The UK Times has a breathless story on how “the dance world’s hottest producer,” Mark Ronson, is doing a hip-hop remix of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine. It reads like a press release from Columbia. I mean, what exactly is so exciting here? A remix? I’m sure it’ll be amusing and maybe fun, and Columbia is salivating at being potentially able to parlay this into increased sales to a “new teenage audience,” but it is not — as the article portrays — some huge departure for Dylan himself. After all, he himself is not doing anything. And I would dispute the notion, which is implicit in the piece, that Dylan has previously been incredibly precious about anybody touching his music. I think the record would show the opposite. Aside from the gazillions of cover versions of his songs, there was that Italian combo, Articolo 31, who in 1998 used a sample of his original Like A Rolling Stone recording in their Come Una Pietra Scalciata tune. We know about this mainly because it was later included on the “Masked and Anonymous” soundtrack. But allowing something like that was hardly the act of someone being overly-protective of his recordings, and really amounts to granting the same kind of permission as was granted for the remix. Oh well.

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Altogether more interesting, but also on the list of things which shouldn’t surprise us is this: Harry Potter, Zionist agent.

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Click here to go to YouTube and hear Bob Dylan’s own 1996 remix of Most Like You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine.

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Addendum: Other examples of Dylan being open about the use of his work are these from the book Restless Pilgrim: The Spiritual Journey of Bob Dylan (thanks to a reader for the tip):

In early 2000, when Natalie Cole was celebrating her 50th birthday with a bash, she was chatting about a gift Dylan had recently given her. Cole’s sister, Carol, had always urged her to record one of her sibling’s favorite Dylan songs — “Gotta Serve Somebody” — but Cole felt a particular verse would be a stumbling block (Dylan’s self-referential “you may call me Zimmmy”). Cole’s producer, Phil Ramone, contacted Dylan who rewrote the last two verses especially for her. According to Cole, “Bob’s own people were more surprised than we were. He had never, ever done that before” (Cole’s version of “Gotta Serve Somebody” appears on her 1999 album, “Snowfall in the Sahara”).

British soul singer Gabrielle found herself wanting to borrow the music to another Dylan hit from the 1970s, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” for her own song, “Rise.” After sending a demo to Dylan, she received a letter back from him, expressing his appreciation for her song and giving her approval to use whatever portion of the song she wanted to. Apparently Dylan gets thousands of requests annually from musicians who are seeking permission to sample his work. The requests are routinely rejected but the donation to Gabrielle marked another first in the Dylan consent department.

While the above does indicate that requests to sample Dylan’s recorded work are “routinely rejected,” this still doesn’t support the notion that Dylan is overly-precious about his recordings. If thousands of musicians ask to sample your work each year, it is simply a necessity to reject the great majority of those requests for basic business reasons. It would be an absurd and counter-productive over-exposure to have thousands of such things out there. The main point — which the above supports — is that this hip-hop remix of Most Likely You Go Your Way is not the unprecedented dramatic event that Columbia and the Times are portraying.

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