"Sometimes the
things that you liked the best and that have meant the most to you are the
things that meant nothing at all to you when you first heard or saw
them."
-
Bob Dylan, on his whole vision of life
As part of my journey in
simplifying my life I am slowly trying to shift from printed material to
e-books. In the process I am also looking for a second home for my beloved
books. One of those books is the autobiography of Bob Dylan, the musician/folk
singer/songwriter; the icon.
I plan to give my copy
to my musician friend TJ because I think / hope that he will be inspired by
this book to create great music after reading it. It certainly inspired me to
create this blog about my love of reading (and also kind of name the blog after
it). In a way the materials that I read do reflect the current state of my mind
and where I am in my journey in this life.
But before I give this
book away I must record my thoughts, feelings and insights when I read the book
for the first time, after having bought them years ago and most recently
re-read it while I was choosing which of my books I plan to give away.
People say that there
are books that you will never read again; either because they are forgettable
or they are too emotionally crippling that you would not be able to handle the
material again. Well, this is book is neither one of those. Whenever I would
try to re-read a passage I would have a new insight and it would feel like that
are still so many layers that are yet to be revealed to me. His thoughts on being over the hill is particularly poignant and reminded me of those days when there is like a dark cloud hanging over me that I cannot shake off.
I bought this book as
soon as it came out ten years ago, though I am neither a fan of Bob Dylan nor am I familiar
with his music. But I've read from somewhere a good review of the book and
promptly went to find it at my favorite local bookstore.
Without a doubt this
book is the most beautifully written biography that I have read in a long time. (And I've read a lot of biographies!). Even though he is relating his life story, it is written with a certain lyrical
quality to it that it's almost as if he is singing it to you or at the very
least reciting poetry. He keeps you at the edge of your seat because he writes
in a non-linear manner that you cannot blink and miss a scene.
The closest experience I
have is like watching the movie Pulp Fiction wherein you need to finish the
entire movie before you can connect the dots. That was my first experience with
non-linear storytelling and I like it. Maybe it has something to do with my
mathematics background that is why I am perfectly fine with it; even think that
it is plausible for events to happen like that.
His writing is so
excellent that you are transported to that particular time and space that he is
describing. That you are able to see, hear, feel, touch and taste that
particular moment in his life that he is writing about. For any writer there is
no greater compliment than this.
Oh and by the way , this
book is also a good source of lists of books you need to read, places to go or
songs to listen to before you die.
One thing I do not
"like" though, is that the man gives me an inferiority complex as a
writer. (But that is another story!)
-----------------------------------------------------
Here are some of my
favorite bits that would prove the superior quality of his writing:
1.
[On his love of
reading]:
"The place had an
overpowering presence of literature and couldn't help but lose your passion for
dumbness. Up until this time I've been raised in a cultural spectrum that had
left my mind black with soot."
"I liked the
biographies a lot and read part one about Frederick the Great, who, besides
being King of Prussia, I was surprised to find out was also a composer."
"I liked the French
writer Balzac a lot, read Luck and Leather, and Le Cousin Pons.
Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically
that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for
Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. ,,. One
of his teeth falls out, and he says, 'What does this mean?' He questions
everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good
sign. Balzac is hilarious."
(Ria's Note: I think
Balzac is no different than a girl / woman in love. We women tend to analyze
every little thing that has been said or shown to us by our object of affection
or desire. And that's always hilarious !)
2.
[On being original and writing his own songs]:
"I can't say when
it occurred to me to write my own songs. I couldn't have come up with anything
comparable or halfway close to the folk song lyrics I was singing to define the
way I felt about the world. I guess it happens to you by degrees. You just
don't wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs, especially if
you're a singer who has plenty of them and you're learning more every day.
Opportunities may come along for you to convert something--something that
exists into something that didn't yet. "
"It's not like you
see songs approaching and invite them in. It's not that easy. You want to write
songs that are bigger than life. You want to say something about strange things
that have happened to you and understand something and then go past the
vernacular... Sometimes you could hear a song and your mind jumps ahead. You
see similar patterns in the ways that you were thinking about things. I never
looked at songs as either "good" or "bad", only different
kinds of good ones."
“A song is like a dream,
and you try to make it come true. They’re like strange countries that you have
to enter. You can write a song anywhere, in a railroad compartment, on a boat,
on horseback—it helps to be moving. Sometimes people who have the greatest
talent for writing songs never write any because they are not moving.”
3. [On fame]
“It was impossible now
for me to observe anything without being observed. … What kind of alchemy, I
wondered, could create a perfume that would make reaction to a person lukewarm,
indifferent and apathetic? I wanted to get some."
4.
[On being over the hill]
“Wherever I am, I am a
60’s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious
head of state from a place nobody knows. I’m in the bottomless pit of cultural
oblivion. You name it, I can’t shake it.”
“I’ve been on an
eighteen month tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It would be my last.
I had no connection to any kind of inspiration. Whatever was there to begin
with had all vanished and shrunk. Tom was at the top of his game and I was at
the bottom of mine…. My own songs have become strangers to me, I didn’t have
the skill to touch their raw nerves, couldn’t penetrate the surfaces. …There
was a hollow singing in my heart and I couldn’t wait to retire and fold the
tent. … I was what they called over the hill.”
5.
[On starting over]
“[Elliot Roberts] He showed
me my upcoming tour schedule and I was disappointed. It was far different than
what we have talked about. There were very few of the same towns that I’d
played the previous year. … I told him that
this wasn’t what we talked about, that I needed to get back to the same towns
that I played the previous year.”
“ ‘You can’t play the
same towns every year, nobody’s gonna get an erection over that. You gotta
leave the towns alone. Leave ‘em for a while,’ he said.”
“Think of it like you
think about Jesse James. There were a lot of bank robbers then, a lot of jail
breakers—a lot of holdup men, train robbers…but Jesse James is the only name
people remember. He was mythological. You don’t play the same towns every year,
you don’t rob the same banks.”
6.
[On conceit]
“Conceit is not
necessarily a disease. It’s more of a weakness. A conceited person could be
set-up easily and brought down accordingly. Let’s face it, a conceited person
has a fake sense of self-worth, an inflated opinion of himself. A person like
this can be controlled and manipulated completely if you know what buttons to
push.”
7.
[On his wife]
“The one thing about her
that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone
else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her
own built-in happiness.”
8. [On falling in love
at first sight with girlfriend, Susie]
“Right from the start I couldn’t
take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. Meeting her
was like stepping into the tales of 1,001 Arabian nights. She has a smile that
could light up a street full of people and was extremely lively, had a
particular type of voluptuousness—a Rodin sculpture come to life. She reminded
me of a libertine heroine. She was just my type.”
9.
[On his musical influences and contemporaries]:
- [Harry
Belafonte]
- "Harry was that rare type of character that
radiates greatness, and you hope that some of it rubs off on you. The man
commands respect. You know he never took the easy path, though he could
have. "
- [Mike
Seeger]
- "As for being a folk musician, he was the supreme
archetype. He could push a stake through Dracula's black heart. He
was romantic, egalitarian and revolutionary type all at once--he had
chivalry in his blood. You couldn't imagine him making a big deal out of
anything. "
- "Being there and seeing him up close, something
hit me. It's not as if he just played everything well, he played these
songs as good as it was possible to play them. What I had to work at,
Mike already had in his genes, in his genetic makeup. Before he was even
born, this music had to be in his blood."
- "He was too good and you can't be 'too good'...
In order to be as good as that , you'd just about have to be him, and
nobody else... The thought occurred to me that maybe I'd have to write my
own folk songs, ones that Mike didn't know."
- [Ray
Gooch]
- "Ray had flowing, wavy, blond hair like Jerry Lee
Lewis or Billy Graham, the evangelist--the kind of hair that preachers had.
The kind that the early rock and roll singers used to imitate and want to
look like. The kind that could create a cult."(Ria's Note: I don't know about you; but I want a hair
that can start a cult. It doesn't have to be blond, though.)
- "Ray was not a guy who had nothing in his mind.
He knew what he thought and he knew how to express it, didn't make room
in his life for mistakes. He seemed to have some golden grip on reality,
didn't sweat the small stuff, quoted the Psalms and slept with a pistol
near his bed."
- [Frank
Sinatra's song, Ebb Tide]
- "It had never failed to fill me with awe. The
lyrics were so mystifying and stupendous. When Frank sang that song, I
could hear everything in his voice--death, God and the universe,
everything."
- [Archibald
Macleish, American Poet, Writer]
- "He asked me what I had sacrificed to pursue my
dreams. He said the worth of things can't be measured by what they cost
but by what they can cost you to get it, that if anything costs you your
faith, or your family, then the price is too high and that there are some
things that will never wear out."
- [Lanois]
- “One thing about Lanois that I liked is that he didn’t
want to float on the surface. He didn’t even want to swim. He wanted to
jump in and go deep. He wanted to marry a mermaid.”
- [Woody
Guthrie]
- “The man who’d pointed out the starting place for my
identity and destiny—the great Woody Guthrie.”
- “My Life have never been the same since I’d first
heard Woody on a record player in Minneapolis a few years earlier. When I
first heard him it was like a million megaton bomb had dropped.”
- “Woody’s autobiography, Bound for Glory…sang out to me
like the radio. Guthrie writes like the whirlwind and you get tripped out
on the sound of the words alone. Woody’s got a fierce poetic soul –the poet
of hard crust sod and gumbo mud. Guthrie divides the world between those
who work and those who don’t and is interested in the liberation of the
human race and wants to create a world worth living in.”
- [Joan
Baez]
- “She was wicked looking—shiny black hair that hung
down over the curve of slender hips, drooping lashes, partly raised, no
Raggedy Ann doll. The sight of her made me high. All that and then there
was her voice. A voice that drove out bad spirits.”
- [Dave
Van Ronk]
- “He was the one performer I
burned to learn particulars from. He was great on records, but in person he was
greater…. He turned every folk song into a melodrama, a theatrical piece—suspenseful,
down to the last minute. Dave got to the bottom of things. It was like he had
an endless supply of poison and I wanted some…couldn’t do without it.”
