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium.
This was right after everybody booed you at Newport when you whipped out the electric
guitar.
So at Forest Hills, there were like 10,000 folk people waiting to hear 'Kumbaya,' and here
you come on stage with a full rock 'n' roll band. It was like you were giving them all the finger and saying 'This is what I'm gonna do, and I don't care what anybody says.'
Man, which was the coolest. I've been doing that same thing ever since.
You got a pair of brass ones. Before I clear out of the room and let the next guy in,
my question is this: Are they real?'

Dylan: 'Son, this ain't a dream no more. It's the real thing.'

Chris Matthews: 'What in the world was up with that last guy? Hey, never mind -
Let's play 'Hardball'.
So you just played a bunch of concerts around New England, four shows in five nights,
16 songs each night. But unlike many of your pop music comrades, you gave a different performance each night.
In Rhode Island, you started out with 'I'll Be Alone With You' and 'Tonight I'll Be Staying
Here With You.'
The next night you went to New Hampshire and came on with 'Drifter's Escape' and 'Dignity.' Then you crossed over to Massachusetts, and opened in Amherst with 'Maggie's Farm' and
'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' and the next night in Cambridge you began with 'Rainy Day Women #12 & 35' and 'Forever Young.'
Now, a lot of people would say this shows inconsistency. They say things like: 'If you get Bob Dylan on a good night, it's great theater; but if you get him on a bad night - watch out.'
Let me ask you sir, what do you make of all these comments?'

Dylan: 'The ...'

Matthews: 'I just want to know if this is true or not. Isn't it true that you're a friend
of The Left; that songs you wrote, and these are your words, 'You don't need a Weatherman
to know which way the wind blows' and 'The Vice President's gone mad!' and that
'even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked,'
that they influenced those disenfranchised with the direction the country was going in
and inspired them to revolt?'

Dylan: 'I was ...'

Matthews: 'And then later in your career, you dumped the Left and got religion in
your life, and started putting Jesus Christ in your songs, and on your records 'Saved'
and 'Slow Train Coming,' and the whole time people were calling you a wizard, a genius.
They were going through your trash looking for scraps of wisdom.
But when you talk about that time now - about all these followers hanging on every word-
that you were removed from it all, somehow detached from that very society you helped
to create.
Can you honestly tell me that you were aloof to everything that was going on
in this country in the 1960s?'

Dylan: 'Well, I ...'

Matthews: 'I mean, isn't it true that the guy who wrote 'The Times they are A-Changin''
was in danger of becoming the person who he himself learns 'Ain't it hard when you discover that he really wasn't where it's at?'
Sir, I ask you, were the times really a-changin'?
Were you so much older then, you're younger than that now?
Do you know that for a fact?'

Dylan: 'I was ...'

Matthews: 'That's all the time we have for today. Thank you.'

Bill O'Reilly: 'Welcome, Mr. Dylan, this is a no-spin zone. We're your friends here.'

Dylan: 'You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend.'

O'Reilly: 'Hold it, hold it, hold it. I don't know why you would say such a thing.
You don't especially like the media? Tell me, am I wrong? What do you think of the media?'

Dylan: 'You guys are like ten thousand talkers whose tongues are all broken.'

O'Reilly: 'That other guy before me might have been one-sided but here at this network,
we are fair and balanced and serve no agendas.'

Dylan: 'You may be the head of some big TV network - but you're still gonna have to serve somebody.'

O'Reilly: 'Fair enough then, that's your opinion. Personally, I am offended by your statement, but the people in this country - they wanna know about you. So let's stick to the present.
What is a normal day like for Bob Dylan?'

Dylan: 'Get sick. Get well. Hang around an ink well. Try hard, get barred, get back,
write Braille, get jailed, jump bail, join the army if you fail.'

O'Reilly: 'Uh-huh. What will you be doing for Christmas?'

Dylan: 'Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things.'

O'Reilly: 'Really. Like what?'

Dylan: 'Toy guns that spark and flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark.'

O'Reilly: 'Aw, shut up.'

Dylan: 'Then I'm gonna break the roof in and set fire to the place as a parting gift.'

O'Reilly: 'Shut up. Shut up. SHUT. UP.'

Dylan: 'Disconnect these cables and overturn these tables.
This place don't make sense to me no more.'

by Thomas Dimopoulos
Originally published Dec. 2004 in The Saratogian