The 10 Sins of Bob Dylan
I just finished reading the best Dylan bio ever (surpassing previous title holder Clinton Heylin's Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades), Brit journalist Howard Sounes' Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (2001). Based on painstaking new research, including the real dope on Dylan's myth-stoked 1967 motorcycle accident, it really details the human side of Bobby Zimmermen, especially his womanizing - there's even a suggestion that his embrace of Christianity in the 80s was partly because of his affairs with his born again Soul Sista backup singers Clydie King, Carole Childs, and Carolyn Dennis (who he secretly married, divorced, and had a love child with).Though I'm a true Dylan fan, I learned some rather unsavory things about my hero. Nobody's perfect, I know that. It's like Sir Mick once sang, "Every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints." I don't put anybody on a pedestal. But the following are such egregious and heinous wrongs that I must set the record right by deeming them...
The Top 10 Sins of Bob Dylan:
1. "Ballad In Plain D"Dylan's diatribe against the Rotolo sisters, ex-girlfriend Suze and her "parasite" sister Carla, was the one song Dylan regretted writing. Inspired by his anger following an ugly breakup with Suze at Carla's apartment, it hung its dirty laundry out to dry on 1964's Another Side of Bob Dylan. In the liner notes to 1985's Biograph box set, Dylan admitted that "It was a mistake to record it and I regret it." The closest he came to an apology, apparently.
2. Wanton Womanizing
Ah, Dylan's labrynthine love life...it obviously inspired him, as many women played the part of his muse, but it also taxed him - quite literally. His two divorces -from "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" Sara Lowndes in '77 and backup singer Carolyn Dennis in '92 - cost him many the pretty penny an no doubt had something to do with his relentless touring schedule (touring providing both an escape from the troubles at home and mucho moolah with which to pay alimony and child support - not to mention opportunities for more "road women" affairs and future palimony suits!) It was Dylan's infidelity that cost him first Echo Star Helstrom ("Girl From the North Country"), cheerleader-cute Bonnie Beecher (another candidate for the real "Girl From the North Country"), Suze Rotolo (who was so upset by his flagrant affair with Joan Baez that she attempted suicide and, later, chose to have an abortion when pregnant with Bob's child), Sad-Eyed Sara Lownds, and Joan Baez (who only found out that Dylan had dumped her when Sara answered the door to his room in 1965).
3. Trading Elvis for a Sofa
Andy Warhol gave Dylan an original silk screen of his famous cowboy Elvis painting, but Dylan hated it, first hanging it upside down in his home, then putting it in a cupboard before finally trading it to manager Albert Grossman - FOR A SOFA! Grossman knew a sweet swindle when he saw it (like the contracts he signed with Dylan and The Band), and eventually sold the Warhol at auction for $750,000! Hope that sofa offers state-of-the-art comfort, Bob!4. Horace Freeland Judson
There are many cruel scenes in Dont Look Back, D. A. Pennebaker's documentary about Dylan's 1965 European tour - the patronization of fellow troubadour Donovan, the cold shoulder given Joan Baez, the drunken party at London's Savoy Hotel suite party - but none more mean-spirited than the assault on Time reporter Horace Freeland Judson, who Dylan rips apart as if he were the clueless Mr. Jones himself from "Ballad of a Thin Man." It's painful to watch. Dylan the rock star is a total dick to a guy just doing his job. What would Woody think?(Reporter Rant Runner-up: The Silver Medal for Media Surliness surely goes to Dylan's Swedish Radio Interview from the same tour).
5. Joan BaezDylan asked, "How many roads must a man go down, before he can call himself a man?" Joan should have asked, "How many doors must be shut in your face before you get a clue that hie doesn't care for you?" Poor Joan. She helped Dylan get early folk creds when she brought him on her tours and shared her bed and home with him when he stayed with her in Monterey. And in return? He asked her to join him on his 1965 Dont Look Back tour, then gave her the total cold shoulder, insulted her by never asking her to join in on stage, and made fun of her with his sycophantic cronies (Bobby Neurith chief among them). It eventually was enough to send her back home crying. Even then Joan didn't get it. Hearing that Bob had taken ill in Italy, she went to his hotel room only to have the door answered by Sara - the girlfriend he neglected to tell Joan (or anybody for that matter) about. Oopsie! It would be 10 years before the two saw each other again, this time for the Rolling Thunder Revue and Dylan's cinematic messterpiece, Renaldo and Clara, in which Joan had to act alongside Mrs. Dylan, Sara Lowndes. Glutton for punishment, Joan?
6. Eating the DocumentsDylan cut up the 1966 European tour footage filmed by D.A. Pennebaker, without allowing Penny to make a duplicate print to preserve the valuable historical (and musical concert) footage for posterity. Dylan the Auteur's disjointed mess of a "home movie," Eat the Document, was a bust. Rejected by NBC, which had originally planned to air it as a TV documentary, it took Martin Scorcese to finally salvage and properly edit the footage for his excellent 2005 documentary No Direction Home. Thanks Marty! On a similar note, Renaldo and Clara remains the best record of Dylan's 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, but Dylan had to turn in an artsy-fartsy, imcomprehensible 4-hour "messterpiece" that is, by most accounts, completely unwatchable. Even Dylan fans can't sit through it. Leave the directing to the pros, Bob! They don't tell you how to play music, do they?
7. Love and Theft
Dylan was once asked jokingly at a press conference, "Do you think you'll ever be hung as a horse thief?" It was a funny line, until you consider that in real life, Dylan the record-lover was twice caught stealing people's record collections. When Dylan was in college and living in Minneapolis' Bohemian Dinkytown, he stole his friend Jon Pankake's valuable Harry Smith-curated Anthology of American Folk Music collection. And when he was staying in Denver in 1960, he stole singer Walt Conley's albums and was busted by the police. Charges were dropped by a forgiving Conley, and Dylan hitch-hiked back East. Dave Van Ronk described the early Dylan as a snorer, a Yiddish word for "professional mooch," and this early behavior more than justifies that characterization.8. Dave Van Ronk
Dylan lifted Dave Van Ronk's arrangement - the one he taught the kid himself! - of "House of the Risin' Sun" for inclusion on his first album and recorded it before Van Ronk's version came out. Van Ronk asked his friend not to record it before his own version came out, but Dylan did and Van Ronk was miffed. Van Ronk eventually forgave him when Eric Burdon and The Animals copped Dylan's version for their hit single version.
9. Liam Clancy's Girlfriend
Dylan's friendship with the Clancy Brothers dated back to his fledgling folk coffeehouse days in Greenwich Village. In 1992, after the Clancy Brothers performed as part of a Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration in New York, Liam Clancy asked Bob if he ever screwed Liam's girlfriend Cathy while the Brothers were on the road. Dylan hemmed and hawed but finally admitted he did. "Man, she loved you. But she was so lonesome...and...I did comfort her." Some friend. Too old (or drunk) to fight about it, Liam just handed Dylan a guitar and made him sing an Irish folk song for pennance.
10. Faridi McFree
Dylan boinked ex-wife Sara's Nanny, Faridi McFree, the very day the news broke that his divorce was settled. Sara was vacationing with the kids in Hawaii at the time and McFree was home house-sitting for her. Dylan later dropped McFree to insure that Sara, who felt betrayed by her ingrate Nanny, would give him visitation rights with his children. This one hit just a little too close to home.
Related Links:
Bob Dylan's Girlfriends
posted by Tom Warner, Almost Hip Guy @ 9:40 PM
58 Comments:
great post..thanks for taking the time..which was a lot quicker than it will take Bob to forgive himself for these blunders!
I, too, enjoyed Sounes' book. Somebody needed to cut through the Dylan mists and get some facts out there. If you've never read it, check out Ratso Sloman's "On The Road with Bob Dylan," his Gonzo-like approach to covering Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Tour. In his own way, he gets through Dylan's defenses and disguises, too.
only sins i think unforgiveable are #3 & 6.
Oh...for heavens sake....leave the man alone. Besides.... how long ago did all this happen??? Let he who is without sin cast... well you know the rest..............
Who are you people to be ranking another person's sins? Wow!!! Do you really take your insights seriously?
The hubris is astonishing. Bob's Top 10 Sins? Does somebody actually get paid for this? Jesus. Go get your own life.
No no no - the only unforgivable sin is #1. It's an affront to both the personal and the artistic in us. The womanising I guess we accept as part of the fame game. Stay clear of rock stars if you don't want to get cheated on.
We all make mistakes.. why focus on them? So what if he is/was a dick? We all have the right to be from time to time
I'm pretty sure most of this isn't true.
Who cares, anyways?
At the top, call him "Zimmerman" though he changed his name in 1960 through common-law usage and then legally. Remind everyone he's really JEWISH ha ha.
Then repeat every unconfirmed negative tale ever told as if it must be true, including some I know are NOT true.
But he's a superhuman STAR and cannot be hurt like ordinary mortals.
Cheap-shot people like you get spit in their soup and ass-wiped burgers. Enjoy your meal!
Anon
What, no Self Portrait? How about hooking up with Dreadful Greed, er, Grateful whatevers...? How about failing to give credit to the Minneapolis sidemen who juiced up Blood On The Tracks and rescued it from the lifelessness of Deliverance? The sins are myriad... O Bob, Bob, when shalt thou atone?
Everyone knows you should "trust the song, not the singer".
Does any of this take away from the work....... NO!
well said, screw the guy who wrote this..
Well decrepit Tom: what a chaste and faithful prude you are! Nobody as successful and long-surviving as Dylan is without sin, but these are pretty petty.
I posted the following on Expecting Rain's discussion forum. I share a lot of your concerns about Mr. Dylan:
I share with Expecting Rain its enthusiasm for and estimation of Bob Dylan's contribution to American music. He is a very gifted artist who has the ability to absorb the roots of American music and marry its forms to post-modern lyrics. He can write any kind of song and sing it in any kind of way.
However, I'm afraid that I find Bob Dylan to be a very unlikable person. I recently finished reading Clinton Heylin's biography, "Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades, The Biography- Take Two" and I have just finished watching Scorcese's film biography, "No Direction Home" on PBS. Notwithstanding his musical genius, Bob Dylan has a long history of treating people very badly.
Let's begin with his parents, Abraham and Beattie Zimmerman and all his uncles and aunts and cousins who also lived in Hibbing, Minnesota, while Bob was growing up in the 40s and 50s. He makes no mention of his family of origin or his Jewish heritage in either "Chronicles" or in "No Direction Home". In fact, Bob makes the case that he came out of the nothingness and emptiness of the mid-West which adds to the persona that he continues to create, but which is simply not true and decidedly odd. Is there any other artist who has so annihilated any mention of his family roots like Bob Dylan?
According to Heylin, Bob was furious with his father during his high school years. Abe did not like Bob chumming around with the non-Jews in Hibbing, including his band-mates in his first rock bands or his "shiksa" girlfriends. Abe eventually found his behaviour too hyper and put him in a mental hospital in Pennsylvania for a few months. Later, when Bob decided to go to New York, he went to Abe and borrowed money for the trip. But does Bob ever mention any of this? No! After all these years, he still maintains that he set out for New York like an orphan with "no direction home", with only $10.00 in his pocket. Obviously, it suits the persona of "Bob Dylan", this mask that he created so many years ago.
Blowing off his family of original sets the pattern for how Bob has dealt with people all his life. He's an opportunist. He uses people to get where he wants to go and then discarded them like so much trash when they no longer serve his purposes.
He certainly did this with Joan Baez. She championed Bob to her fans, sang and recorded his songs, brought him with her when she toured and sang duets with him on stage. In those early days, Dylan's rising star shone so brightly because of the love of Joan Baez. However, once he moved from writing folk and "protest" songs to electric rock, blues and country songs and had singles shooting up the pop charts, he was in a different league and didn't need her anymore, so he blew her off in a very cruel way as is depicted in the film "Don't Look Back".
Bob did pretty much the same thing with the Greenwich Village folkies, New Leftists and folk historians from whom he stole a lot of albums, learned a lot of songs and mannerisms, and on whose couches he crashed. He turned his back on the very people who had supported him. He denounced them and what they stood for: social justice, civil rights etc.
Bob has always justified this behaviour by saying that he "didn't want to work on Maggie's farm no more…they say sing while you save and I just get bored." But my take is that Bob has a problem with intimacy and sociability. He is uncomfortable around people, especially those who care for him and are warm to him. He warms people up when he wants something from them, and then he pushes them away by becoming cruel and vicious. He learned a lot of this behaviour from Albert Grossman, his manager in the 60s and from Bob Newirth, the scene stealer and all around asshole.
I have no problem with Bob moving musically from acoustic guitar to electric guitar and having big hits on the pop charts. He is obviously a musical genius. My problem is with the way he did it. He goes from appearing with Pete Seeger at a civil rights concert in the south to appearing at Newport Folk Festival wearing leather and rubbing everyone's nose in the change that he is making. Scorcese "No Direction Home" wants to paint Dylan as a victim of his fans wrath for changing as an artist and a victim of the press who asked him inane questions, but this is bullshit. Dylan invited this strong sense of betrayal from his fans because he invited people to view him in one way, a "protest singer" and then he suddenly changed and became a "rock star". And as for the press, he told himself from the beginning that it was OK to lie to them which he did, and then goaded them and, finally, they had it in for him. In Bob's Ballad of a Thin Man" with it's put-down chorus to the press, "you know something's happening, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones" he paints himself as a victim who is being persecuted by the press, but he's the one who treated the press very badly from the beginning. Whatever did he expect?
And, then of course there's Bob's use of various drugs. While drugs may have assisted his creativity, they magnified his misogyny. Drugs also helped him deal with fame, a fame that he went after aggressively and found out that he couldn't handle at all. He was overwhelmed by how much he meant to people. It terrified him to be called "the spokesman of a generation", and, once again, he comes across as a victim being persecuted by his fans. Yet, Bob invited his fans to think of him in this way.
If one listens to the lyrics of "Blowing in the Wind', "The Times They Are A-Changin', "Hard Rain", and a "Only A Pawn in Their Game", he writes with confidence in the guise of a powerful authority - he points fingers and he makes moral judgments. As well, his songs distill the essence of what a lot of people were thinking and feeling at the time about civil rights, the Cuban Missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination etc. That is Bob's gift as a songwriter
Also, Bob knew his audience very well and he wrote songs to them and sang to them in a way that he knew would please them. He would not have become famous otherwise. This is very clear at Newport Folk Festival in 1963 when he closes the concert by singing "Blowing in the Wind" with Baez, Peter Paul and Mary and other folkies, gospel and blues singers. Bob invited everyone to think of him as "a spokesman for his generation". It was not at all a weird or a bad thing to look at him in this way. He went after it, he attracted a following and so became a successful artist.
But as he does with everyone, Bob blew his fans off, too. He says things like "I don't owe anybody anything!" when, of course, he has always owed a lot of things to a lot of people – the musicians who have put up with his shit over the years and that he picks up and drops, the record producers that put up with his shit in the recording studio, the rock critics who continue to champion him even when he behaves badly and his fans who maintain Bob Dylan websites and fork over money to see him perform and buy his records and keep Bob in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed. He didn't get where he is today all by his lonesome!
But what is most egregious to me is that Bob has successfully perpetuated his Romantic persona of "Bob Dylan" who is a very rebellious, independent, cool guy who has been victimized by the press and his fans. This facade is nonsense. Yes, he is extremely gifted artist, and yet, he has nothing.
Bob has been running away from people all his life, and has also been running away from himself: changing his name, moving from one type of music to another, moving from one woman to another, changing his looks, changing his voice. Fans and critics think this is great – it's "very American", he's "reinventing himself," but I don't think that's the reality of it. I think he just doesn't knows who he really is. He has said that he gets up every morning and has no idea who he is. Some might think that this is so liberating and so cool, but I find it very sad. It's sad to have touched so many people's lives like Bob has over the years and still feel so all alone and in a muddle.
Can't believe people are upset that Bob is criticized!! Just a way to keep the Bob conversation going and going and going...
So who among us was acting rationally in those uppers and downers and electric-cool-aid years?
And Bob's mortal? Surprise. Dylan - apart from being the greatest song and dance poet of all time is the ultimate hustler, from the first we know of him, til now when we all argue/agree/idolise/categorize/simplify him and quote him 'neath heated brow. And he sits at home enjoying his curds and whey.
By the way, Marc, he doesn't need to forgive himself - he's saved and forgiven already.
And 'bobfather' Wake up pal - people have been peeling the Dylan onion from the start and none of it for the sake of 'truth' - all for filthy lure and a chance to ride along on the wagon for a while.
Thanks, 'Alias' for keeping us all listening past the coughin' sound to the beautiful knockin' on heaven's door.
I would like to know more about these biographies. Many biographies are filled with untrue crap about the artists or things were overemphasized. Dylan, of course, wasn't perfect. But he was not some horrible insensitive person. In 1965 he was feeling horrible about himself. He's said it many times. He was bored on stage he wanted to do something new. He actually had apoligized and said he treated people badly because of it. If you see press confrences from after Newport '65 Dylan is joking and in a good mood. I've read of many people who claim Dylan is a very nice person, and he seems that way to me. I'm not going to listen to any of these "biographies" that fail to cite their claims.
While, Id agree with the writer about Bob having some problems with intimacy and backing away from people being nice to him, I dont think his aloofness was done purposely or hurtfully....Alot of young men have this problem...I think he was scared....I think Bob genuinely likeed people and doesnt intend to "use" anyone..He did find it hard to communicate with people and was inarticulate and uncomfortable discussing his feelings, which is so different from how he comes across in his songs!..Bob comes across as a very highly sensitive person who needs alot of down time away from people...He was really scared and nervous by all the fans who mobbed him (Baez confirms this on several occasions) and confided to Suze he was scared of being shot while performing in Mississippi....Everyone during the 60s was asking for a piece of him and it was hard to know who to trust...He must have been terribly confused.....Plus all this was happening before he was 25 yrs old...Name one person who has all their emotional baggage dealt with by age 25
By the way, it is schnorrer/ and not snorer. This really affects the pronunciation, so, not a small difference.
hahahahaha
Bob Dylan is a person.
No matter how famous or gifted someome is, does that make it ok to over and over again use the women in his life like trash you can throw out when ever you feel like it in any way, and treat them in many instances in really cruel ways that with some of them boderline verbal abuse? many of you are the personification of what Dylan himself hates about "fans". You are so blinded by wanted to see one thing that the ACTUAL truth you turn from because of who is concerned here. You reach desperatly for lame excuses and say so what or deny it as "false". You should look up how he dealt with the closest people to him, and there are many souces to do so that, yes, are reliable. Is his behavior odd in the music industry? nope. But does that make it right? NOPE. I just have a problem with the way he uses people, the repeated infidelity, the breaking up of the families he's create then toss.How would you feel if your dad screwed other women on tour, hit your mom in the face (sara reported that she decided to finally leave when he hit her in the jaw and yelled at her, she said this,a quote, not a years later far removed story in a book told by someone who thought they heard it), then screwed your nanny? NICE. Dont make excuses for him. Yes it may have happened years ago. But does that make it ok? should we only talk about the good things about him, or should we talk about it all and not censor what people form in thier minds? Me, I want to know the whole story, not just the pretty one. Is there forgivness? yes. has he changed? apparently not that much, considering each relationship (recent included) end badly and there is cheating all over the place. Point is, if your gonna be a "fan" of someone, be a fan of who the really are, not who you wish them to be, you have take the bad with the good and you cant take the bad if you deny its there or dont wont to know.Yes Bobs a person. ahhhh, is that really news???? Of course hes not perfect. So dont act like hes above it all, that he couldnt or wouldnt do these things. Investigate, learn, but dont turn a blind eye becuase you "like" him and say "oh who cares" when someone brings up some very wrong and very hurtfull actions.Remember, his former wives and girlfriends are people to. To say if you dont want these things to happen to you then stay away from a rock star is a very cold and close minded thing to say. I for one would assume when you marry someone and have a family that you wont get treated like sh*t and used, and deal with a violent outburst. Or how about the things he did to Joan? Look that one up. All Im saying is he is human, he did make some very big mistakes, and if you really want to know the "BOB DYLAN" bio and story, dont be blind to that fact and paint a rosey picture of a perfect person, because guess what - there is no such thing, myself, and all of us, included. everyone seems to want to pick apart every aspect and detail of his life. I find it odd that certian unpleasantries are overlooked again and again. Lets start getting real.
I really have just become aware of Bob Dylan. I mean I was a kid of that era and i lived in the country and was not worldly wise and just would not have been able to just leave home and do all that he has done. I was painfully shy and just unaware.
So all of us on this planet are really much worse people than even we ourselves think we are so who are you or anyone else to judge another.
I can see now that this man was indeed a genius. Listen to the mere words of what he said about war and injustice it all still applies to this very day. The changin' times really didn't happen.No one cares about others or the bad things that happen in this world UNLESS it is happening to them. Then when you look for help the people in charge cannot help you for they do not have a clue.
Our country allows drugs ..because it is big $$ for some, then the rehabs, boot camps, hospitals etc. it is a money maker. Drugs kill and we let them in our country! They kill our children and unless it is your child how much do you really think about it? Worry about terrorists?? We cannot control the evil of others but we could take care of our own citizens ..our children, the future but nobody really cares..
Why is it our business that Bob Dylan is a philanderer or whatever you want to call him. Divorce is out of control in our country so is it Bob Dylans' fault?
What I hear in his songs is a sad and lonely man.
In the Scorcese thing which brought Dylan to me is a kid who wrote some crucial songs or poems to America that are timeless and everyone thought he "held" the answers to the nations problems. I say really give a damn about others and live by the golden rule at all times not just when it suits you. I saw a kid with personality , I thought sweet and innocent.
maybe he wasn't so happy in Hibbing..noone knows about anyones life unless they were there..
There is more to this man than we will ever know. I am sure he was not just a mother fucker to the women in his life. We have all done or said things we wish we could erase but we are only human and Bob Dylan is human, too.
I think I will be ecstatic when I go to his upcoming concert ..it is all I have been thinking about, lately. I have never seen him so it will be a good thing for me.
As one gets older and when you know if not through an accident or whatever the end is near we all wish many things in our lives had been different. It is not our place to judge others and this man is a performer and entertains and speaks and gives us food for thought.
Give or show this man the respect and love he deserves as one of the greatest talents America has ever known. I really don't want to know the dirt about Bob Dylan. On a smaller scale I have failed in life and I pray for forgiveness and try to do my best and maybe the seemingly ever searching Dylan knows the direction "HOME" is heaven and our Lord who loves us, forgives us, and died for our sins. All of the sins of all of us.
He speaks of those not busy being born are busy dying and each day that passes brings our death into reality.
Should we take Bob Dylan out back tie him to a tree and beat the crap out of him for loves that have gone awry???
How stupid are you.
Thank goodness for Scorcese or else you would not have been able to list the 10 sins of Bob Dylan.
He is out there working like a dog and I think it is wonderful and I just think we do not have the right to gossip about others. Write an autobiography of yourself..have you ever broken someones heart? or had your heart broken??
I think the young Bob Dylan was adoreable and I think the older Bob Dylan is still searching for love maybe the love of a woman or maybe to know that God loves him and that there is heaven. Boy I sure am hoping so..I could go for a place with no more sorrow and no more tears. I may not know Bob Dylan on Earth but I am looking forward to seeing him when we are in heaven.
To love somebody is so much nicer than trying to villify them.
Thanx
P.S
Look at Bob Dylan. now that I am older I think he was cute, rather skinny and not my type but just from Scorcese he suddenly became like a genius and adoreable ..he really wasn't I don't think. It was his thoughts, his words that have gotten to me.
LIKE i SAID i THINK HE IS SAD..hOW COULD HE FIND THE WORDS OF SORROW AND PAIN AT THE LOSS OF LOVE IF HE DID NOT FEEL THEM..CLOSE YOUR EYES, CLOSE THE DOOR YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ANYMORE
there is just too much for you to not believe this man has been hurt, too ..maybe he caused the pain but he knows!
Real Sins:
1. Not allowing Columbia to release the 1966 concet recordings in 1966.
2. Not forcing Columbia to release In Concert in 1963.
3. Not recording Liverpool Gal.
4. Not posting anymore concert recordings on his web site.
5. Not forcing Sony to release the rest of his albums on SACD.
6. Not releasing Eat the Document (produced for ABC not NBC).
7. Not releasing any of the 200 or so songs he recorded in his home studeo.
Funny post but there are some inaccuracies and mischaracterizations in there.
Dylan's real sin is not recording and releasing countless great songs and takes that his many collaborators have cited. C'mon Bob!
Not a bad post AD. Pretty funny but kind of slanted.
p.s. I like the you jackasses who type a novella in a blog 'comment' and expect people to read it.
I would hate to have my sins printed on paper or internet.
think about that.
He's human.
well all i can say that is if any guy ever fuked the nanny and THEN hit me i would slap him back so hard he would lose brain cells!! ANYway....ok obviously those things he did were awful, but that is no ones business except between himself the people he did it to!! (but i can only imagine Joan Baez thinking all "lalalaal im gonna go see dylan" and then bam, another chick opens the door...i think i would cry. Alot.
Who are you to count sins? The only worse sin is that I wasted my time reading them.
The closest I ever want to get to Dylan is his music, which is plenty personal enough. I subscribe to Toulouse-Lautrec's dictum that one should never meet an artist one admires -- the reality is always a disappointment. Dylan has treated some people very badly, but so have we all. And before you get too outraged on behalf of Joan Baez, bear in mind that she stepped on a few faces in her career path as well.
The Sounes book is good, but I still put Heylin way ahead of the pack. Heylin is far more knowledgeable about the music, and writes about it much more eloquently. But Sounes had the inspired idea of tracking down William Zanzinger. Hilarious.
actually, it was bob's "infidelity" that allowed him to be known and loved by all those women.
Very interesting discussion. I can't agree with enumerating anyone's sins except for those that have control over us and make such bad decisions that affect us so terribly.
I would like to know more about Bob because he has written songs I love and the words to those songs and the musicianship are amazing. So I keep reading about him so i can know more and get a better feel of him. Hard to explain.
At any rate, if you listen to Bob's interview with Cynthia Gooding (he's 20 years old), he is absolutely charming. He cannot have lost it all. Sometimes at concerts (not recent ones) you can hear him joking, and he is funny.
I can't begin to analyze his behavior or put a label on it. I would like to know more, but i doubt that i will. Maybe Bob is just what he says he is, a song and dance man. He obviously does not want to tell anyone anything and has succeeded because we are all really guessing. But we keep on and i think its natural curiosity about people's behavior.
My friend says we're all just a pawn in his game. My brother says, maybe there's nothing there. And I say it is all very strange (but not sinful).
i quote from someone's review of one of his recent concerts: "I don't care analyzing the show song by song or keeping an account of who played what instrument .... What i do wanna say, or ask is just: Man! what is it with this guy? Why does he always have the Oscar on his amp? Why does he never say hello, thanks, or goodbye? Why does he never look up to the crowd? Why does he play so many shows a year, so many years?.... Does he really care at all what goes on (at) the concerts? Do the band members know him that well, do they know the answers to those questions?... Sometimes he looks like he's having fun ... sometimes he gets a very grave face and looks extremely serious ... and most of the time he just has those faces on, that are incomprehensible." And the reviewer says, "but i love him. really do. He's the man."
E-Anonymous
the above poster (with a very long comment) who says that Bob does not mention his family or his origins in either Chronicles or in No Direction Home is wrong. He talks a LOT about his family in Chronicles--his parents, brother, grandparents, wives, children, even a little on Odessa, where his father's family came from. Did this person actually read the book? He mentions his family in No Direction Home also, and as that interview is reportedly about ten hours long, we don't really know how much he may have said about his family-- we only saw what Scorces and his editor chose for use in the film.
P.S. and by the way--she wasn't really a nanny, she was hired by Sara to teach the kids art, and she didn't take up with Dylan until after Sara and he were separated---still I think Dylan's worse sin by far is chopping up all that great Pennebaker footage from the '66 tour, and mixing all that great Rolling Thunder concert footage into "Renaldo and Clara". I still live in hopes of a seeing a real documentary of that tour.
WHAT ABOUT THE SIN OF JACKING UP CONCERT PRICES SO MUCH THIS SUMMER THAT STUDENTS LIKE ME CANT AFFORD EM??? OR....SELLING OUT TO IPOD!!!
If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone...
Hey hey now, we all did worse stuff, or nearly so. No matter how hard we could try two things are absolutly true. 1.If we wanted to be good we couldn't 2.If we wanted not to be bad we can't. Oh yea there is a third, 3. No matter how good or bad, whatever our sinfulness or rightiousness we could not write songs like he has and does nor could we have weaved our way through the madness of those times and that world he lived in and still be breathing at his age. He is among the greats, as in Keats, as in The Greats, pick a poet, his work stands, his insights and craft will be studied far into the future, well into this century and for those serious pursuers, beyond. Now it is time for me to go on back being the judge of my own sins. Oh yea, this is very important, even though we all know what a fluff of stuff we are talking about here, There is no sin that has not been forgiven, all of his and all of ours, The Old Old Story, yea? Fare thee well. Sparks
I just love Joan Baez. She was so in love with Dylan that she became temporarily blind. After reading so much about Bob Dylan, the more I love Joan Baez.
the beatles were all womanizers, so what if he didn't want an elvis picture (I love sofas man...) and the interview with horace judson was fine... he wasn't attacking judson personally, he was just chafing against the media, which for a long time was fucking up...how would you feel if they kept printing bullshit about you?
If you are accusing me of Sin #10,then I'd like everyone to know who the real FARIDI MCFREE is!
Please check out my website.
www.heartoons.com
More HEARTOON NEWS LATER...
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Sins schmins.
This is what we do in llife, we love and we hurt and we cry, and we screw up, and we hide, and we act heroically and we act badly and we are sometimes ashamed, and sometimes proud, and we are afraid, and we are courageous, and there are many things we hope no one will ever know about us, and there are many things we wish someone anyone would recognize in us, we can be so brutal to those close to us, and we can also cradle perfect strangers to our hearts with compassionate love. We are all capable of great evil and malignancy, we are all capable of selfless generosity and magnificent goodness beyond measure. Each and every one of us are all of this. It is what being human is.
As far as the 10. I've read some other accounts of these stories. The Warhol thing for instance. My understannding was that Warhol gave Bob the thing, and then when Edie Sedgewick died Dylan blamed Warhol and he was infuriated. I also heard he shot the damn thing.
And the person posting about what he said on expecting rain... you seem over the top passionate about someone you don't know, or really know anything about.
dylan has said many times that he holds things close that he holds dear. We live in this age of celebrity where everyones fricking private lives are splattered all over America, everywhere you look, without panties!
I have great respect for someone who has tried very hard to keep his private life private.
All you, or anyone knows about Bob Dylan is what he has allowed out, or what has slipped through the cracks.
What you know is the Bob Dylan show... "Zimmy" or whoever he calls himself... blind boy grunt, is on the inside. Dylan is a work of art, the longest piece of performance art ever created. Don't you get that?
BTW
If he was so horrible a person it seems to me there would be a great many more stories about him. He must inspire loyalty and love, and one does that by being loyal and loving, not by being perfect.
All that being said certainly some of the stories I've heard over the years show a bit of a mean streak, and also a passive aggressive streak. But as someone said earlier, by the time this kid was 25 he had created major changes in the world through his music... or to put it differently major changes in the world happened through the interweaving of his music and gifted wordsmithing with the worlds needs.
I have to disagree with whoever it was who said he wanted to have people see the protester or this and that.
Go listen to interviews, he was 20 years old and saying his songs weren't topical, weren't political, he would stumble over trying to explain that they were just songs.
And seriously, if you knew everything there was to know about the man would you still value the art? When I learned of Picasso's treatment of women I found I couldn't stand looking at his art for quite some time.
When I heard about the philandering of Paul Tillich, an important and very interesting theologian I found myself disappointed, but not the same visceral reaction I had about Picasso... Bill Clinton didn't even phase me.
We want our heros and leaders to be Gods, to not be of this earth, mortal creatures with feet of clay.
And after all of what I have said, after all of that... yes, it is true, there is a god damned fascination with the little son of a bitch.
LOL
If you "get him" he just gets under the skin and hits you deep, in a mysterious not easily explained way/place... and you can't get rid of him even if you wanted to. It really pisses me off too.
that is part of his natural genius, part of the Bob Dylan art piece.
BTW... if I were to be audacious enough to name something a sin of Dylan's it would be the Yellow Humvee.
Can't wait to hear the reaction to the new Caddilac commercial he is doing. Wooo Hooo. There should be some whacky commentary going on.
Now, what the hell am I doing up at almost 3 am writing on a blog about something this dopey. I'm a 58 year old woman for crying out loud. just ridiculous.
Damn that man.
LOL
Faridi McFree...?
how odd, I was just reading about you in the LB, NJ newspaper a 2006 article I think.... about your healing with art center... something I am interested in. strange.
very odd.
I have never understood why people are so shocked and surprised that Bob Dylan has been such a complete lunatic in his personal life. Bob Dylan is, by all accounts, a chronic, notorious drug abuser. What kind of behavior can you reasonably expect from such a person?
Dylan's parade of bimbos were probably all on drugs too, anyone would have to be stoned out of their mind to go home with someone who looks as grungy as him.
Oh that's a good one, I agree! I might suggest to my friend the Drug Enforcement Agent that he reads some Dylan biographies, makes note of all the names of Dylan's women, runs their addresses through the Justice Department database and raids their homes to find illegal substances. This could get him promoted. I bet Dylan's women can give a whole new meaning to the song "High Ho High Ho"!!!!
You have to admit that Bob Dylan was kind of an asshole. That was the nature of his work. He wrote songs that were so general that anyone could put their own meaning to them. He didn't care that he was exploiting his fans. There is nothing "superhuman" about Bob Dylan. Yes, he can write. Yes, he can sing but the only reason he got so big was because he worked his entire life to become a STAR. Anyone who spends there entire lives building THEIR credibily, THEIR image and THEIR reputation has one major character flaw: selfishness. These ten sins reveal that. He stepped on a lot of people on the way up and even then, once he got up there he screamed: there is nothing to say!
Fuck that. I see little good in him.
If he wouldn't be so selfish I bet his songs would cease to be lonely. Of course you're going to be lonely when you're a dick to everyone! Seriously, he treated most of the press like shit and they're the ones who made him! He treated Joan like shit & he used her too! He would be nowhere without his parents but he acted like they didn't exist!
If all the people Bob used were pieces of cake, Bob would be one fatass guy.
I see little good in Bob Dylan, either. He couldn't even admit to the world that he was Jewish. He hid behind a fake surname, "Dylan." The jackass's name wasn't Dylan, it was Zimmerman. He should've owned it. He's a fake, on top of everything else.
Did anyone else see that documentary about the 1960's with Tom Brokaw? All the hippies were so ridiculous. And so dirty-looking, too! Like Dylan, they looked like they had never heard of soap or water.
It's amazing to me that the hippies were the children of the Greatest Generation. They ought to call the hippies The Greatest Losers.
Accelerated Decrepitude...just a quick question. When you sit here and write about people like Bob Dylan and Faridi McFree...do you even KNOW these people? Have you ever met them?
I've never met Bob Dylan, but Faridi McFree has been one of my best friends for upwards of twenty years. I've yet to meet a nicer, more caring human being than Faridi. She has a generosity of spirit that is wonderful and believe me when I say that the world could use a few thousand more people like Faridi.
These people - Faridi McFree, Bob Dylan, Sarah Dylan, Joan Baez, everybody mentioned on this thread - are real human beings, not characters in some little book. Libel is illegal, you know. Or don't you know? And so is negligent infliction of emotional distress.
So when I find posts like the ones on here where you're saying one of my friends was "boinked" by Dylan just makes me wonder about YOU, Accelerated Decrepitude. Then again, given the user name you've chosen, what can anyone reasonably expect of you? You didn't name yourself Accelerated Decency, but maybe you should think about that as an option!
only thing that would in some way upset me about the dylan is that he hit a woman,i mean i would like to know is that realy the truth?cause if it is fuck him i dont care who he is, and if it isnt then its ok for me.please answer me!
It is clear, no matter what Bob did or didn't do that he reeks pain and sadness.
Nobody needs to judge Bob's sins, he has God for that. Bob could never be himself because of people constantly trying to mold him into what they wanted him to be, something that he firmly and successfully resisted.
As far as being Jewish and hiding it, so what, he was born in 1941 when the holocaust was still pretty fresh on people's minds. If you are not Jewish, you cannot possibly understand nor should you judge someone for not advertising the fact. You don't have a clue what he went through or what thoughts tortured his mind. It's not if anti-semitism isn't alive and well even at this very moment.
Sure maybe Bob was a little arrogant in his younger days but so what he was just a kid. A determined one but still just a kid.
I think that he handled the press with intellegence to their stupid questions. Someone said he was very rude to the press, no being rude to the press is telling them to f*** off. If they asked him a stupid question that he repeated for the last ten interviewers, then they got what the hell he was really thinking. One thing you can't say about Dylan is that he is fake, He is anything but fake and he never marches to anyone elses drum but his own. Everyone sins and everyone makes mistakes so we need to just let Dylay alone unless we are praying for him. He needs prayer not ridicule, how would you like your life all out there for people to lie about and pick apart.
He didn't allow anybody in the media or fans to mold him. Dylan can see through people(especially in the business he is in) and he stirs clear. He ain't out to advertise his mansion on "Cribs", he simply isn't like that.
Bob Dylan didn't only write "Like a Rolling Stone, he is that Rolling Stone and he can't seem to stop even while approching his 70's, he is driven to do what he does and I only hope that he can find the peace that he had in his life at one time, again.
As old as I am I have only recently began to scratch the surface on Bob Dylan, saw his bio on TV and was hooked from that moment on. There is just something about the guy that is mysterious and appealing. Bob can sing when he wants to and when you don't think he is singing well, that's just him singing it the way he wants to instead of the way you would like to hear it. Bob took himself away from his home and Jewish roots and sprung up as a folk singer, I though for years the guy was born in a Southern band or something. I was never into him enough to find out until now and I find him quite facinating. No, he isn't my idol and I will never believe he is a prophet but I will always love him as a person and respect him as a great artist.
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We are all sinners, every single one of us, but who's counting our for us? Judge not least ye be judged.
well Tom, LET HIM THAT IS FREE OF GUILT CAST THE FIRST STONE !!!!!!!
BOB WILL BE REMEMBERED AND TAUGHT/TALKED ABOUT LONG AFTER WE ARE ALL GONE, JUDGE HIM BY THE HIS GREAT CONTIBUTION TO MUSIC.
YAWN!!
ALMOST ALL ARE B.C!!
he's a very cruel man and no one wants to hear the true stories, which is why they are never told. he is the coca cola of the music world who had to sell out to pepsi to pay for his sins. go figure. you tell him georgia b. sage is getting ready to tell everything. it is time people really get to know this fellow. ... and stay far, far away from all metaphysical as well as actual physical (real) contact.he is dangerously evil, but no one wants to know the things he has done and has learned to do in the name of freedom, but i will say one thing... when john lennon wore that little button, "free bob dylan"... well, that does give folks a hint as to the kind of stuff that was happening to him,which he would say, i suppose, drove him to learn very vile, evil skills.i so wish i knew not of his talents
I've been here for half a century and have come to realize that there is more ignorance than intelligence floating around. I get a kick out of reading these blogs and every once in a while am motivated to respond...like now for instance. Bob Dylan is just a man trying to do the best he can in "a land of wolves and thieves" realizing he himself could very well be one of those wolves or
thieves! You all want to know who the man is or what he's all about you'll find it in his music not some bio full of BS. Get a grip people if you were'nt there personally and seen it for yourself then consider the source and know that you're just not going to find out the real truth about anything. Homework assignment: Listen to "Trust Yourself" this song tells you more about Dylan than any silly blog ever could in a million years. You'll thank me later.
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