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OT - Bob Dylan pens memoirs


a boy named sue

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Bob Dylan pens memoirs

August 27, 2004

 

The famously private Bob Dylan, whose background and music are the stuff of legend, will shed light on his life and four-decade career as a singer-songwriter in a memoir to be published later this year.

 

Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One, the first of a planned three-book series, is a first-person narrative from the 63-year-old, who rose to fame in the early 1960s and whose musical style ranged from folk and blues to rock, country and gospel.

 

The first volume of his memoirs focuses on significant periods in Dylan's life and is described by publisher David Rosenthal as "extraordinary, revealing and surprising. It is a beautifully written, singular achievement."

 

The 304-page book is due out on October 12 and will be followed about a week later by an updated edition of Lyrics: 1962-2001, a compendium of lyrics to nearly every Dylan song.

 

Born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan left the University of Minnesota for New York's Greenwich Village folk music scene at the start of the 1960s. He soon won fame for his protest anthems as Blowin' in the Wind and The Times They are A-changin'.

 

The scrawny mid-Westerner who wrote lyrics like poetry and sang with a distinctive howl shifted to more introspective material and later added electric instrumentation as he helped create the folk-rock sound and scored a big singles hit with Like a Rolling Stone.

 

Dylan, who still tours the world with his rock band, was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammies in 1991 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen in 1988.

 

He previously published Tarantula, a 1971 volume of poems.

 

Reuters

 

I'll wait till it gets onto ebay...

A man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all; he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame. -- C.S.Lewis
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will he include the story of how the government caught up with him and reduced him to the desolate "i'll do anything for a buck including write a jingle and appear in a victorias secret ad" guy he is now? why would the famously private Dylan release his memoirs?

 

note to dissidents: pay your taxes this way you can keep your street cred.

 

note to flamers: i'll be reverant in regards to his music.

Eeeeeehhhhhhhhh.
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Interesting. I wonder if he will talk about his less than enthusiastic opinion of Duluth and Hibbing MN. Maybe its changed recently. He played here for the first time maybe ever a few years ago to a VERY enthusiastic crowd.
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Originally posted by Ace Cracker:

will he include the story of how the government caught up with him and reduced him to the desolate "i'll do anything for a buck including write a jingle and appear in a victorias secret ad" guy he is now? why would the famously private Dylan release his memoirs?

 

note to dissidents: pay your taxes this way you can keep your street cred.

 

note to flamers: i'll be reverant in regards to his music.

Ace, I hate it when you keep stuff bottled up.

 

I can't say that your opinion is wrong, because I have no idea. Let me offer an alternative view.

 

I'm not Bob Dylan, and I can't imagine two lives more different than his and mine. But I'm "playing the back 9" of my life (unlike Ace who is still in the front 9), so I have a different perspective.

 

1. He may be telling his story now because so many people asked for it. Whether it's narcissism or a desire to get his own version out there or just to answer fans' request I don't know. It might not be primarily money. And writing a book is work, and it's OK if he does some.

 

2. He's always been thumbing his nose at stuff. A classic "you can't put me in a box" guy. So the book (and my guess is the Victoria's Secret thing) is just that.

 

3. I don't like this one any more than you do, but when you're older, you have the time to see the past as the past instead of the present. Sometimes you don't feel the need to defend what was so important way back when. It's not that you lose all moral fiber or desire for truth. You just sort of see it differently. This happens in various degrees to people. I think people with substance abuse problems in the past sometimes have this feeling.

mode>

 

I'm not a big Dylan fan, though I respect his accomplishments. Interesting guy just the same...

 

Tom

www.stoneflyrocks.com

Acoustic Color

 

Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground. - Theodore Roosevelt

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Fascinating though Dylan is I've never been able to finish a biography, and I've started a few. He brings out something in writers that makes what should be a great story opaque and unattractive. Plus all the Michael Gray type lit crit exegesis, 99 parts speculative waffle to one part genuine insight. Everything mythologised and drenched in "significance".

 

It'll be interesting to see what Dylan makes of his own story. My guess is he'll be caught between bolstering the myth (and he is of course a magnificent myth-maker) and undercutting the versions previously created by the Dylan industry by telling the plain, unvarnished truth. If the latter impulse wins out it will be a better book.

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