Published Friday, Oct. 12, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News

Voice of the prophet

BOB DYLAN DISCUSSES THE STATE OF MUSIC, CREATIVITY AND A FIVE-STAR REVIEW

BY ROBERT HILBURN

Los Angeles Times

``Five stars!''

Those are Bob Dylan's first words as I step into his L.A. hotel suite to talk about his latest 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 the Los Angeles Times has 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 his 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.

Dylan's musical compass always has been tied to the country, blues and folk sounds that thrilled him as a youngster in Minnesota, and he and his dazzling road band -- which play San Jose's Compaq Center tonight and San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Saturday -- perform with the defiance of true believers who feel pop music has been taken over by charlatans.

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. 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 will he step from behind the veil even there? He hints that the events in the book might 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.

Here are excerpts from our conversation:

Q The music on the new album seems transported from a different era. Do you find much inspiration in today's music scene?

A 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 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 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.

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'' 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.

You are affected as a writer and a person by the culture and spirit of the times. I was tuned in to it then; I'm tuned in to 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 am not a forecaster of the times. But if we're not careful, we'll wake up in a multinational, multi-ethnic 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.            Return to Myths To Live By

Q What was it like to be adored at times and booed at others -- like on the ``Slow Train Coming'' tour in the '70s?

A I was booed at Newport before that, remember. You can't worry about things like that. Miles Davis has been booed. Hank Williams was booed. Stravinsky was booed. You're nobody if you don't get booed sometime.

Q Have you ever felt you were a superficial artist?

A Sure, I think the tour I did with the Band in 1974 was superficial. I had forgotten how to sing and play. I had been devoting my time to raising a family, and it took me a long time to recapture my purpose as a performer. You'd find it at times; then it would disappear again for a while.

Q You're on a creative roll now. Where do you see the beginning of it?

A In the early '90s when I escaped the organized media. They let me be. They considered me irrelevant, which was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was waiting for that. No artist can develop for any length of time in the light of the media, no matter who it is. If the media was commenting on every article you wrote, imagine what it would do to you.

Q Do you see yourself touring indefinitely?

A I don't see myself doing anything indefinitely. I see myself fulfilling the commitments at the moment. Anything beyond that, time will have to tell.

Q There's a lot of spirit in the new album. Do you feel pretty good about things?

A Any day above the ground is a good day.
 

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