Congrats to reader Wayne W. who wins a copy of the DVD Bob Dylan: Both Ends of the Rainbow 1978-1989!

The correct answer to the question:

“Which newspaper in 2006 published a piece in which they quoted Bob Dylan as having once described himself as ‘a 62-year old Jewish atheist’?”

… is of-course the Christian Science Monitor.

It was a self-serving quiz question, because if you googled that you would find a link to one of my posts about it at the time. I consider it one of the high points in the history of RWB, because we were able to get the newspaper to issue a correction in print and to correct the article online.

Dylan never said that, of-course: Jerry Wexler (R.I.P.) did at one time (when he was 62), and described himself saying it in interviews related to his production work on Slow Train Coming. A writer for the Christian Science Monitor was putting together a piece in connection with Dylan’s then new album Modern Times and came across that quote in his research, and somehow attributed it to Bob Dylan instead of Wexler in his finished article. I’m sure it was a brain-hiccup rather than anything malicious, but it did say something that both the writer and the editors thought it an unsurprising statement to attribute to Dylan.

I was rather incensed when I saw it, as I believe quite a few readers here were also. My chief worry was that, once out there in the ether, the misquote would get recycled again and again in further articles down the line, in publications all over the world. Giving the folks at the Christian Science Monitor their due, they did put a correction in the same section of the paper where the misquote had been made, and as said they did correct it in their online version too. So they were responsive and responsible.

Sure enough, however, a couple of weeks later another news outlet — the Voice Of America of all things — replayed the quote as being real in another piece on Bob Dylan. So we donned battle gear again and got that corrected.

I still have a Google News Alert set up to tell me if that phrase reappears in an article about Dylan. Since then, I have not seen it. Can it be that we killed it dead? It’s so hard to do, especially when falsities that fit certain people’s preferred perceptions get out there. But, three years later, I think perhaps we can exhale …

Thanks to all the zillions of readers who participated in the contest. It’s lucky we did it via e-mail, or my dear dog Billie would surely be buried under the postcards and letters.

…

Addendum: By the way, I explained this at the time, but for the record: Jerry Wexler was entitled to be a Jewish atheist or any other kind of atheist and I have no reason to think he was anything other than a good guy. The reason that the quote was so pernicious when put into Dylan’s mouth was that, in the light of his entire body of work, for him make such a declaration would make him seem awfully cynical. And, for those who took the quote to be true, the way they heard Dylan’s songs would have to be terribly distorted by it.

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• (And still) Too Much Of Nothing from the Christian Science Monitor
• Correction issued by Christian Science Monitor (in print edition, at this point)
• Too Much Of Nothing from the Christian Science Monitor