Salon.com > Bob Dylan Tempest

Quote of the day

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:35:00 +0000

Long before Jonah Lehrer plagiarized text and fabricated Bob Dylan quotes for "Imagine," Bob Dylan himself stood in the middle of several copycat controversies (some baseless, others not so much). The singer-songwriter can get touchy about it, too: He was surprisingly dismissive when discussing Shakespeare in relation to his most recent album, "Tempest," which came out yesterday, telling Rolling Stone, "Shakespeare's last play was called 'The Tempest.' It wasn't called just plain 'Tempest.' The name of my record is just plain 'Tempest.' It's two different titles."

But if Dylan seemed overly defensive then, he goes far on the offense this month. In an interview in this Friday's issue of Rolling Stone, he calls critics who accuse him of borrowing lyrics "wussies and pussies." Below is an excerpt:

Bob Dylan’s “Tempest”: Best album ever by 71-year-old?

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:45:00 +0000

Bob Dylan just made me cry. Twice. I don’t know if I can listen to “Long and Wasted Years” again today. Nina Simone singing “Do What You Gotta Do” used to do it. Leonard Cohen did it with “Chelsea Hotel” at the Beacon Theater. OK, I’m a bit of a crier … but this is different. I’m sitting alone, smiling, with Kleenex, thanks to this old codger’s swagger, his audacity, his warmth. You read that right -- warmth.

Last night I heard you talking in your sleep,
Saying things you shouldn’t say,
Oh baby, you just might have to go to jail someday.

That he even dares to write this at 71 makes my day. That he pulls it off on his new album, "Tempest," well, it seems that it makes me so happy that I cry.