September 16, 2001
FALL PREVIEW: POP MUSIC
How Does It Feel? Don't Ask
A creatively rejuvenated Bob Dylan won't discuss his life or his lyrics. The
state of pop music is another matter.
By ROBERT HILBURN
"Five stars!"
Those are Bob Dylan's first words as I step into his Santa Monica hotel
suite to talk about his new album, Love and Theft.
"That's what Rolling Stone gave the new album. How many artists have
you interviewed in the last 15 years that have gotten a five-star review?"
Thinking he's putting me on, I reply, "Well, you're not getting five
stars in The Times."
Silence.
I quickly explain that we have a four-star rating system.
Could the most acclaimed songwriter of the modern pop era really care
about a single review? I can't even imagine him being excited about winning
a Grammy, or an Oscar, as he did earlier this year for "Things Have Changed"
from
Wonder Boys.
"Wouldn't you be excited if you won a Pulitzer Prize?" he replies.
It's a quintessential Dylan moment. Every time you think you have him
figured out, he taunts you with his elusiveness.
For 40 years, he has been a man of constant change who weaves
conviction
and contradictions into his work with artful sleight-of-hand.
On Love and Theft,which received a four-star review last Sunday in
The Times and was released Tuesday, there are still moments of struggle and
confusion. But those sentiments are accompanied-often in the same song-by
moments of disarming wit (including a goofy knock-knock joke) and jubilant
optimism, when the gods seem lined up on his side.
The message of Love and Theft,however, is as much in the
arrangements
as the lyrics. Dylan's musical compass has always been tied to the country,
blues and folk sounds that thrilled him as a youngster in Minnesota, and he
and
his dazzling road band play with the defiance of true believers who feel pop
music has been taken over by charlatans.
In the alternating gentle and wailing instrumentation, Dylan pulls us
back
to the start of rock 'n' roll, reminds us of the innocence and energy of the
times and, in the process, challenges those who feel that rock is exhausted
as
an art form.
You won't get Dylan to admit that in an interview, but he hints at it.
As
always, he resists questions about his personal life and the meaning of
particular lines or songs, but he speaks passionately about his legacy and
his
musical roots. Ever the extremist, Dylan is guilty of underestimating some
of
today's rock and hip-hop acts, but his views are as provocative as his
lyrics
in Love and Theft.
Dylan, 60, is working on his autobiography, but you wonder if he'll
really
step from behind the veil even there. He's already hinting the events in the
book may be a bit fuzzy. "My retrievable memory isn't as good as it should
be,"
he says with only the barest trace of a smile.
Question: The music on the new album seems transported from a different era.
Do
you find much inspiration in today's music scene?
Answer: I know there are groups at the top of the charts that are hailed as
the
saviors of rock 'n' roll and all that, but they are amateurs. They don't
know
where the music comes from .... I was lucky. I came up in a different era.
There were these great blues and country and folk artists around, and the
impulse to play [those sounds] came to me at a very early age.
I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times.
I
wouldn't even listen to the radio. I'm an extreme person. I'm not a party
boy.
I don't care about rave dances and a lot of the stuff going on.
Q: What do you think would have interested you today if music weren't an
option?
A: I'd probably turn to something like mathematics. That would interest me.
Architecture would interest me. Something like that.
Q: Are you surprised by the return of so much placid pop - which was one of
the
original targets of rock 'n' roll?
A: I don't think what we call pop music today is any worse than it was. We
never liked pop music. It never occurred to me [in the '50s] that Bing
Crosby
was on the cutting edge 20 years before I was listening to him. I never
heard
that Bing Crosby. The Louis Armstrong I heard was the guy who sang "Hello,
Dolly!" I never heard him do "West End Blues."
Q: "Time Out of Mind" seemed to spark a creative resurgence for you. Did you
know right away it was something special?
A: It was a little sketchy to me. I knew after that record that when and if
I
ever committed myself to making another record, I didn't want to get caught
short without up-tempo songs. A lot of my songs are slow ballads. I can
gut-wrench a lot out of them. But if you put a lot of them on a record,
they'll
fade into one another, and there was some of that in "Time Out of Mind." I
sort
of blueprinted it this time to make sure I didn't get caught without
up-tempo
songs.
If you hear any difference on this record-why it might flow
better-it's because as soon as an up-tempo song comes over, then it's slowed
down, then back up again. There's more pacing.
Q: What about the creative process for you? Do you write constantly?
A: I overwrite. If I know I am going in to record a song, I write more than
I
need. In the past that's been a problem because I failed to use discretion
at
times. I have to guard against that. On this album, "Lonesome Day Blues" was
twice as long at one point. "Highlands" [a 17-minute song on "Time Out of
Mind"] was twice as long originally.
Q: Why is there so much humor on the album this time? Does it have to do
with
your state of mind these days?
A: I try to make the songs as three-dimensional as possible. A one- or
two-dimensional song doesn't last very long. It's important to have humor
where
you can. Even the most severe rapper uses some humor.
Q: When do you tend to do the most writing? When you're on tour or when
you're
home for a few weeks?
A: I don't know. Some things just come to me in dreams. But I can write a
bunch
of stuff down after you leave . . . about, say, the way you are dressed. I
look
at people as ideas. I don't look at them as people. I'm talking about
general
observation. Whoever I see, I look at them as an idea . . . what this person
represents. That's the way I see life. I see life as a utilitarian thing.
Then
you strip things away until you get to the core of what's important.
Q: Did you have much interest in the 2000 Bush-Gore campaign?
A: Did I follow the election? Yeah, I followed to see who would win. But in
the
larger scheme of things, the government is irrelevant. Everybody, everything
can be bought and sold.
Q: Isn't that pretty pessimistic for someone who everyone thought was so
optimistic and inspiring in the '60s?
A: I'm not sure people understood a lot of what I was writing about. I don't
even know if I would understand them if I believed everything that has been
written about them by imbeciles who wouldn't know the first thing about
writing
songs. I've always said the organized media propagated me as something I
never
pretended to be . . . all this spokesman of conscience thing. A lot of my
songs
were definitely misinterpreted by people who didn't know any better, and it
goes on today.
Q: Give me an example of a song that has been widely misinterpreted.
A: Take "Masters of War." Every time I sing it, someone writes that
it's
an antiwar song. But there's no antiwar sentiment in that song. I'm not a
pacifist. I don't think I've ever been one. If you look closely at the song,
it's about what Eisenhower was saying about the dangers of the
military-industrial complex in this country. I believe strongly in
everyone's
right to defend themselves by every means necessary.
Q: But there surely was a lot of idealism in the country and in your songs
in
the '60s.
A: Well, you are affected as a writer and a person by the culture and spirit
of
the times. I was tuned into it then, I'm tuned into it now. None of us are
immune to the spirit of the age. It affects us whether we know it or whether
we
like it or not. There's some of today's cultural spirit on this record.
I think something changed in the country around 1966 or so. You'll have
to
look at the history books to really sort it out, but there are people who
manipulated the Vietnam War. They were traitors to America, whoever they
were.
It was the beginning of the corporate takeover of America.
Q: How would you describe the spirit of the '50s and the '60s?
A: I knew it was an unsettled, rebellious spirit.
Q: How about today?
A: I don't really know. I am not a forecaster of the times. But if we're not
careful, we'll wake up in a multinational, multiethnic police state-not that
America can't reverse itself. Whoever invented America were the greatest
minds
we've ever seen, and [people] who understand what the Declaration of
Independence and the Bill of Rights are all about will come to the forefront
sooner or later.
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