thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
even remember it. People have told me they think it's very Americana and all that. I don't know what they're talkin' about.So, then, it wouldn't occur to you to put out, say, the 1966 tapes of the Royal Albert Hall concert in London, another great bootleg?No Uh-uh. I wouldn't put 'em out because I didn't think they were quality.That stuff's great. I'm amazed you wouldn't want to see it done legitimately and really do the tapes right.Well, but you see, Columbia's never offered to do that. They have done that with The Basement Tapes and the Budokan album. But they've never offered to put that out as an historical album or whatever. And believe me, if they wanted to do it, they could.Speaking of the 'Budokan' album...The Budokan album was only supposed to be for Japan. They twisted my arm to do a live album for Japan. It was the same band I used on Street Legal, and we just started findin' our way into things on that tour when they recorded it. I never meant for it to be any type of representation of my stuff or my band or my live show.That was when the critics started saying you were going Las Vegas, wasn't it?Well, I think the only people who would have said somethin' like that were people who've never been to Las Vegas.I think it was the clothes you wore at the time. They said it made you look like Neil Diamond.Well, it just goes to show you how times have changed since 1978, if you could be criticized for what you were wearing. I mean, now you can wear anything. You see a guy wearing a dress onstage now, it's like, "Oh, yeah, right." You expect it.I've seen a lot of stuff written about me. People must be crazy. I mean responsible people. Especially on that Street Legal tour. That band we assembled then, I don't think that will ever be duplicated. It was a big ensemble. And what did people say? I mean, responsible people who know better. All I saw was "Bruce Springsteen" because there was a saxophone player. And it was "disco" -- well, there wasn't any disco in it.It always seemed to me that you were sort of infallible in your career up until Self Portrait, in 1970. What's the story behind that album?At the time, I was in Woodstock, and I was getting a great degree of notoriety for doing nothing. Then I had that motorcycle accident, which put me outta commission. Then, when I woke up and caught my senses, I realized I was just workin' for all these leeches. And I didn't wanna do that. Plus, I had a family, and I just wanted to see my kids.I'd also seen that I was representing all these things that I didn't know anything about. Like I was supposed to be on acid. It was all storm-the-embassy kind of stuff -- Abbie Hoffman in the streets -- and they sorta figured me as the kingpin of all that. I said, "Wait a
minute, I'm just a musician. So my songs are about this and that. So what?" people need a leader. People need a leader more than a leader needs people, really. I mean, anybody can step up and be a leader, if he's got the people there that want one. I didn't want that, though.But then came the big news about Woodstock, about musicians goin' up there, and it was like a wave of insanity breakin' loose around the house day and night. You'd come in the house and find people there, people comin' through the woods, at all hours of the day and night, knockin' on your door. It was really dark and depressing. And there was no way to respond to all this, you know? It was as if they were suckin' your very blood out. I said, "Now, wait, these people can't be my fans. They just can't be." And they kept comin'. We had to get out of there!This was just about the time of that Woodstock Festival, which was the sum total of all this bullshit. And it seemed to have something to do with me this Woodstock Nation, and everything it represented. So we couldn't breathe. I couldn't get any space for myself and my family, and there was no help, nowhere. I got very resentful about the whole thing, and we got outta there.We moved to New York. Lookin' back, it really was a stupid thing to do. But there was a house available on MacDougal Street, and I always remembered that as a nice place. So I just bought this house, sight unseen. But it wasn't the same when we got back. The Woodstock Nation had overtaken MacDougal Street also. There'd be crowds outside my house. And I said, "Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can't possibly like, they can't relate to. They'll see it, and they'll listen, and they'll say, 'Well, let's go on to the next person. He ain't sayin' it no more. He ain't givin' us what we want,' you know? They'll go on to somebody else." But the whole idea backfired. Because the album went out there, and the people said, "This ain't what we want," and they got more resentful. And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, "Well, I'm gonna call this album Self Portrait."Which was duly interpreted by the press as: This is what he is...Yeah, exactly. And to me, it was a joke.But why did you make it a double-album joke?Well, it wouldn't have held up as a single album -- then it really would've been bad, you know; I mean, if you're gonna put a lot of crap on it, you might as well load it up.In the Sixties, there was feeling that this society really was changing. Looking back, do
you feel it changed that much?I think it did. A lot of times people forget. These modern days that we know now, where you can get on an airplane and fly anywhere you want nonstop, direct, and be there -- that's recent. That's since what, 1940? Not even that - after the war, it was. And telephones? Forget it. I mean, when I was growin' up, I remember we had a phone in the house, but you had to dial it; and I also remember there was a party line of maybe six other people. And no matter when you got on the phone, you know, there might be somebody else on it. And I never grew up with television. When television first came in, it came on at like four in the afternoon, and it was off the air by seven at night. So you had more time to...I guess to think. It can never go back to the way it was, but it was all changing in the Fifties and Sixties.My kids, they know television, they know telephones. They don't think about that stuff, you know? Even airplanes: I never rode on an airplane until 1964 or somethin'. Up till that time, if you wanted to go across the country, you took a train or a Greyhound bus, or you hitchhiked. I don't know. I don't think of myself as that old, or having seen that much, but...Do you have MTV at home?No, I don't get that. I have to go to the city to see MTV. And then, once I do find a set that has it, I'll just watch it for, you know, as long as my eyes can stay open. Until they pop out, I'll just watch it.What do you make of video? Do you think it's all that important?Uh, to sell records, yeah - but videos have always been around. David Bowie's been makin' 'em since he started. There was one thing I saw on a video, and I thought it was great. Then I heard the record on the radio, and it was nothin', you know? But video does give you something to hook onto.I was just talkin' to Ronnie Wood the other night. He went to the Duran Duran show at the Garden, and he said it was really funny, because they had a great big screen up over the stage with huge close-ups of the band members. And every time they showed a close-up of somebody in the band, the audience would just go crazy -- they'd go mad, you know? So while they were showing a close-up of somebody in the band, the guitar player'd be playing a lick. So he'd think they were all doing it for him. Then he'd play the same lick again to get the same response -- and get nothing.Remember you were trying to get together with Ronnie and Keith [Richards] the other night. How'd it go?It was pretty subdued, actually. But I always like to see Keith or Woody or Eric or.... There's a few people
I like to see whenever I can. People who play like that. It has to do with a style of music, you know?Do you ever collaborate?Yeah, but usually it never happens. It's, "Okay, that's great, we'll pick that up later and finish it." But nothin' ever really gets finished.Are your best friends mostly musicians?My best friends? Jeez, let me try to think of one [laughs].There must be a few.Best friends? Jesus, I mean, that's...You've got to have a best friend.Whew! Boy, there's a question that'll really make you think. Best friend? Jesus, I think I'd go into a deep, dark depression if I were to think about who's my best friend.There have to be one or two, don't there?Well, there has to be...there must be... there's gotta be. But hey, you know, a best friend is someone who's gonna die for you. I mean, that's your best friend, really. Yeah, I'd be miserable trying to think who my best friend is.What do you do with your year, aside from doing an album and maybe a tour? Well, I'm happy doin' nothin' [laughs].Do you spend a lot of time in Minnesota?I get back there when I can, yeah. I got some property outside of St. Paul back in '74, a sort of farm.Do you actually farm on this farm?Well, it grows potatoes and corn, but I don't sit on the tractor, if that's what you mean. I'm usually either here or on the West Coast or down in the Caribbean.Me and another guy have a boat down there. "Jokerman," kinda came to me in the islands. It's very mystical. The shapes there, and shadows, seen to be so ancient. The song was sorta inspired by these spirits they call jumbis.Do you still have that house in California, that big, strange-looking place?That's a story -- you could write a baroque novel offa that. I had five kids, and I just couldn't find a house that was suitable. I liked this area because there was a public school in the neighborhood, and the kids could ride their bikes to it. So I bought this house on about an acre of land, past Malibu. And my wife looked at it and said, "Well, it's okay, but it needs another bedroom." So I got somebody to design another bedroom. You had to file plans, and they had to be passed - that's the way the red tape is out there. So we had architects come in, and right away they said, "Oh, yeah. Bob Dylan, right. We'll really make somethin' spectacular here." Anyway, it took six months to get the plans passed. Just to put on another room. I mean, one room. Jesus! So I went out there one day to see how the room was progressing, and they'd knocked down the house. They'd knocked down the house! I asked the guys who were workin', "Where's the house?" And they said they had to knock it down to restructure it for this bedroom upstairs.Sounds like somebody was making a lot of money off you.Ain't that the truth?
I mean, has it ever been otherwise? So, one thing led to another, and I said as long as they're knockin' this place down, we're just gonna add more rooms onto it. And any time some craftsman passed by --hitchhiking to Oregon or coming back down to Baja -- we'd say, "Hey, you wanna do some work on this place?" And they'd do woodwork, tile work, all that kinda thing. And eventually, it was built. But then they closed the school out there, and the kids moved away, and Sara moved away, and, uh...So I was stuck with this place. As a matter of fact I've never even put anything on the living-room floor. It's just cement.Since you've spent a lot of time in the Caribbean, you must be familiar with Rastafarianism.Not really. I know a lot of Rastas. I know they're Bible-believing people, and it's very easy for me to relate to any Bible-believing person.Well, what if someone is born in a place where there are no Bibles -- the Tibetan mountains, say. Could they still be saved?I don't know. I really don't. Allen Ginsberg is a Tibetan -- a Buddhist, or something like that. I'm just not familiar enough with that to say anything about it.Speaking of Allen Ginsberg, doesn't the Bible say that homosexuality is an abomination?Yeah, it does. It says that.And yet Ginsberg's a good guy, right?Yeah, well, but that's no reason for me to condemn somebody, because they drink or they're corrupt in orthodox ways or they wear their shirt inside out. I mean, that's their scene. It certainly doesn't matter to me. I've got no ax to grind with any of that.Were you up in Minnesota when they tried to pass that antiporn law in Minneapolis? The contention was that pornography is a violation of women's civil rights. What do you think?Well, pornography is pretty deeply embedded. I mean, it's into everything, isn't it? You see commercials on TV that millions of dollars have been put into, and they look pretty sexy to me. They look like they're pushin' sex in some kinda way.In a way, that's the real pornography, because the point isn't to get you off sexually, it's to sell you something.Yeah, it's to stick the idea in your brain. But it's too far gone. I mean, if you start makin' laws against porno magazines and that kinda stuff, well, men where do you draw the line? You gotta stop the prime-time television shows also.Any thoughts on abortion?Abortion? I personally don't think abortion is that important. I think it's just an issue to evade whatever issues are makin' people think about abortion.Well, I mean, when abortion's used as a form of birth control....Well, I think birth control is another hoax that women shouldn't have bought, but they did buy. I mean, if a man don't wanna knock up a woman, that's his problem, you know what I mean? It's interesting: They arrest prostitutes, but they never arrest the guys with the prostitutes. It's all very one-sided. And the same with birth control. Why do
they make women take all them pills and fuck themselves up like that? People have used contraceptives for years and years and years. So all of a sudden some scientist invents a pill, and it's a billion-dollar industry. So we're talkin' about money. How to make money off of a sexual idea. "Yeah, you can go out and fuck anybody you want now; just take this pill." You know? And it puts that in a person's mind: "Yeah, if I take a pill..." But who knows what those pills do to a person? I think they're gonna be passe. But they've caused a lot of damage, a lot of damage.So it's the man's responsibility? Vasectomy's the best way?I think so. A man don't wanna get a woman pregnant, then he's gotta take care of it. Otherwise, that's just ultimate abuse, you know?But the problem is not abortion. The problem is the whole concept behind abortion. Abortion is the end result of going out and screwing somebody to begin with. Casual sex.But the abortion question is: Is it taking a life? Is it a woman's decision?Well, if the woman wants to take that upon herself, I figure that's her business. I mean, who's gonna take care of the baby that arrives - these people that are callin' for no abortion?In regard to these feminist sympathies...I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.In that regard, there's a song on 'Infidels' called "Sweetheart Like You," in which you say, "A woman like you should be at home...takin' care of somebody nice."Actually, that line didn't come out exactly the way I wanted it to. But, uh...I could easily have changed that line to make it not so overly, uh, tender, you know? But I think the concept still woulda been the same. You see a fine-lookin' woman walking down the street, you start goin', "Well, what are you doin' on the street? You're so fine, what do you need all this for?"A lot of women might say they're on the street because they're on the way to their jobs.Well, I wasn't talkin' to that type of woman. I'm not talkin' to Margaret Thatcher or anything.Are you in love at the moment?I'm always in love.Would you ever marry again? Do you believe in the institution?Yeah, I do. I don't believe in divorce. But I'm a strong believer in marriage.One last question. I think a lot of people take you for a pretty gloomy character these days, just judging by your photos. Why reinforce that image by calling this latest album Infidels?Well, there were other titles for it. I wanted to call it Surviving in a Ruthless World. But someone pointed out to me that the last bunch of albums I'd made all started with the letter s. So I said, "Well, I don't wanna get bogged down in the letter s." And then Infidels came into my head one day. I don't know what it means, or
anything.Don't you think when people see that title, with that sort of dour picture on the front, they'll wonder, "Does he mean us?"I don't know. I could've called the album Animals, and people would've said the same thing. I mean, what would be a term that people would like to hear about themselves?How about Sweethearts?Sweethearts, You could call an album that. Sweethearts.With a big smiling picture?Yeah.(From RS 424, June 21, 1984)
About 18 months ago, I first started writing Bob letters asking for an interview, suggesting the conditions and questions and reasons for it. Then, a little over a year ago, the night before I left New York, a message came from the hotel operator that a "Mr. Dillon" had called.Two months later. I met Bob for the first time at another hotel in New York: ...he casually strolled in wearing a sheepskin outfit, leather boots, very well put together but not too tall, y'understand. It was 10 A.M. in the morning, and I rolled out of bed stark naked -- sleep that way, y'understand -- and we talked for half an hour about doing an interview, what it was for, why it was necessary. Bob was feeling out the situation, making sure it would be cool. That meeting was in the late fall of 1968. It took eight months -- until the end of June this year -- to finally get the interview. The meantime was covered with a lot of phone calls, near misses in New York City. Bob's trips to California, which didn't take place and a lot of waiting and waiting for that right time when we were both ready for the show.The interview took place on a Thursday afternoon in New York City at my hotel, right around the corner from the funeral home where Judy Garland was being inspected by ten thousand people, who formed lines around several city blocks. We were removed from all that activity, but somehow it seemed appropriate enough that Judy Garland's funeral coincided with the interview.Bob was very cautious in everything he said, and took a long time between questions to phrase exactly what he wanted to say, nothing more and sometimes a little less. When I wasn't really satisfied with his answers, I asked the questions another way, later. But Bob was hip.Rather than edit the interview into tight chunks and long answers. I asked Sheryl to transcribe the tapes with all the pauses asides and laughs left in. So, much of the time, it's not what is said, but how it is said, and I think you will dig it more just as it went down.To bring us up to date after all that, August through September was spent trying to get Baron together with Bob to get some new photographs of him, in a natural, non-performance situation. But it proved fruitless. Perhaps if we had had another six months to work on getting the photographs, but Bob was simply not to be rushed or pushed into something he really didn't feel like doing at the time. ("I'll have Baron meet you in New York tomorrow." "Well, tomorrow I might be in Tucson, Arizona," "Baron will fly to Tucson," etc.)The photographs we have used are from rehearsals for the Johnny Cash show and from the Isle of Wight, ones you probably have not seen yet, and some photos of Bob from a long time ago. Bob promised that we would get together soon to take some photos, and if we
do, you'll see them as soon as we get them. But don't hold your breath.Meantime, here's the interview.When do you think you're gonna go on the road?November... possibly December.What kind of dates do you think you'll play -- concerts? Big stadiums or small concert halls?I'll play medium-sized halls.What thoughts do you have on the kind of back-up you're going to use?Well, well keep it real simple, you know . . . drums . . bass . . . second guitar .. . organ ... piano. Possibly some horns. Maybe some background voices.Girls? Like the Raylettes?We could use some girls.Bob you have any particular musicians in mind at this time?To go out on the road? Well, I always have some in mind. I'd like to know a little bit more about what I'm gonna do. You see, when I discover what I'm gonna do, then I can figure out what kind of sound I want.I'd probably use... I'd want the best band around, you know?Are you going to use studio musicians or use some already existing band?I don't know ... you see, it involves putting other people on the bill, full-time. I'd only probably use the Band again ... if I went around.And they'd do the first half of the show?. . . Sure . . . sure . . .Are you thinking of bringing any other artists with you?Well, every so often we do think about that. (laughter) We certainly do. I was thinking about maybe introducing Marvin Rainwater or Slim Whitman to "my audience."Have you been in touch with either of them?No... no.What did you think when you saw yourself on the Cash show?(Laughs) Oh, I'd never see that... I can't stand to see myself on television. No.Did you dig doing it?I dig doing it, yeah. Well, you know, television isn't like anything else . . . it's also like the movie business, you know, where they call you and then you just sit around. So by the time you finally do something, you have to do it three or four times, and usually all the spirit's gone.You didn't watch it on TV?(Laughs) I did watch it on TV ... just because I wanted to see Johnny. I didn't realize they slowed Doug Kershaw down, too. They slowed his song down to... his song was like this .. . (taps out steady beat)... and they slowed him down to ... (taps slow rhythm)... you know?Just by slowing down the tape?They just slowed him down. I don't know how. I don't know what happened. I think the band slowed him down or something, but boy he was slowed down. During rehearsals and just sitting around, he played these songs ... the way we was going at it, maybe 3/4 time, and they slowed him down to about 2/3 time, you know?Did you have any difficulty working with the TV people doing something like that?O no, no, they're wonderful people...they really are. It was by far the most enjoyable television program I've ever done. I don't do television just because you get yourself