From: khematite@gmail.com   
      
   "I love Ringo. He’s not a bad singer, and he’s a great musician. If I’d   
   had him as a drummer, I would’ve been the Beatles, too. Maybe."   
      
   Bob Dylan Interviewed by Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Slate   
   DEC 19, 2022   
   From The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2022   
      
   Bob Dylan Q&A   
   By Jeff Slate   
      
   While the book covers a lot of ground, many of the songs were written and   
   released in the 1950s. Was that a significant time in shaping the modern   
   popular song? And did the post war technology boom – the evolution of the   
   recording process, the ubiquity    
   of the radio and television, electric instrumentation – play a part in that,   
   do you think?   
      
   I think they all played a part, and they still do play a part. But yes, the   
   book does cover a lot of ground, and the 50’s was a significant time in   
   music history. Without postwar technology these songs may have dissipated and   
   been overlooked. The    
   recording process brought the right people to the top, the most innovative,   
   the ones with the greatest talent.   
      
   How did you first hear most of those songs? And do you think the way you first   
   heard them – I’m assuming on the radio, as well as television and in films   
   – play a part in your relationship to them?   
      
   I first heard them on the radio, portable record players, jukeboxes. We   
   didn’t have a TV, and I never heard them in films, but I was hearing them in   
   my head. They were straightforward, and my relationship to them at first was   
   external, then became    
   personal and intense. The songs were simple, easy to understand, and they’d   
   come to you in a direct way, let you see into the future.   
      
   How do you listen to music these days? On vinyl, CD, streaming? And is there a   
   way you prefer to hear music?   
      
   I listen to CD’s, satellite radio and streaming. I do love the sound of old   
   vinyl though, especially on a tube record player from back in the day. I   
   bought three of those in an antique store in Oregon about 30 years ago.   
   They’re just little, but the    
   tone quality is so powerful and miraculous, has so much depth, it always takes   
   me back to the days when life was different and unpredictable. You had no idea   
   what was coming down the road, and it didn’t matter. The laws of time   
   didn’t apply to you.   
      
   How do you discover new music these days?   
      
   Mostly by accident, by chance. If I go looking for something I usually don’t   
   find it. In fact, I never find it. I walk into things intuitively when I’m   
   most likely not looking for anything. Tiny Hill, Teddy Edwards, people like   
   that. Obscure artists,    
   obscure songs. There’s a song by Jimmy Webb that Frank Sinatra recorded   
   called, “Whatever Happened to Christmas,” I think he recorded it in the   
   60s, but I just discovered it. Ella Fitzgerald’s “A-Tiskit, A-Tasket.”   
   Janice Martin, the female    
   Elvis. Have you heard her? Joe Turner is always surprising me with little   
   nuances and things. I listen to Brenda Lee a lot. No matter how many times I   
   hear her, it’s like I just discovered her. She’s such an old soul. Lately,   
   I discovered a fantastic    
   guitar player, Teddy Bunn. I heard him on a Meade Lux Lewis – Sid Catlett   
   record.   
      
   Performers and songwriters recommend things to me. Others I just wake up and   
   they’re there. Some I’ve seen live. The Oasis Brothers, I like them both,   
   Julian Casablanca, the Klaxons, Grace Potter. I’ve seen Metallica twice.   
   I’ve made special    
   efforts to see Jack White and Alex Turner. Zac Deputy, I’ve discovered him   
   lately. He’s a one man show like Ed Sheeran, but he sits down when he plays.   
   I’m a fan of Royal Blood, Celeste, Rag and Bone Man, Wu-Tang, Eminem, Nick   
   Cave, Leonard Cohen,    
   anybody with a feeling for words and language, anybody whose vision parallels   
   mine.   
      
   Waterloo Sunset is on my playlist and that was recorded in the 60s.   
   “Stealer,” The Free song, that’s been there a while too, along with   
   Leadbelly and the Carter Family. There’s a Duff McKagan song called “Chip   
   Away,” that has profound meaning    
   for me. It’s a graphic song. Chip away, chip away, like Michelangelo,   
   breaking up solid marble stone to discover the form of King David inside. He   
   didn’t build him from the ground up, he chipped away the stone until he   
   discovered the king. It’s    
   like my own songwriting, I overwrite something, then I chip away lines and   
   phrases until I get to the real thing. Shooter Jennings produced that record.   
   It’s a great song. Dvorak, “Moravian Duets.” I just discovered that, but   
   it’s over 100 years    
   old.   
      
   Music is made very differently now, and your grandchildren are hearing songs   
   for the first time in whole new ways, like via Spotify. Does the way you first   
   hear a song matter? Do you think that has changed the relationship of the   
   listener to the song?   
      
   The relationship you have to a song can change over time. You can outgrow it,   
   or it could come back to haunt you, come back stronger in a different way. A   
   song could be like a nephew or a sister, or a mother-in-law. There actually is   
   a song called “   
   Mother-in-Law.”   
      
   When you first hear a song, it might be related to what time of day you hear   
   it. Maybe at daybreak – at dawn with the sun in your face – it would   
   probably stay with you longer than if you heard it at dusk. Or maybe, if you   
   first hear it at sunset, it    
   would probably mean something different, than if you heard it first at 2 in   
   the afternoon. Or maybe you hear something in the dead of night, in the   
   darkness, with night eyes. Maybe it’ll be “Eleanor Rigby,” and it puts   
   you in touch with your    
   ancient ancestors. You’re liable to remember that for a while. “Star   
   Gazer,” the Ronnie James Dio song would probably mean a lot more to you if   
   you first heard it at midnight under a full moon beneath an expanding   
   universe, than if you first heard    
   it in the middle of a dreary day with rain pouring down.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)