Bob Dylan - Chronicles

[D. Scarlatti]

So this is finally coming out; it was supposed to be out a couple of years ago. The excerpt from Newsweek is pretty entertaining, on Dylan's attempted semi-retirement to Woodstock in the late 60s:

Musicians have always known that my songs were about more than just words, but most people are not musicians. What I had to do was recondition my mind and stop putting the blame on external forces. I had to educate myself, get rid of some baggage. The solitude of time was what I didn't have. Whatever the counterculture was, I'd seen enough of it. I was sick of the way my lyrics had been extrapolated, their meanings subverted into polemics and that I had been anointed as the Big Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest, the Czar of Dissent, the Duke of Disobedience, Leader of the Freeloaders, Kaiser of Apostasy, Archbishop of Anarchy, the Big Cheese. What the hell are we talking about? Horrible titles any way you want to look at it. All code words for Outlaw. * * *

The actor Tony Curtis once told me that fame is an occupation in itself, that it is a separate thing. And Tony couldn't be more right. The old image slowly faded and in time I found myself no longer under the canopy of some malignant influence. Eventually different anachronisms were thrust upon me—anachronisms of lesser dilemma—though they might seem bigger. Legend, Icon, Enigma (Buddha in European Clothes was my favorite)—stuff like that, but that was all right. These titles were placid and harmless, threadbare, easy to get around with them. Prophet, Messiah, Savior—those are tough ones.

The Book of Bob (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6100668/site/newsweek/)

[Farren]

Very cool. I'd like to get my hands on a copy. Its funny he focusses on the music being as important as the lyrics. Wasn't he a beat poet before he started living with Joan Baez and playing guitar? Or have I got it ass-backwards?

In any event his words rock. Out of all the musicians I can think of, Dylan's probably the one that's most likely to produce an entertaining read.

[D. Scarlatti]

I think he started out in a rock n roll band in high school.

There's also some audio clips there read by Sean Penn, the one at the bottom an appreciation for Sun Records and Johnny Cash:

Johnny didn't have a piercing yell, but 10,000 years of culture fell from him. He could have been a cave dweller. He sounds like he's at the edge of the fire, or in the deep snow, or in a ghostly forest. The coolness of conscious, obvious strength, full tilt and vibrant with danger. I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. Indeed. I must have recited those lines to myself a million times. Johnny's voice was so big it made the world grow small, unusually low-pitched, dark and booming. He had the right band to match him. Rippling rhythm and cadence of click clack. Words that were the rule of law and backed by the power of God. When I first heard I Walk The Line so many years earlier, it sounded like a voice calling out, "What are you doing there, boy?" I was trying to keep my eyes wide open too.