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March 22, 2017
On Triplicate:
This is your third album of standards in a row […] Did you feel after the first two, you had unfinished business?
I did when I realized there was more to it than I thought, that both of those records together only were part of the picture, so we went ahead and did these.
On asked why he has decided to release three discs concurrently Dylan answers:
It’s better that they come out at the same time because thematically they are interconnected, one is the sequel to the other and each one resolves the previous one.
Each disc is 32 minutes long, why? Is there something about the 10 song, 32 minute length that appeals to you?
Sure, it’s the number of completion. It’s a lucky number, and it’s symbolic of light. As far as the 32 minutes, that’s about the limit to the number of minutes on a long playing record where the sound is most powerful, 15 minutes to a side. My records were always overloaded on both sides. Too many minutes to be recorded or mastered properly. My songs were too long and didn’t fit the audio format of an LP. The sound was thin and you would have to turn your record player up to nine or ten to hear it well. So these CDs to me represent the LPs that I should have been making.
This is an album made for late nights, solitude and reflection. When you find yourself in that place, what records do you reach for?
Sarah Vaughan’s My Kinda Love. Also the one she did with Clifford Brown.
Is Triplicate nostalgic?
Nostalgic? No I wouldn’t say that. It’s not taking a trip down memory lane or longing and yearning for the good old days or fond memories of what’s no more. A song like “Sentimental Journey” is not a way back when song, it doesn’t emulate the past, it’s attainable and down to earth, it’s in the here and now.
The title Triplicate brings to mind Sinatra’s trilogy. Did that album have any influence on this one?
Yeah, in some ways, the idea of it. I was thinking in triads anyway, like Aeschylus, The Oresteia, the three linked Greek plays. I envisioned something like that.
On the songs:
What do the fans think about these old American standard songs?These songs are meant for the man on the street, the common man, the everyday person. Maybe that is a Bob Dylan fan, maybe not, I don’t know.
Have you learned anything from listening to and performing them?I didn’t realized how much of the essence of life is in them – the human condition, how perfectly the lyrics and melodies are intertwined, how relevant to everyday life they are, how non-materialistic.
These old songs have almost faded away today. Do they mean more to you now?
These songs are some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put on record and I wanted to do them justice. […] These songs are cold and clear-sighted, there is a direct realism in them, faith in ordinary life just like in early rock and roll.
Is it easier to get into these songs now you’re in your seventies than it would have been in your twenties or thirties?
In my 20s and 30s I hadn’t been anywhere. Since then I’ve been all over the world, I’ve seen oracles and wishing wells. […] Now when I look back I can see them for what they were, what they meant. I didn’t understand that then, but I do now. There is no way I could have known it at the time.
Did you feel an urgency to rescue these songs?
Not anymore than I would try to rescue Beethoven, Brahms, or Mozart. These songs are not hiding behind a wall or at the bottom of the sea, they’re right there out in the open, anyone can find them. They’re truthful. They’re liberating.
Is there a real woman in your mind when you sing some of these sentimental songs? More than one?
Real? Of course they’re real. I hope so.
About James Harper’s horn arrangement on “Stormy Weather”
I can’t arrange horn parts. In a situation like that, you don’t want to direct anybody. […] I didn’t want to have to get in James’s way. I wouldn’t have hired him if I did. He orchestrated “Stormy Weather” flawlessly and that’s a hard song to do because so many people have done it.
On spontaneity and the way of singing:
Bob Dylan is known to be spontaneous in the studio as well as on stage. Asked if it required a new way of thinking to work with tight arrangements, Dylan answers:
It did at first but then I got used to it. There’s enough of my personality written into the lyrics so that I could just focus on the melodies within the arrangements. As a vocalist you’re restricted within definite harmonic patterns. But you have more control within those patterns than you would if there were no boundaries whatsoever, it actually takes less thought, hardly any thinking. So I guess you could call that a new way of thinking.
Dylan never wanted to change these songs ‘on the fly’. He says
No, if I did that the song would fall apart, nobody would be able to follow me. Improvising would disrupt the song. You can’t go off track.
Do you pick vocal approaches like an actor playing a role?
No, it’s more like hypnosis, you instill it in your mind and you keep repeating it over and over until you got it. An actor playing a role? Like who? Scatman Crothers? George C. Scott? Steve McQueen? It would probably be more like a method actor, whatever a method actor is. Remembrance of things past, I do that all the time.
Asked if he is bothered that his voice sometimes cracks and if he wants to fix it, Dylan says ‘No.’:
My voice cracking here and there wouldn’t bother me, bum notes or wrong chords would bother me more. On “September of My Years,” I didn’t fix anything. […] We were all in the same room playing together at the same time and there was a lot of leakage into other mics. You only fix things if you overdub the vocals separately and we didn’t do that here.
Did it take you a minute to sing to a rythm like in ‘Imagination’?
Yeah, but only a minute. Tommy Dorsey plays this kind of rhythm all the time. The drumming does fly around the beat because it has to, the drummer is observant to the bass line and there is a walking bass line that is ticking like a clock, like a heart palpitation.
On Frank Sinatra:
Did you know Sinatra had recorded all those songs when you put that record out?
Yeah, I knew he did, but a lot of other people recorded them as well, it just so happened that he had the best versions of them. When I recorded these songs I had to make believe that I never heard of Sinatra.
Bob Dylan was once invited to a dinner party at Sinatra’s house. Questioned if he had met Sinatra before and if Sinatra knew about Bob Dylan’s music, he answered:
Not really. I think he knew “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ In the Wind.” I know he liked “Forever Young,” he told me that. He was funny, we were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, “You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there,” and he pointed to the stars. “These other bums are from down here.” I remember thinking that he might be right.
On his band:
What does a drummer coming into your band need to know?
No one comes into my band. I like the drummer I have now, he is one of the best around, but if he ever left me for some reason, like to join The Rolling Stones or something, I’d have to replace him.
On songwriting and plagiarism:
You’ve been spending a lot of time in all these old songs. Do you think the next song you write will be influenced by them?
I doubt it. These melodies are so structured in musical theory, they’re so tricky with time signatures and shifting melodies, that it’s beyond me. It’s hard to be influenced by any of it if you’re not familiar with that world. I could be influenced by a part of a melody or a phrase, but that would be about it. I don’t think I’d be influenced by anything lyrically.
Putting a whole new set of words to an old tune, it may be called plagiarism. […] But it has always gone on in every form of music, hasn’t it?
I’m sure it has, there’s always some precedent – most everything is a knockoff of something else. […] It’s like you’re sleepwalking, not searching or seeking; things are transmitted to you. […] It’s the art of transforming things.
I can’t imagine you writing a song as vulnerable and sentimental as “Where Is the One.”
I would never write “Where Is the One,” but it’s as if it was written for me, so I didn’t have to write it.
Ever write songs with another singer in mind?
I never write a song with another singer in mind.
Why do fences come up between different styles of American music?
Because of the pressure to conform.
On rock and roll:
When you see footage of yourself performing 40 or 50 years ago, does it seem like a different person? What do you see?
I see Nat King Cole, Nature Boy – a very strange enchanted boy, a terribly sophisticated performer, got a cross section of music in him, already postmodern. That’s a different person than who I am now.
As a kid, did rock and roll feel like a new thing to you or an extension of what was already going on?
Rock and roll was indeed an extension of what was going on. […] Rhythm and blues, country and western, bluegrass and gospel were always there – but it was compartmentalized – it was great but it wasn’t dangerous. Rock and roll was a dangerous weapon, chrome plated, it exploded like the speed of light, it reflected the times. […] Rock and roll was atomic powered, all zoom and doom. It didn’t seem like an extension of anything but it probably was.
Miscellaneous:
Which one of your songs do you think did not get the attention it deserved?
“Brownsville Girl,” or maybe “In the Garden.”
"Brownsville Girl" is one of my personal favourites (authors note).
An awful lot of greats have died in the last year, Muhammad Ali, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell. Any of them hit you especially hard?
Sure, they all did – we were like brothers, we lived on the same street and they all left empty spaces where they used to stand. It’s lonesome without them.
About greatness:
I can’t say who’s great or who isn’t. If somebody does achieve greatness it’s only for a minute and anyone is capable of that. Greatness is beyond your control – I think you get it by chance, but it’s only for a short time.
Bob Dylan never hang out or socalize with opening acts and co-bills on the road, why? Dylan remarks that
…Why would they want to hang out with me anyway? I hang out with my band on the road.
You’ve had all sorts of celebrated people in your audience – presidents, kings, a pope, movie stars, the Beatles, Muhammad Ali. Anyone make you nervous?
All of them.
I heard you and George Harrison were once supposed to do a recording session with Elvis, but he never showed up. What’s the real story?
He did show up, it was us that didn’t.
What do you think of Joan Baez?
She was something else, almost too much to take. Her voice was like that of a siren from off some Greek island. Just the sound of it could put you into a spell. She was an enchantress. You’d have to get yourself strapped to the mast like Odysseus and plug up your ears so you wouldn’t hear her. She’d make you forget who you were.
In 1966 you had the wildest hair anybody had ever seen. Could you slick it down and go out and no one would recognize you?
Yeah, but I wouldn’t have wanted to do that. I was trying to look like Little Richard, my version of Little Richard. I wanted wild hair, I wanted to be recognized.
This is a summary. Read the full interview here. |
