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'On the Run'
By the late '60s, Dylan had been anointed—by whom and as what, he didn't know. An exclusive excerpt on the infuriating, dizzying wind tunnel of fame
I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses. Even the horrifying news items of the day, the gunning down of the Kennedys, King, Malcolm X … I didn't see them as leaders being shot down, but rather as fathers whose families had been left wounded. Being born and raised in America, the country of freedom and independence, I had always cherished the values and ideals of equality and liberty. I was determined to raise my children with those ideals.
A few years earlier Ronnie Gilbert, one of The Weavers, had introduced me at one of the Newport Folk Festivals saying, „And here he is … take him, you know him, he's yours.“ I had failed to sense the ominous forebodings in the introduction. Elvis had never even been introduced like that. „Take him, he's yours!“ What a crazy thing to say! Screw that. As far as I knew, I didn't belong to anybody then or now. I had a wife and children whom I loved more than anything else in the world. I was trying to provide for them, keep out of trouble, but the big bugs in the press kept promoting me as the mouthpiece, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation. That was funny. All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of. I'd left my hometown only ten years earlier, wasn't vociferating the opinions of anybody. My destiny lay down the road with whatever life invited, had nothing to do with representing any kind of civilization. Being true to yourself, that was the thing. I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper.
People think that fame and riches translate into power, that it brings glory and honor and happiness. Maybe it does, but sometimes it doesn't. I found myself stuck in Woodstock, vulnerable and with a family to protect. If you looked in the press, though, you saw me being portrayed as anything but that. It was surprising how thick the smoke had become. It seems like the world has always needed a scapegoat—someone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire. But America wasn't the Roman Empire and someone else would have to step up and volunteer. I really was never any more than what I was—a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze. Now it had blown up in my face and was hanging over me. I wasn't a preacher performing miracles. It would have driven anybody mad.
Early on, Woodstock had been very hospitable to us. I had actually discovered the place long before moving there. Once, at night, driving down from Syracuse after playing a show, I told my manager about the town. We were going to be driving right by it. He said he was looking for a place to buy a country house. We drove through the town, he spied a house he liked and bought it there and then. I had bought one later on, and it was in this same house that intruders started to break in day and night. Tensions mounted almost immediately and peace was hard to come by. At one time the place had been a quiet refuge, but now, no more. Roadmaps to our homestead must have been posted in all fifty states for gangs of dropouts and druggies. Moochers showed up from as far away as California on pilgrimages. Goons were breaking into our place all hours of the night. At first, it was merely the nomadic homeless making illegal entry—seemed harmless enough, but then rogue radicals looking for the Prince of Protest began to arrive—unaccountable-looking characters, gargoyle-looking gals, scarecrows, stragglers looking to party, raid the pantry. Peter LaFarge, a folksinger friend of mine, had given me a couple of Colt single-shot repeater pistols, and I also had a clip-fed Winchester blasting rifle around, but it was awful to think about what could be done with those things.
The authorities, the chief of police (Woodstock had about three cops) had told me that if anyone was shot accidentally or even shot at as a warning, it would be me that would be going to the lockup. Not only that, but creeps thumping their boots across our roof could even take me to court if any of them fell off. This was so unsettling. I wanted to set fire to these people. These gate-crashers, spooks, trespassers, demagogues were all disrupting my home life and the fact that I was not to piss them off or they could press charges really didn't appeal to me. Each day and night was fraught with difficulties. Everything was wrong, the world was absurd. It was backing me into a corner. Even persons near and dear offered no relief.
Once in the midsummer madness I was riding in a car with Robbie Robertson, the guitar player in what later was to be called The Band. I felt like I might as well have been living in another part of the solar system. He says to me, „Where do you think you're gonna take it?“
I said, „Take what?“
„You know, the whole music scene.“ The whole music scene! The car window was rolled down about an inch. I rolled it down the rest of the way, felt a gust of wind blow into my face and waited for what he said to die away—it was like dealing with a conspiracy. No place was far enough away. I don't know what everybody else was fantasizing about but what I was fantasizing about was a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard. That would have been nice. That was my deepest dream. After a while you learn that privacy is something you can sell, but you can't buy it back. Woodstock had turned into a nightmare, a place of chaos. Now it was time to scramble out of there in search of some new silver lining and that's what we did. We moved to New York City for a while in hopes to demolish my identity, but it wasn't any better there. It was even worse. Demonstrators found our house and paraded up and down in front of it chanting and shouting, demanding for me to come out and lead them somewhere—stop shirking my duties as the conscience of a generation. Once the street was blocked off and our house was picketed by firebrands with city permits, demonstrators roaring and snorting. The neighbors hated us. To them it must have seemed like I was something out of a carnival show—some exhibition in the Palace of Wonders. They would stare at me when they saw me, like they'd stare at a shrunken head or a giant jungle rat. I pretended that I didn't care. Eventually, we tried moving West—tried a few different places, but in short time reporters would come sniffing around in hopes to gain some secret—maybe I'd confess some sin. Our address would be printed in the local press and then the same thing would start up. Even if these reporters had been allowed in the house, what would they find? A whole lotta stuff—stacking toys, push and pull toys, child-sized tables and chairs—big empty cardboard boxes—science kits, puzzles and toy drums … I wasn't going to let anybody in the house.
As for house rules, we didn't have many. If the kids wanted to play basketball in the kitchen, they played basketball in the kitchen. If they got into the pots and pans, we put all the pots and pans out on the floor. My house was chaotic inside as well as out. Joan Baez recorded a protest song about me that was getting big play, challenging me to get with it—come out and take charge, lead the masses—be an advocate, lead the crusade. The song called out to me from the radio like a public service announcement. The press never let up.
Once in a while I would have to rise up and offer myself for an interview so they wouldn't beat down the door. Usually the questions would start out with something like, „Can we talk further upon things that are happening?“ „Sure, like what?“ Reporters would shoot questions at me and I would tell them repeatedly that I was not a spokesman for anything or anybody and that I was only a musician. They'd look into my eyes as if to find some evidence of bourbon and handfuls of amphetamines. I had no idea what they were thinking. Later an article would hit the streets with the headline „Spokesman Denies That He's a Spokesman.“ I felt like a piece of meat that someone had thrown to the dogs. The New York Times printed quacky interpretations of my songs. Esquire magazine put a four-faced monster on their cover, my face along with Malcolm X's, Kennedy's and Castro's. What the hell was that supposed to mean? It was like I was on the edge of the earth. If anybody had any sound guidance or advice to offer, it wasn't forthcoming. My wife, when she married me, had no idea of what she was getting into. Me neither, actually, and now we were in a no win situation.
For sure my lyrics had struck nerves that had never been struck before, but if my songs were just about the words, then what was Duane Eddy, the great rock-and-roll guitarist, doing recording an album full of instrumental melodies of my songs? Musicians have always known that my songs were about more than just words, but most people are not musicians. What I had to do was recondition my mind and stop putting the blame on external forces. I had to educate myself, get rid of some baggage. The solitude of time was what I didn't have. Whatever the counterculture was, I'd seen enough of it. I was sick of the way my lyrics had been extrapolated, their meanings subverted into polemics and that I had been anointed as the Big Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest, the Czar of Dissent, the Duke of Disobedience, Leader of the Freeloaders, Kaiser of Apostasy, Archbishop of Anarchy, the Big Cheese. What the hell are we talking about? Horrible titles any way you want to look at it. All code words for Outlaw.
It was tough moving around—like the Merle Haggard song, „… I'm on the run, the highway is my home.“ I don't know if Haggard ever had to get his family out with him, but I know I did. It's a little different when you have to do that. The landscape burned behind us. The press was in no hurry to retract their judgment and I couldn't just lie there, had to take the bull by the horns myself and remodel the image of me, change the perception of it anyway. There aren't any rules to cover an emergency of this kind. This was a new thing for me and I wasn't used to thinking this way. I'd have to send out deviating signals, crank up the wrecking train—create some different impressions.
At first I was only able to do little things, local things. Tactics, really. Unexpected things like pouring a bottle of whiskey over my head and walking into a department store and act pie-eyed, knowing that everyone would be talking amongst themselves when I left. I was hoping that the news would spread. What mattered to me most was getting breathing room for my family. The whole spectral world could go to hell. My outer image would have to be something a bit more confusing, a bit more humdrum. It's hard to live like this. It takes all your effort. The first thing that has to go is any form of artistic self-expression that's dear to you. Art is unimportant next to life, and you have no choice. I had no hunger for it anymore, anyway. Creativity has much to do with experience, observation and imagination, and if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn't work. It was impossible now for me to observe anything without being observed. Even when I walked to the corner store someone would spot me and sneak away to find a phone. In Woodstock I'd be out in the yard and a car would come rolling up, some guy would jump out of the passenger side, point in my direction and then walk away—and a bunch of sightseers would then come down the hill. Citizens would see me coming down the street and cross it, didn't want to get caught—guilt by association. Sometimes in a restaurant (my name was widely known but my face not so at the time) one of the eaters who recognized me would go up to the cashier, point in my direction and whisper, „That's him over there.“ The cashier would tell someone and the news would go from table to table. It was like lightning struck the place. Necks would stretch. Folks chewing their food would spit it out, look at one another and say, „That him?“ „You mean that guy that was sitting over there at that table with the bunch of kids?“ It was like moving a mountain. My house was being battered, ravens constantly croaking ill omens at our door. 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. I had never intended to be on the road of heavy consequences and I didn't like it. I wasn't the toastmaster of any generation, and that notion needed to be pulled up by its roots. Liberty for myself and my loved ones had to be secured. I had no time to kill and I didn't like what was being thrown at me. This main meal of garbage had to be mixed up with some butter and mushrooms and I'd have to go great lengths to do it. You gotta start somewhere.
I went to Jerusalem, got myself photographed at the Western Wall wearing a skullcap. The image was transmitted worldwide instantly and quickly all the great rags changed me overnight into a Zionist. This helped a little. Coming back I quickly recorded what appeared to be a country-western record and made sure it sounded pretty bridled and housebroken. The music press didn't know what to make of it. I used a different voice, too. People scratched their heads. I started a rumor with my record company that I would be quitting music and going to college, the Rhode Island School of Design—which eventually leaked out to the columnists. „He won't last a month,“ some people said. Journalists began asking in print, „Whatever happened to the old him?“ They could go to hell, too. Stories were printed about me trying to find myself, that I was on some eternal search, that I was suffering some kind of internal torment. It all sounded good to me. I released one album (a double one) where I just threw everything I could think of at the wall and whatever stuck, released it, and then went back and scooped up everything that didn't stick and released that, too. I missed out on Woodstock—just wasn't there. Altamont—sympathy for the devil—missed that, too. Eventually I would even record an entire album based on Chekhov short stories—critics thought it was autobiographical—that was fine. I played a part in a movie, wore cowboy duds and galloped down the road. Not much required there. I guess I was naive.
The novelist Herman Melville's work went largely unnoticed after Moby-Dick. Critics thought that he crossed the literary line and recommended burning Moby-Dick. By the time of his death he was largely forgotten.
I had assumed that when critics dismissed my work, the same thing would happen to me, that the public would forget about me. How mad is that? Eventually, I would have to face the music—go back to performing—the long-awaited ballyhooed reunion tour—gypsy tours—changing ideologies like tires, like shoes, like guitar strings. What's the difference? As long as my own form of certainty stayed intact, I owed nobody nothing. I wasn't going to go deeper into the darkness for anybody. I was already living in the darkness. My family was my light and I was going to protect that light at all cost. That was where my dedication was, first, last and everything in-between. What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing. Not a damn thing. The press? I figured you lie to it. For the public eye, I went into the bucolic and mundane as far as possible. In my real life I got to do the things that I loved the best and that was all that mattered—the Little League games, birthday parties, taking my kids to school, camping trips, boating, rafting, canoeing, fishing… I was living on record royalties. In reality I was imperceptible, my image, that is. Sometime in the past I had written and performed songs that were most original and most influential, and I didn't know if I ever would again and I didn't care.
The actor Tony Curtis once told me that fame is an occupation in itself, that it is a separate thing. And Tony couldn't be more right. The old image slowly faded and in time I found myself no longer under the canopy of some malignant influence. Eventually different anachronisms were thrust upon me—anachronisms of lesser dilemma—though they might seem bigger. Legend, Icon, Enigma (Buddha in European Clothes was my favorite)—stuff like that, but that was all right. These titles were placid and harmless, threadbare, easy to get around with them. Prophet, Messiah, Savior—those are tough ones.
From „Chronicles, Volume One“ by Bob Dylan. To be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. © 2004 by Bob Dylan.
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