Sykes: You said "People say I can't act, but they say I can't sing either ..."
Dylan: I said that?
Sykes: Yes.
Dylan: You sure it wasn't Rupert who said that? Hahahaha.
Sykes: Well, I'd like you to say it now.
Dylan: What?
Sykes: So this is my question to get you to say it: How do you rate your acting potential?
Dylan: My *what*?
Sykes: Your acting potential?
Dylan: What are we doing here?
Sykes: I just want you to say this line, that you've got to remember, this scripted line: "People say I can't act, but they say I can't sing either".
Dylan: Who said I can't act? Hahahaha. I mean who?
Sykes: You said it!
Dylan: Oh, gee. I don't remember saying that. Why would I say something like that?
Sykes: Can I ask you what makes a good song?
Dylan: Melody. Rhythm. That stuff, I guess. But mostly it's sentiment - whether you can identify with what the sentiment of the song is, what the song says, as a song. That's what makes a good song. Someone would say, "this is a good song" and someone else would say "that's a good song". Whether it's true for anybody makes it a good ... anything. You can't say that about a tree or a leaf or a vegetable though. You only say that about man-made things. Nobody ever judges God's creations, right? Nobody ever says "That tree looks prettier than that tree". There's no judgement in nature. Did you ever notice that?
Sykes: So, how's it done, to make all these good songs?
Dylan: I don't know, I have no idea.
Sykes: Is writing songs a disciplined thing, like a job?
Dylan: No, no. Some people do work like that, I know what you mean. For me it is, if I have enough time to concentrate. I need that. A lot of times I might think of something, but if I'm not in the right place to carry it through, it just won't get done. Won't happen. I don't think of myself as a writer, I really don't. I write songs, you know, but I just write the lyrics to those songs to sing. Sometimes the lyrics change before I get 'em into the studio to record them, and then when I get 'em out of the studio I'll make changes when I have to play them live. So they will change.
Sykes: Not only do you change the words to the songs when you sing them - I can understand that - but sometimes you change the treatment from performance to performance; you play around with it, so that it's not a fixed thing.
Dylan: I do yeah, but I've just sort of done it out of necessity. Maybe I have a show on the road and I need to do songs, so I'm forced up to it. I'll do songs that I think are important to put in a particular place. You know, one day a ballad singer was someone who carried the news from town to town, or set himself up somewhere where he could play things to people who could understand them in a certain way. I don't know how any of today that are still doing that. Now, things are a little bit more worldwide. Then if there was a fire in one county you might not even hear about it in the next county. Now, with communication being so widespread, everybody knows about everything no matter where it's going on - or they think they know about it. That's a whole other subject. I don't even think you really know about it anyway, even if you do see it on TV or hear it on the news. I still think you have no idea what's going on - if what you're seeing is even a replica of anything that really has happened, or is happening.
I wonder about the time when all those guys, Mozart and Haydn and even Beethoven himself, and Strauss, Chopin, you know, those guys were the pop heroes of their day, but there must also have been ballad singers around - more so than today even - and they'd have been playing in all the drawing rooms of the court, for audiences of maybe six people, so the people never go to see them. I used to see street singers - I used to *be* one! I did it for two or three years, but I ran into people that had been doing it for 20 or 30 years, and boy, they knew how to handle a crowd, that's for sure.
Sykes: Do you know how to do that?
Dylan: Handle a crowd? yeah. I can make enough noise to handle a crowd.
Sykes: You were talking about doing your songs differently in concerts ...
Dylan: You know why that happens? It's because a lot of times my records were made ... especially in the '70's ... I took a lot of songs into the studio that I really wasn't that familiar with. I just had written them, so I didn't know ... and it depends on what musicians you have playing with you - like, what can they do, you know? And sometimes I've been in the studio with bands - just studio guys that have been put together - and you have to figure out which way this band's gonna play, especially if you want to do six songs in a session.
Sykes: You like to get it over and done with, don't you? You don't want to spend a year doing an album, like some of these other stars now do ...
Dylan: I wouldn't mind spending a year on an album, I mean, if it was worth my while ... Hahahaha!
Sykes: Worth your while?
Dylan: If somebody said to me to try to do a certain thing that took a year or something like that. I don't know *why* you'd spend a year on an album, I guess you could go off to Rio for part of the time, you know, record down there, go to Montserrat, record there, and then maybe take a quick ride to Paris, record there for a couple of weeks. Hahahaha. I don't know how you'd spend a year on an album. How's it done? I don't know.
Sykes: To get it right?
Dylan: Well, that must be the reason! To get it right. I always figure it always be more right, so you can always wonder about that. I know I have.
Sykes: Do you listen to your albums?
Dylan: No, I really don't. I overhear them sometimes when other people have them on, but I don't listen to them. I don't listen to anybody's albums really. Most records - new records - you buy, check them out, see what somebody's doing, but as for sitting down and needing to hear it, you know, time and time again, throughout your day and night just to feel connected to something, I don't hear nothing around like that these days. I mean for *me*, you know. Other people may find that for them those things do that.
Sykes: Do you have an idea about the way you'd like your albums to be listened to - just coming out of radios and buses ... ?
Dylan: Yeah, well ... look man, I gotta go. I'm out the door.
Sykes: But can we just keep this going a little bit ... it's probably much more interesting to us than it is to you.
Dylan: I gotta *eat* though! I gotta see somebody.
Sykes: Do you know what I mean? That there might be a way in which you sort of imagine them being listened to?
Dylan: No, I don't. I don't. I don't know where that fits in to what we're talking about.
Sykes: I was looking through your lyrics - there aren't very many political songs in there.
Dylan: I don't know which of my songs was ever political.
Sykes: Master Of War is.
Dylan: I don't know if even Masters Of War is a political song. Politics of *what*? If there is such a thing as politics, what is it politics of? Is it spiritual politics? Automotive politics? Governmental politics? What kind of politics? Where does those word come from, politics? Is this a Greek word or what? What does it actually *mean*? I don't know what the fuck it means. Left, right, rebel. Some people are rebels. Let's see, Afghanistan are rebels, but they're OK. Nicaragua's got rebels and they're OK. Their rebels are all right. But in El Salvador the rebels are the bad guys. Nicaragua, the rebels are the good guys. If you listen to that stuff you go crazy. You don't even know who *you* are anymore. It don't make any sense to me. I don't see good guy, bad guy. It's that Dave Mason song "There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy, there's only you and me and we just disagree". True or what?
Sykes: We all have our favorite rebels I guess.
Dylan: Yeah! That must be it!
Sykes: Who do you admire?
Dylan: Who is there to admire now? Some World leader? I could probably think of many people actually that I admire. There's a guy who works in a gas station in LA - old guy, I truly admire that guy.
Sykes: What's he done?
Dylan: What's he done? He helped me fix my carburettor once.
Sykes: You are serious, aren't you, about the gas man?
Dylan: Hmmm.
Sykes: You're putting a lot of work and a lot of time into this film, and then you say you're not going to see it.
Dylan: Oh, I may see it, I might go see it. I don't know. I'm not sure about the date it's gonna open. Hahahaha.
Sykes: You say it's a joy to work with Fiona, that she's got what it takes.
Dylan: I think so. I think she could be the next Joan Crawford. Hahahaha!
Sykes: I think I meant as a singer.
Dylan: I'm talking about acting. as a singer? She could be the next anybody. She don't have to be the next anybody, she could be the first one like her.
Sykes: What does it take?
Dylan: What do *you* think? What do you *really* think?
Sykes: Well, the trouble is I can't use my answer.
Dylan: Well, gimme an answer and I'll say it!
Sykes: Well some kind of talent which is rather indefinable, and some kind of determination to use it despite feeling that it's all terribly difficult and so on, and also despite all the pressures from other people to get you to do something else rather than doing that; to survive all the manipulation and exploitation that I suppose goes with people wanting to use this talent that you happen to have, to get what they want, which might not be the same as what you might want to be doing. That kind of thing I suppose,
Dylan: Well!
Sykes: Do you make friends with these people you're working with? I'm kind of interested.
Dylan: Hahahaha! You should work in Beverly Hills, man! You should have a little clinic! Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Charge people $500 for every ten minutes!
Sykes: Like Prince's Dr Feelalright!
Dylan: Yeah!
Sykes: Do you like Prince's stuff?
Dylan: Prince? Yeah. Who don't like Prince? Well, I guess I could name a few! Hahahaha! No, he's a fantastic guy, ain't he? He can do anything, can't he?
Sykes: Do you have any future movie plans?
Dylan: Yeah, I do have plans to make a movie with Alan Rudolph next fall.
Sykes: With who?
Dylan: Alan Rudolph. He's a movie director. He's a bright guy. It's a complicated story, about a piano player who gets into trouble because of a good buddy of his, and then he winds up doing some book work for a woman whose husband has disappeared, marries her, then falls in love with her daughter. And the other guy finally shows up again and the movie comes to a screeching halt.
Sykes: So how do you decide which kind of script attracts you? Or, why this one? Because I've got to tell you, when I read this script I just thought ... well, as it turns out I can see it's all working, but when I first read the script, I've got to be honest, I didn't think it looked too good.
Dylan: Well, I'd heard that too, you know. I heard that. But ... I dunno. It guess it's better than it looks!
Sykes: Quite a bit of it's changed. You mentioned to me the other day that you're writing a novel.
Dylan: Nah, nah.
Sykes: Was that a joke?
Dylan: I started ... You always like to think you're writing a novel. To write a novel you got to be able to concentrate on it for a long period of time. I know people who've written them, and they just stick with them for a year or more maybe and live pretty cut off in the meantime. I don't know if I could do that because I tour and move around. Maybe someday. Maybe I'll have something to say.
Sykes: You like the names of places, don't you? Like Baton Rogue ...
Dylan: Belfast! Hahahaha! Whitney Houston! Hahahaha! Sounds like the name of a town, don't it? I love the sounds of words, yeah!
Sykes: Sometimes, you often use the phrase "Who cares?". Obviously *you* care, deeply, about certain things - and I suppose I'd like to know what those are.
Dylan: I suppose you would!
Sykes: I suppose you're not going to tell me either, so I suppose I'll forget it ...
Source: The Telegraph #30