Sunday, September 25, 2005

Bob Dylan vs the Press

[T]he Scorsese film shows plenty of evidence of why Dylan turned off to the press long ago. Along with many of his fans, they just didn’t "get" him, especially when he changed the face of popular music in the mid-1960s.
“You don’t sing protest songs anymore,” a reporter asks.
“All my songs are protest songs,” Dylan replies evenly. “All I do is protest.”
Later, someone at a press conference asks him how many other protest singers exist. It’s as if the man is asking Sen. Joe McCarthy for the number of Communists in the State Department. Dylan ponders it, then replies, “About 136.” No one laughs.
“You say about 136—-or exactly 136?” the reporter asks.
“Either 136 or 142,” Dylan says, settling it.
On another occasion, a reporter asks what “message” and “philosophy” he was trying to impart by wearing a Triumph motorcycle shirt on the cover of the greatest album of all-time, “Highway 61 Revisited.” Dylan says he just happened to be wearing it the day the photo was snapped, but the press guy persists. Finally Dylan pleads, “We all like motorcycles some, right?”

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