Bob Dylan Interview: Talks Rolling Stones, "Real Music," Val Kilmer, and Hitler

In anticipation of the release of his 33rd album, Together Through Life, Bob Dylan sat down with rock critic and MTV producer Bill Flanagan for a lengthy and unusually candid conversation (three previously released portions of the interview can be read at bobdylan.com). In the fourth installment, published below, Dylan discusses The Rolling Stones, Hitler, acting, and sheds some interesting light on the songwriting in Together Through Life.

Bill Flanagan: Getting to politics, what did you think of Jesse Ventura, being a Minnesotan and all?

Bob Dylan: He did some good things or tried to. I never met him. All I know about the governor is that he's a Rolling Stones fan.

BF: You're old cohorts?

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BD: I hear from Keith once in a while but that's about it.

BF: What do you think of the Stones?

BD: What do I think of them? They're pretty much finished, aren't they?

BF: They had a gigantic tour last year. You call that finished?

BD: Oh yeah, you mean Steel Wheels. I'm not saying they don't keep going, but they need Bill. Without him they're a funk band. They'll be the real Rolling Stones when they get Bill back.

BF: Bob, you're stuck in the 80's.

BD: I know. I'm trying to break free.

BF: Do you really think the Stones are finished?

BD: Of course not, They're far from finished. The Rolling Stones are truly the greatest rock and roll band in the world and always will be. The last too. Everything that came after them, metal, rap, punk, new wave, pop-rock, you name it .... you can trace it all back to the Rolling Stones. They were the first and the last and no one's ever done it better.

BF: This Dream of You has this wonderful South of the Border feel, but at the same time, I detect echoes of Sam Cooke, the Coasters, the Brill Building, and Phil Spector. Were those records from the 50's and 60's important to you? Did you try to capture some of that flavor in This Dream of You?

BD: Those fifties and sixties records were definitely important. That might have been the last great age of real music. Since then or maybe the seventies it's all been people playing computers. Sam Cooke, the Coasters, Phil Spector, all that music was great but it didn't exactly break into my consciousness.

Back then I was listening to Son House, Leadbelly, the Carter family, Memphis Minnie and death romance ballads. As far as songwriting, I wanted to write songs like Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson. Timeless and eternal. Only a few of those radio ballads still hold up and most of them have Doc Pomus' hand in them. Spanish Harlem, Save the Last Dance for Me, Little Sister ... a few others. Those were fantastic songs. Doc was a soulful cat. If you said there was a little bit of him in This Dream of You I would take it as a compliment.

BF: Even though many of the tracks on the album are about love, the album is full of pain - sometimes in the same song. In Beyond Here Lies Nothing, the song is underscored by a feeling of foreboding. You're moving down "boulevards of broken cars." You're going to love "as long as love will last." Is pain a necessary part of loving?

BD: Oh yeah, in my songs it is. Pain, sex, murder, family - it goes way back. Kindness. Honor. Charity. You have to tie all that in. You're supposed to know that stuff.

BF: Getting back to This Dream of You , the character sings, "How long can I stay in this nowhere café?" Where is that café?

BD: It sounds like it's south of the border or close to the border.

BF: You're not saying?

BD: Well, no, it's not like I'm not saying. But if you have those kind of thoughts and feelings you know where the guy is. He's right where you are. If you don't have those thoughts and feelings then he doesn't exist.

BF: The character in the song reminds me a lot of the guy who is in the song Across The Borderline.

BD: I know what you're saying, but it's not a character like in a book or a movie. He's not a bus driver. He doesn't drive a forklift. He's not a serial killer. It's me who's singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, "My character this, and my character that." Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don't have to explain it to me.

BF: Well can't a singer act out a song?

BD: Yeah sure, a lot of them do. But the more you act the further you get away from the truth. And a lot of those singers lose who they are after a while. You sing, "I'm a lineman for the county," enough times and you start to scamper up poles.

BF: What actor could you hear singing This Dream of You?

BD: Gosh I don't know, James Cagney, Mickey Rooney

BF: How about Humphrey Bogart?

BD: Yeah, sure, him too. Funny thing about actors and that identity thing. Every time I run into Val Kilmer, I can't help myself. I say, "Why, Johnny Ringo - you look like somebody just walked on your grave." Val always says, "Bob, I'm not Johnny Ringo. That's just a role I played in a movie." He could be right, he could be wrong. I think he's wrong but he says it in such a sincere way. You have to think he thinks he's right.

BF: Do you think actors have to be sincere?

BD: Not at all. Mae West wasn't. She was just who she was on the screen. Just like Jimmy Stewart and Burt Lancaster.

BF: And Johnny Weissmuller.

BD: Yeah, Lon Chaney, too.

BF: Could that mean that Alec Guinness is Hitler?

BD: Well sure, a part of him is. But of course he's not Hitler. And neither is anybody else. Hitler was Hitler.

BF: Do you remember images of Hitler from growing up?

BD: No, not growing up. He was dead by the time I was four or five. I never had a real understanding of that.

BF: Never had an understanding of what?

BD: How you take a failed landscape painter and turn him into a fanatical mad man who controls millions. That's some trick. I mean the powers that created him must have been awesome.

BF: Well, the social and economic conditions of the Weimar Republic were so different than now.

BD: Yeah sure, looking back in hindsight, you can see that someone would have to take control. But still, it's so perplexing. Like why him? You could see that the man's a total mutt. No Aryan characteristics whatsoever. You couldn't guess his ancestry. Brown hair, brown eyes, pasty complexion, no particular type of stature, Hitler mustache, raincoat, riding whip, the whole works. He knew something. He knew that people didn't think. Look at the faces of the millions who worshipped him and you see that he inspired love. It's scary and sad. The torch of the spoken word. They were glad to follow him anywhere, loyal to the bone. Then of course, he filled up the cemeteries with them.

BF: It brings to mind Hitler talking to the crowd in Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl.

BD: Yeah, it's clear as day.

Comments

[Taughtology]

Bob, I'm your huckleberry.

[knerd]

Hitler had BLUE eyes. Loved children. Was kind to animals. And Oh, der fuhrer could waltz !

[JDM73]

Dylan's great! And I'm glad I'm not the only one who misses Bill Wyman.

[harper]

Great interview, but it's sad that the person who transcribed this interview doesn't know how to use apostrophes.

[BobAlps]

I think the commet about Val KIlmer is right on (except for the fact that Val Kilmer delivered the quoted line as the character Doc Holliday). An actor has a few defining roles and, in my opinion, those roles for Val Kilmer were in the films Top Gun, Heat, and (perhaps most notably) Tombstone.

[bdaved]

He was a daisy in that, that's for sure. Now "Masked and Anonymous", that's another kettle of fish.

[veracity88]

I remember seeing an interview with Bob in the late 80s/early 90s when he described normal everyday people coming up to him and asking him all manner of questions that had nothing to do with his music or any music for that matter. He said it never failed to amaze him that people would think that he was some sort of Oracle of Delphi, knowledgeable in everything, just because they liked his music. Although that wouldn't excuse boorish behavior towards one's fans, it would provide an insight as to his reluctance to converse with the general public.

[nmabry]

i love the way Dylan thinks......who else would describe Hitler as having a "Hitler mustache"? His interviews as of late have been wonderfully hilarious and poignant at the same time....always a delight to hear from Bobby.

[daveny]

Bob is hilarious... the only things funnier are the people who take his every utterance as some dead-serious proclamation from the heavens!

That whole bit on the Rolling Stones is great... first sarcastically undercutting them and dating himself, then sarcastically overdoing the adulation...

[pickwickianmom]

Well, here's something to hang our cowboy hats on.
This short Dylan interview has more comments than the Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and real housewife stories.

[Retrofuturistic]

Speaking of not thinking, I find it interesting that the interviewer says the social and economic conditions of the Weimar Republic are "different from now"....

In what way?

[pickwickianmom]

Ask Bob. He readily agreed.

[pickwickianmom]

The Weimar Republic had runaway currency inflation and we have some price inflation in the U.S. (which is what I guess you are comparing).
Their currency was essentially worthless. They burned their money for fuel because it was more valuable that way. There are photos of people taking wheelbarrows of money to buy food.

The most important difference is that the Weimar Republic had dozens of political parties, which allowed small, splinter groups to gain power. People could get into power with few votes and not much support---hence, Hitler, who had a small group of fanatics behind him, but only got around 10% of the vote. Once he came into power, he could put out propaganda and gain wide support.

Because we have two parties, the parties have to play to moderates. I know it makes people angry, but it keeps people like Hitler from obtaining power with very few votes.

Also, the political parties were either communist or nationalist. And they fought all the time. Sometimes in the streets. Hitler created something that was half communism/ half nationalism. He called it the National Socialist German Workers Party. It was shortened to Nazis later.

In Germany, there was an outside force, the Treaty of Versailles, that was keeping the German economy weak.

The similarities are that unemployment is high.

This is all off the top of my head. If I've made mistakes, let me know. I didn't wiki first.

[bdaved]

That's some cogitation you got going there. I always think about the large numbers of veterans who felt they'd lost the war by betrayal, too.

[pickwickianmom]

I actually tried to post my uneducated, lazy response to your question, but it was deleted away because of length and level of boredom, I imagine.

Anyway, the big, big difference between the Weimer Republic in Germany and the U.S. now is the number of political parties. Hitler came to power with around 10% of the vote--something that couldn't happen in our country because of the two-party system which forces a play to moderates.

They had wild currency inflation. We are having some price inflation, although that seems to be adjusting a bit, still economists are worried about it picking up.
We both have high unemployment.
I don't have the figures because I'm too lazy to look them up.
And, as I pointed out before, if I'm wrong, let me know.
I'm always happy to learn.

[VivaZapata]

there's your first statement below. the slowness of the text readers cause too many repetitive posts. are they fine tooth combing everything?

[bdaved]

We don't have Fritz Lang.

[pickwickianmom]

Or his damn esophagus.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Or F.W. Murnau...

[the964kid]

True:

In Dylan's concert rider it states nobody is allowed to 'look at' Dylan.

[pickwickianmom]

I haven't heard that.
The woman who caters for him locally says he's a nice, normal guy.

Maybe the caterer can look at him?

[pickwickianmom]

I hate it when I hear something like that about someone I respect. It is so disappointing.
Maybe he just needs privacy and to feel like people aren't staring at him before a show.

He travels around the country, apparently, and interacts with all kinds of regular people.

[bdaved]

You can look at him, just don't stare at his esophagus.

[Bruce Rosen]

When i was a news reporter in 1976 I attended a special concert of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review playing for Hurrican Carter at a NJ prison. His friend Lou Kemp gave a speech before warning the press to stay 10 feet from him, before the show and not to take any off-stage pictures of him. At one point his son - maybe Jakob - about 9-10 at the time, started talking to me and Dylan came over, grabbed his kid, and started screaming at him about talking to "these people." I was crushed. At the end Dylan came out to give an autograph to the only white inmate - who was pleading for one. I took numerous pictures but i has switched to slide film and the exposure was off. All that came out was his white hat - it was as if something mystical was preventing my closeup shot.... :-)

[Taughtology]

False.

And here's the rider to prove it: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/bobdylan/bobdylan1.html

[go]

This line may become one of my all time favorites... "You sing, "I'm a lineman for the county," enough times and you start to scamper up." Especially these days so many people played masters of the universe and scampered up...can't wait for more of them to fall to earth.

[swerver]

Dylan, in just a few sentences ,seems closer to an explanation of Hitlers magnetism than the thousands of books that have been written on the subject. I have a feeling that he recalls a time when many people looked to him for answers and to somehow be their saviour or beacon. He , of course knew it was not a role he was willing to take on. But for a moment of time in the sixties he must of felt the worship and adoration of the unthinking masses beginning to expand his ego! Unlike Hitler he withdrew to a simpler life, surrounded by friends and family who truly cared for him. That is why we still can enjoy his stories and music over forty years later. Gotta love the guy.

[pickwickianmom]

I love Bob Dylan's music, too.
But this is the kind of stuff that probably confuses him.
I don't think that his couple of sentences on Hitler outshine Primo Levi, Hannah Arendt, or Taduez Borowski.

[bdaved]

Or Spike Jones.

[TrippyWeekender]

Love that Bob! Sounds like there was great pot at the house.

[Indie2008]

Well, it makes me wonder-- was Dylan smarter in the '60's, or were we just dumber?

[pickwickianmom]

I know!!!
I'm a huge Dylan fan, but I was shocked when I read his biography. He's not an intellectual. Or even particularly well-read.
Talented, quick, clever, bright, great with word-play and imagery. Writes great, iconic music. Musical genius. Interesting.
But an intellectual? Not so much.

I'm sure he knows that. That's why he's never come out as a leader on any issue or got involved with politics.

When he held up that light bulb all those years ago, he was just holding up a light bulb.
Just like he said.

I think I like him even more for that.

[Citizen54]

I got the sense from Chronicles that he's pretty well-read. He talks about being in the friends' house in New York that was full of all the books, and he talks about Greek philosophers and some literary classics. And in a lot of his interviews in the past few years, like this one, he seems to have read his history books. I don't know what "intellectual" is, but Dylan seems pretty informed.

Plus, our greatest poet.
And a pretty good comic.

[marasinghe]

you're right - he's no intellectual. calling him intellectual, is like saying shakespeare was einstein. dylan's just a poet; and when i say 'just' - i mean maybe the greatest poet since shakespeare; but i could be wrong. we don't look to michelangelo for the laws of physics; why look to dylan for a unified theory of everything. he's given us more with the songs, than most of the nobel prizewinners in science and, specially, economics. listen to the music. the interviews are him playing fetch with reporters - meaningless; like sitting in a bar and listening to your favourite uncle going off on the state of the world. which, i think, is what he's been saying about himself all along.