How many Dylan fans out there?
My buddy Kent still tells stories about how he'd come over to my dorm room and I'd put on a Dylan song, then
put on another version from a bootleg, then another version, then the Self Portrait version, then... I'm surprised
the people on my hall didn't choke me, since all this usually happened around 2:00am
It was cool to listen to Dylan quoting the lyrics to It's Alright Ma on
the 60 minutes interview...
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
"I used to. I don't do that anymore. I don't know how I got to write those songs.
Those early songs were almost magically written," says Dylan, who quotes from his 1964 classic,
"It's Alright, Ma."
"Try to sit down and write something like that. There's a magic to that, and it's not
Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It's a different kind of a penetrating magic. And, you
know, I did it. I did it at one time."
Does he think he can do it again today? No, says Dylan. "You can't do something forever,"
he says. "I did it once, and I can do other things now. But, I can't do that."
-Mike
