Hardly Sick of Love: Some Questions About Dylan
By STEPHEN HAZAN ARNOFF
More may have been written about Bob Dylan
than any other popular musicianlove and hate, praise, condemnation,
speculation and interpretation. On Sunday December 5 at the 14th Street Y in
Manhattan, a stellar group of artists, critics, writers,
and musician will be asked What kind of love is this? about Bob Dylan
and The Band, one of rock's most bewitching collaborations. Three of them offer
a preview here. Greil Marcus's most recent book isBob Dylan By Greil Marcus:
Writings 1968-2010. John Niven and Dana Spiotta are novelists,
whose books Music From Big Pink: A Novella and Eat the Document respectively, offer deep reimaginings of the world of Dylan and The
Band.
To start, having written and thought about Dylan in your own work, when
you think of Dylan, "What kind of love is this?"this Dylan love?
Dana Spiotta:
I think this ever-lasting Dylan love, for me, stems from his
refusalfrom 1965 onto court his audience. He is indifferent to our love,
and I believe that is part of his enduring allure. He doesn't need our love, or
so it seems. What kind of love is it? Unrequited love. His resistance to the
expectations thrust on him has always been a source of inspiration to me. He is
the opposite of a hack. And I also read his independence as deep, even
foundationalI don't think it is just Dylan being contrary. I think he can't
help it.
Greil Marcus:
He's the relative you've heard about but never seen. Everyone tells
stories about him and none of them fit together. You fantasize that you'd have
a lot to say to each other, but you'll never have to put it to the test. Also,
Cher is better dressed than Dylan. Those 70s wing collars were worse than
shoulder pads. But there's a 1965 picture of Dylan with Sonny Bono that's really
the one.
John Niven:
Unknowable and yet intimate, a
voice I've heard all my life. As comfortable to me as my father's. Now, in the
twilight of life, in the winterlude, we see that Dylan's body of work is
Shakespearian in depth and range: Fool to King, Joker to Thief, all human
archetypes are contained there. We love him for this richness. This abundance.
Alsohe is funny.
On Sunday December 5 at the 14th Street Y we will spend a day thinking about Bob
Dylan and the Band specifically. Asked about Dylan love you shared
vocabularyindifference, never seen, unknowableand yet so much of Dylans time
with The Band buzzes with camaraderie, humor, warmth, shared stories. How do
you understand the paradox between the cool love of Dylan alone and the warm
love of Dylan and The Band together?
Dana Spiotta:
Well, even Bob Dylan must
get lonely. Maybe touring without a band was hard after awhile. Maybe being
solo on stage every night started to bore him. Maybe hanging out in his hotel
room with Albert Grossman every night wasn't much fun. (Or being ambushed by
Sonny Bono backstage and having no one to share the pain with). Maybe he saw A Hard Day's Night one night and
thought, yeah, I need to get me a band. The Band. So he found the Hawks and
they were The Band. Later, when he wanted to retreat from touring, it must have
been much easier to be alone with The Band along. It makes senseyou have to
have a few of the right people around you to enjoy your solitude.
Greil Marcus:
Rick Danko on making the
basement tapes: "It was like a clubhouse. It was wonderful." It was
guys getting away from women. Not cleaning up. Getting obscene. Then going
home. At the time, Bob Dylan was living in, or anyway writing about, a domestic
paradise. Maybe that was just a dream, but maybe the getaway was the real dream
life.
John Niven:
The General and his officers
will sometimes share a camaraderie that does not extend outside the command
tent to the ranks of the enlisted men. Sometimes this camaraderie doesn't glow
too warmly even inside the tent; check Chronicles
for Dylan's description of riding in the car with Robbie...
