Dylan's Humour

Subject: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,JoeMoran
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 03:17 PM

Recently, I was on a local radio show as part of a small group of people reviewing some cd releases. Dylan's "The Classic Interviews 1965-1966" came up for comment. At one point in the interviews, Dylan is asked, "Do you consider yourself primarily a singer or a poet?" to which he replies, " Oh I think of myself more as a song and dance man". Now, two of the panel thought that Dylan's answer was hilarious. I didn't. I saw it as a valid, straight forward question that received a reply not worthy of some "smart arse" fifteen year old. To me, it's as if, for example, John Lennon had been asked the same question, and had answered, " An opera singer". Would that have been funny?

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 03:22 PM

What's with all the damn Dylan threads lately????

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 03:37 PM

I thinkhe was telling it as it was. And the reason he put it the way he did is he didn't care for the methodical abstyractionism of academics.

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

Kinda like that, like....man.


A

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 04:12 PM

Yeah, and there I was writing "Whaaaaa...?" on my favourite wall, when along comes my agent and says "Can I do anything for you?" and I say "Well, yes, do you think we could get this wall on the plane?"

Something like that.

Don't worry about it, Joe, you'll get over it. If you had to deal with the amount of press Bob did at that time, you'd probably get weird too.

- LH

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Sam L
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:14 PM

I'm not sure what's so straightforward about the question, or what's so wrong with the reply. I think his reply makes more basic sense than the question.
Do you really think if Dylan were not a popular and gifted entertainer that he would be a well-regarded "poet"? Do you really think he's widely revered particularly for his mellifluous singing voice? I doubt it. The question seems designed to set him up for ridicule on either hand, and you seem frustrated that he wasn't willing to bite. Song and dance man is very much closer to the truth than either singer or poet, and much more than Lennon calling himself an opera singer--though that sounds like something Lennon might've said to a silly question. Turn left at Greenland.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: annamill
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:38 PM

Fred, you gave me a good memory laugh! HAHAHAHAH!!! ..turn left at Greenland..HAHAH!! How did you find America??? HAHAH!

Cheez! Bob is just a person. (..even obnoxious at times..) What if everyone hung on MY every word?? Tee Hee.

Thanks!

Annamill

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: annamill
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:41 PM

Hey? Shouldn't this be in the BS threads?

Annamill

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:47 PM

Fred. What planet are you living on? How old are you? Have you no historical perspective on the "question" in question? Those were changing times ( no pun intended!) and in the context of the period, that was a very valid question, and should have received a honest answer. But of course, Dylan was/is a right smart arse - isn't he? Talented he is, but I wouldn't want to spend any time with him; And I bet there's not many that do.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 07:02 PM

BS thread? Hell, put it in "Bob Dylan-Lifted Lyrics". That one needs humor. It's dying.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Sam L
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 09:28 PM

Tunesmith. Earth. 40. I can't tell if you're teasing or serious. At the time it was important to call Dylan a poet, instead of a songwriter? Or pretend that he was basically a singer, just as if nobody else would bother to sing the songs he wrote? I completely miss why it was important to use pointlessly narrow wrong words.

   Why do we seek information that we already have? I can't drive by a mirrored building without looking to see if I'm in my car. What would I do if I looked and saw a small Korean woman driving? I'd have to stop the car, get out and look at the mirror. If there was a small Korean woman there, I'd have to say "I stand corrected".
                           paraphrased, Jerry Seinfeld, in Comedian

   Why do you think all these people would come and pay to listen if they weren't being entertained? Who's going to do that, to be whipped?
                         paraphrased Bob Dylan, in Don't Look Back

    I think it was one of his more sensible replies, and is at least little funny because it pops the presumptions of the question. Like when an investigator of Jim Baker's PTL ministries scandal was asked whether it was just incompetence or whether it was criminality. He said "Both".

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:00 AM

Fred. At 40, you can't have been there! Now, you might have studied the history of popular music, but, take it from me, in the context of the time - musically/lyrically - that was a valid question. Indeed, it's all to do with timing! Nobody would have dreamed of asking Dylan that question in 1962/63. Lkewise, nobody would have asked John Lennon that question in 1962/63. BUT, they might have asked Lennon that question, later, when he began to write in a more "poetic" way; indeed, of course, Lennon went on to publish his poetry. No, when Dylan was asked that question, the idea of the poet/singer - withn the rock era - was new. What interests me is why did Dylan give such a flippant answer? Probably because he didn't want to give - or couldn't think of - a sensible answer. I've listened to the interviews, and there are a number of ocassions in the interviews where it is obvious that Dylan is "playing with time", and giving himself a breathing space in which to formulate a "clever" answer. BUT, when he answered the poet/singer, question he simply said the first stupid thing that came into his head which, unfortunately, was crass, and insultng to the questioner who deserved an intelligent reply.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:52 AM

I think we are getting wires crossed here. The question was why did two of the panel think Dylan's answer was funny. There is no such thing as objective humour. It is always subjective and it always has a context. In this context two of the panel found the remark funny - as I might have. Dylan wasn't the only one to give flip answers at the time.
Reporter: What do you call your hair cut?
George Harrison: Arthur.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:39 AM

Yes, Alanabit. But that question wasn't a serious one about music. If George had been asked what he thought of James Burton's guitar playing, would he have given a daft answer? On musical matters, The Beatles were serious, and got rather annoyed went confronted by press ignorance e.g. On their first visit to the States, they were asked what they looking forward to seeing. They mentioned Muddy Waters. "Where's that?" asked a reporter. The Beatles weren't impressed by that reply!

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Big Tim
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 05:22 AM

Dylan's humour? Apparently he likes childish jokes, of the "knock, knock, who's there" variety: there's even one on "Love and Theft".

Yea, what's with all the Dylan threads? great isn't it!

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 07:17 AM

Bob was pretty cruel to most of the interviewers in "Don't Look Back". The were asking questions that he must have heard a million times. The one exception was the fellow who sat with him prior to the interview and told him what he was going to ask. He was obviously familiar with Dylan's music, he asked him some very intelligent questions. You could almost see the look of "Finally, someone who has given some thought to his questions". He was very cordial and seemed to relly enjoy the interview.

Dylan's Humour? I thought that Bob was a very funny man in his early years. "I Shall be Free", His various "dreams", "Stuck Inside of Mobile" and many others are some of the songs that first attracted me to Dylan.

I asked him what his name was,
and how come he didn't drive a truck,
he said it was Columbus,
I just said 'good luck'.

I'm sitting on a watch,
so I can be on time

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Big Tim
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 09:47 AM

There's a certain irony in Dylan's put-down of the man from "Newsweek " in "Don't Look Back", in that it was through the columns of "Newsweek" (or maybe it was "Time"), in Autumn '62, that I first heard about the great man! ("Motorpsycho Nitemare" is quite funny too!).

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Sam L
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 09:51 AM

Okay, maybe somebody could outline what would have been an example of a sensible answer? What do you want him to say, and why? My point is that it's easy to ridicule Dylan as either, since neither is exactly what he does, and asking how one prefers to think of themselves goes to their vanity and invites self-indulgence more than it addresses anything substantial--"Well, I'm mostly known an actor, but what I really want to do, is direct". You don't suppose there could be a better way to pose a question about a songwriter's interest in poetry? Even in heady times people make an occasional level-headed remark.

No, I haven't studied anything about the history of it in the least, only been entertained by some of it. But I do know that Hendrix said he thought of himself more as a performer/entertainer than a singer, that he hated compliments because they're so embarrassing, since sometimes he plays lousy. I wasn't there in the big heyday of the renaisance, but I've heard that "painter" was the last thing Leonardo mentioned on his resume'.

   Of all the remarks you could pick on as flippant or dumb, by Dylan or Lennon or anyone else, I really don't see why anyone would settle on that one. It's not as if there's nothing to choose from. I especially like Dylan saying, almost singing--I don't caare who threw the glass, man, I just wanna Knoooow who threw the glass! Or how about his editorial vision for Time magazine? Or, speaking of opera singers, what about Dylan's remark that he was just as good a singer as Caruso, and could hold his breath 3 times as long. I don't get the thing about being a singer or a poet, why he'd have some confessional responsibility to own up about it.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 10:00 AM

I believe I have seen that clip of the press conference where Dylan made that remark. I think you have to bear in mind that at that time the idea of a thoughtful, serious artist working in the pop world was something pretty new. The journalists at the time found it difficult to find a way of classifying Dylan in terms of something which they already knew. Although Dylan's remark was flip, I think you have to see the irony of it against that background. In context, I found it funny. I guess your point is that you just found it rude Tunesmith. That's fair enough. I just comes down to the way you take it.
I liked the story about The Beatles and Muddy Waters. I think the reporter's response would have only served to reinforce my low opinion of the journalist's profession!

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 02:40 PM

What Dylan has always done isn't exactly poetry, and it isn't exactly singing either. So an answer refusing to come down on one side or the other was a reasonable enough answer to give.

All right, not literally accurate, because he's not much of a dancer so far as I've ever seen, but implicitly it means more or less "I get up and performs, whatever you choose to call it, and it's up to the audience to decide if they like me or not". But the short form gets the message across more effectively.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Nerd
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 08:31 PM

I agree with McGrath. If he simply had said "neither, I consider myself an entertainer," no one would have called him flippant. For some reason "song and dance man," which even in my relatively recent youth was used as a synonym for "entertainer," is offending some folks. Go figure...

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: darkriver
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 10:04 PM

I have to go along with the folks who mention how closely the man was scrutinized for many years. Remember how people hung on every thing he said, sang, or did, and THEN went on to take that song, statement, or act as prophecy, cutting edge art, or critique of politics and society? Every damn thing!

I recall that when I saw that movie "Don't Look Back," how every moment, he had someone with him--sucking up, or wanting something from him, or bathing in reflected glow, or, like Pennebaker the filmmaker, just watching.

I surprised he didn't become as weird as Michael Jackson or Brian Wilson.

doug

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 11:09 AM

Lumping brilliant Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan with Whacko Jacko may be funny, but shows no humor.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Gegenhuber
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 03:00 PM

Yeah, advocate cutting His Bobness some slack. I remember (or mis-remember) reading an interview from around 1963 where a journalist keeps asking Bob something like, "But what could it possibly MEAN, the ANSWER is BLOWING in the WIND??? How can an ANSWER ... BLOW ... in the WIND??"

Dylan was remarkably patient. This would never happen today -- can you imagine any journalist talking this way to David Byrne about "Stop Making Sense," or Michael Stipe about anything he's written? It just wouldn't happen ... mostly, because Bob did the heavy lifting back in the 60's. He fielded all those stupid questions so future songwriters wouldn't have to.

Says me!

Kurt "helpless like a rich man's child" Gegenhuber

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 04:26 PM

The problem Dave is that it wasn't a stupid question. We are talking 1965, here. No books had been written about Dylan, and to the average person precious little information about the man was available. You can't view this debate with a 2003 perspective. You have got to try to place yourself back in 1965, and if you weren't around then you will have to study the period. As I said previously, in 1965, the idea of folk/rock lyrics being thought of as " poetry" was new. Dylan's background was still pretty vague. He wanted that way! And one must rememeber that Dylan walzted into the interview in the company of Alen Gingsberg, famed "beat" poet. Against this background the question was extremely valid!

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 04:28 PM

By the way, who the hell is Dave?

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Big Tim
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 04:52 PM

Bob employed the same tactics with the "New Musical Express" (UK) questionairre in '65 when "Times" was in the UK top 10. It was a standard thing called, I think, "Lifelines", with questions like:

What was you mother's name

Your favourite colour

Favourite Beatle.

Bob's answers were, as you might imagine, quite ludicrous, but hilariously funny, or so I thought at the time. I can't remember any of the original but it included things like:

mother's name. Marilym Munroe

favourite Beatle: Murph the Snurd, or was it Shakespeare; stuff like that!

The NME, unused to such independence, headlined the story "Bob Dylan Wrote This"!

I recall being surprised, not to say shocked: but the "interview" confirmed what the first 5 albums had told me: that we had an original on our hands.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Sam L
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 06:21 PM

Well, okay Tunesmith, but I'd still like to hear what a valid reply to that valid question might sound like. Or might it sound a little silly, now?

The point being--maybe it's not that we don't have enough perspective on the times, maybe it's just that Dylan did.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 03:14 AM

Here's a hypothetical answer by Dylan. "Well, man, I tell you, I see myself as a somebody approaching by creativity from various directions. I love the simplicity of the blues lyrics. I love the word-play of more sophisticated songwriters. I have read lots of different poetry. The French poet Rimbaud is someone I'm enjoying at the moment. I also, of course, have followed the work the "beat" poets. I guess I'm just a guy who's drawing on lots of influences in an attempt to express myself in words and music. The bottom line? I suppose I see myself as a singer/songwriter." Too twee, too honest and open for Dylan? But surely anyone would prefer to hear what Dylan really thinks, rather than have to put up with his school-boyish crass relies.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Humour
From: Sam L
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 09:59 AM

That's a good and thoughtful answer, which respectfully responds to the question, and winds up stating the obvious, diplomatically.

But I disagree as to what everyone would prefer. I'm no Dylan scholar, I'm not sure if I've ever bought a Dylan record, but I grew up in a town ten years behind everywhere, my father was a folkie (more Woody than Bob) and a poet, and there was a running joke with my parents' set about the folkie who gets up and earnestly explains a song, then sings a song that explains itself in practically the same words. I think some people probably enjoyed a break from the heartfelt earnest folkie routine. Dylan was just borrowing the irreverent rock schtick, and I have a pet theory that some people found him interesting. It seems to be turning into a thesis statement, here.

   Just last month there was a Father's Day theme radio show. It was about musical Fathers. I got the idea they'd do some songs about Fatherhood, maybe. Louden Wainwright was on singing a song that explained exactly what it was about (it had to do with being a Father)while he laconically strummed a few chords. For me, it was less a song than an explanation of an idea for a song, that he'd never got around to actually writing. Then he was interviewed and he helpfully explained what it was about. Maybe we're exasperated by different things.

   I think there's a popular notion that mystification is inherently "poetic". It's fun to look for clues. Dylan's topical interests in recent poetic styles are no more poetic, per se, than Barbara Allen, and usually less so, I think. There's never been any real reason to consider him a poet than say, Smokey Robinson. Even I once sat around with Allen Ginsburg, the guy just seems to travel the country sitting around with people, like Johnny Sittingaroundseed. For awhile I suspected he was stalking me. Dylan's "symbolist" antics have entertainment value, are engaging and amusing, and work pretty well expressively sometimes. There's no denying that he clowns. So do some other writers, when they want to.

   It's really interesting to me what this little exchange means to different people.