There’s another TV interview, uploaded to YouTube by the very generous user “rankflv,” which has some very interesting stuff in it. It was done for Australian TV in 1986, in advance of Dylan’s tour of Australia in that year. It was conducted by a gentleman named George Negus, who also provides the rather skeptical narration. He prefaces the whole thing by warning his audience that they won’t understand much of Dylan is saying. Dylan is visibly on guard, but provides some rip-roaring answers all the same. It’s in two parts, links here: Part 1 and Part Two. It’s in the second part that there’s an interesting and humorous (to me anyway) exchange on those great old theological questions.

Narration: Dylan’s being accused of selling out the idealism of the sixties; first to commercialism, then to religion. A couple of years ago, he went through his Christian phase. Then it was Orthodox Judaism. Or was it?

Q: Is it possible to pinpoint exactly where you’re at the moment, so we can get some idea of where your music’s going?

D: Oh no no, I can’t do that, because my songs speak for that, and I usually say everything I have to say through the songs, and it would be pointless for me to say how I feel about this and how I feel about that — I could never articulate it as well –

Q:Do you think that you articulate your feelings and your views about things much better musically then you would any other way?

D:Not only much better, but only — the only way. [smiling]

Q:Why was there confusion for a couple of years almost — probably still going on in some parts of the world and this country in particular — about whether or not you’re a born again Christian, or whether you’re a practising Jew, or what the hell you are …?

D:Well, people are confused about everything these days, y’know. They’re confused about what kind of car to drive. Y’know, they just don’t know what they want to do.

Q:But why do you think people have become so confused about you and religion, because –

D:Well, because I’m probably, y’know, on people’s minds, and religion is on people’s minds, so they prob’ly put the two and two together — I don’t know.

Narration: But then the guru has never been all that specific about his beliefs, not even back at the height of the Dylan thing.

[clip inserted from the Pennebaker film, "Don't Look Back," where Dylan is filmed responding to a question from a fan in 1965 by saying "I don't believe in anything, no. Why should I believe in anything? I don't see anything to believe in."]

Narration continues: Nevertheless, we plowed on, trying to find out about the reported religious influence on his life and music.

Q:Where do you think that burst of spiritual enthusiasm came from a couple of years ago, when you were actually recording albums that were genuinely gospel?

D:Oh, I had to do those albums. They were very important and necessary for me to do.

Q:Why was that?

D:Oh, because people needed to hear that. [smiling]

Q:At the time?

D:Oh yeah.

Q:So you think you were reflecting a feeling that was abroad in this country by picking up religion as a subject matter?

D:Well, we have to be very careful when we talk about religion, now, because, y’know, religion is more than just church.

Q:And what’s yours?

D:Mine has more to do with playing the guitar.

If you like, you might relate Dylan’s reaction to the term “religion” above to a remark he made in an interview in December of 1979 with Bruce Heiman, where he reacts to the same word by saying, “Well, Christ is no religion. We’re not talking about religion … Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.”

Later, Dylan responds to a question about music videos (this was 1986, remember):

D:I remember growing up with radio. And it was always more exciting in some kind of way to listen to the radio and be able to see it the way you saw it in your head rather than watch it on a TV screen. So, the videos are the same thing — I think eventually they’re probably gonna drive everybody crazy.

Q:So, why have you in a way contributed to that by allowing videos to be made –

D:I’m not happy about that [laughs].

Q:But aren’t you in a position, surely, I imagine Bob Dylan is in a position where he can say “I don’t want to do a video, that’s it.”

D:[smiling] Well, y’know, viewing them, that’s it, you don’t have to watch them, but sometimes, I guess — y’know I try to get by with as few as I possibly can.

Q:It’s the sound of what you’re playing and the sound of the words that you’re singing that’s important, not the way you look or what the [incomprehensible]?

D:Yeah, that and, y’know, the possibility that you’re really going to fry somebody’s brain.

Narration: In 1986, many still idolize Dylan as the poet/hero, who poured out the anxieties of a past generation. Others wonder if he’s anything more than a mumbling eccentric.

I think we can make reasonable guess as to where Negus stands on the “mumbling eccentric” question. (Or stood, at least, twenty years ago.)

When I look at this interview, it strikes me that however evasive some might accuse Dylan of being on the “religion” subject (not that I’d agree exactly), look at how strong and direct he is on the subject of his gospel albums. Years after many people had drawn the conclusion that he had rejected all of that, he states plainly, “I had to do those albums. They were very important and necessary for me to do,” and “people needed to hear that.” There’s not a moment’s hesitation on the subject. And it meshes perfectly with remarks he made to Robert Hilburn in 1983(referenced here): “I don’t particularly regret telling people how to get their souls saved. I don’t particularly regret any of that. Whoever was supposed to pick it up, picked it up.”

Indeed. And I daresay they might still be picking it up.

...................
Share this!

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• YouTube interview — Bob Dylan in 1984
• Jerry Wexler dies at age 91
• New interview with Dylan at Rolling Stone
• Pigging out