It’s time for those of us who are (as Roger Ebert would have it) inexhaustible in our fervor, to now cherish and analyze some more enigmatic syllables.

That remarkable collector and YouTube benefactor, “rankflv,” has uploaded a television interview with Bob Dylan from 1985; this one is conducted by Charles Young. I’d never seen it before. 1985 was certainly an extremely fecund year for Dylan interviews, on camera and in print. He was apparently pulling out all the stops to promote Empire Burlesque. Or else he just felt sociable.

Anyway, this interview (link here or play below) finds Dylan in a very easy-going mood, and there is not much that is earth-shaking contained therein, I think. There is talk about Farm Aid and making videos with Dave Stewart. There is sundry footage. At the start of the clip, Dylan talks about what the interviewer describes as the “expectations” that are put on him, and says:

Well, I’m not running for any office. It’s not like I have to please all the people. Singers and musicians seem to have more of an authority with the people than say a movie star would. I don’t know why that is. But they seem to hang on every single thing that a singer would say, whereas a movie star — who’s subject to just as much idolatry and all — they don’t care what he does. They’ll go see him in any movie, really. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I don’t think it’s fair to hang on a singer such a great burden to be a leader, especially when nobody follows them anyway.

Consider it noted, Bob.

By far the most interesting passage of the interview for me is the following. Charles Young asks this question, or, more accurately, poses the following statements:

The mood on this record seems to be quite friendly. There’s a lot of stuff about love, whereas, y’know, during your Christian period there seemed to be an element of self-righteousness in your work. Do you think — is that a fair perception?

Something of a jaw-dropper, really. Does Young even know how offensive he’s being, just casually accusing his interviewee of self-righteousness? Yet, Dylan’s reaction is very mild. At first, he even seems to be conceding the point (while mixing some metaphors).

Yeah, that’s a fair perception. Y’know, but there’s many sides to the coin. And you have to, really — the longer you go on, the more sides you show that are there to be unraveled. And at this time that was just the record that evolved, this last record.

Then, just when you think he’s going to let the diss go, he zeroes in.

But I believe in the other thing too. [apparent cut in the video] Self-righteousness would be just to repeat what you know has been written down scripturally someplace else, and it’s not like you’re trying to convince anybody of anything. You’re just saying what the original, ah, rule is. And it’s just coming through you. But if someone else can get past you saying it and just hear what the message is — no [know?] it’s not coming from you, but through you, I don’t see anything wrong with that.

The definition of “self-righteous” is being glossed over here. The interviewer may or may not understand it, and Dylan, at least in the cut we see, doesn’t display an interest in making distinctions between various kinds of righteousness. Webster’s defines “self-righteous” thusly:

convinced of one’s own righteousness especially in contrast with the actions and beliefs of others : narrow-mindedly moralistic

It’s neither a compliment nor a neutral statement to describe someone as self-righteous; it is a decided insult, clearly. Dylan is not conceding to self-righteousness, as the dictionary defines it, in his reply. Instead he is distinguishing what he believes he was doing during his “Christian period” from this notion of self-righteousness.

Hopefully what I guess was an MTV audience caught all the nuances.

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