Bob
Dylan endorses Barack Obama
Odense, Denmark, and the not-quite-grand hotel that for the next two nights
will be a home away from home for Bob Dylan. He arrived here from Reykjavik,
four days after his 67th birthday and in the first stages of a lengthy
itinerary that will take him through Scandinavia, the Baltic states,
Austria, Italy, France, Andorra, Spain and Portugal between now and
mid-July. To his irritation, others long ago gave this ongoing schedule the
title of The Never-Ending Tour (habitually, he plays upwards of 100 concerts
each year, often considerably more). As he prefers to see it: “I'm just
making my living by plying a trade.”
Achieving my promised audience with the legendary singer-songwriter and now
exhibited painter proves to be a two-step process. First, his road manager
takes me from the lobby to a darkened, sparsely furnished meeting room in
which an orange-haired woman is sitting straight-backed and reading a novel.
“If you could just wait here,” he begins, then disappears, his mobile
clamped to his ear. Left alone, I introduce myself to the woman but she
merely smiles enigmatically and continues with her book. Who is or was she?
I still have no idea.
Minutes later I am collected, taken up a flight of stairs and ushered towards
a door that is ajar. As I approach it is opened by Dylan, who welcomes me
inside with a soft handshake and a volley of courtesies: “How have you
been?” [I have interviewed him twice before, in 1997 and 2001], “What's been
going on in your life?” and “Are you OK with the dark [here in what appears
to be his bedroom, all the curtains have been drawn]?”
My eyes adjusting to this premature twilight, I take in the fact that he is
wearing boots, jeans and a loose sweatshirt, its sleeves pushed up above the
elbows. That famous face is heavily lined and pale, but always warm and
quick to smile. As we take seats at right angles to each other, he presses
his fingertips into his grey-flecked curls and vigorously rubs his scalp, as
if to do so will focus his mind.
I place on the low table between us the book that I have brought with me.
“Heh, heh, heh!” Dylan chuckles, reaching out for it. “This is pretty
handsome stuff.” He is looking at a straight-from-the-presses copy of The
Drawn Blank Series, produced by the Halcyon Gallery to coincide with the
exhibition of that name in Bruton Street, Mayfair. Will he visit the show
itself? “I don't know,” he says, seemingly transfixed by the book's cover,
his voice the familiar rasp that has inspired a million amateur
impressionists. “I have all these dates to play. It might not be possible.
I'd like to. We'll have to see.”
The haphazard process leading to the London show began nearly 20 years ago
when he was approached by an editor at the American publishing company
Random House. “They'd seen some of my sketches somewhere and asked if I'd
like to do a whole book. Why not, you know? There was no predetermined
brief. ‘Just deal with the material to hand, whatever that is. And do it
however you want. You can be fussy, you can be slam-bang, it doesn't
matter.' Then they gave me a drawing book, I took it away with me and turned
it back in again, full three years later.”
Published in 1994 under the abbreviated title Drawn Blank, the resultant
images had been executed both on the hoof while he was touring and in a more
structured way in studios, using models (“Just anyone who'd be open to doing
it”) and lights. What was going on in his life during that three-year period
to inform or provide a back story to the work? “Just the usual,” Dylan
shrugs, fixed in the hunkered-forward, hands-clasped position he will
maintain for most of our time together. “I try to live as simply as is
possible and was just drawing whatever I felt like drawing, whenever I felt
like doing it. The idea was always to do it without affectation or
self-reference, to provide some kind of panoramic view of the world as I was
seeing it.”
Built up of work that is often contemplative, sometimes exuberant but
consistently technically accomplished and engaging, that view is of train
halts, diners and dockyards, barflies, dandies and uniformed drivers
glimpsed in New Orleans or New York, Stockholm or South Dakota. And of
women. We're left in no doubt that Dylan likes women. “They weren't actually
there at the same time,” he notes quickly, pointing, when his page-turning
reveals the painting Two Sisters, its subjects lounging, one clothed, the
other naked but for her bra. “They posed separately and I put them together
afterwards.”
There was little precedent within his own family for this talented eye, it
seems. “Instead of playing cards, my maternal grandmother would do these
little still lives, but I can't really say that had any influence on what
I've done.” Art formed no part of his formal education and he recalls there
being no public galleries in the Minnesotan communities (first Duluth, then
Hibbing) of his youth. “I was in my teens before I started to see books of
paintings in the school library - frescoes or the work of Michelangelo, that
kind of thing. And I didn't really see the stuff that properly had an impact
on me - Matisse, Derain, Monet, Gauguin - 'til later on, when I was in my
twenties.”
By then, Dylan the university dropout and fledgeling folk performer had
gravitated to New York, where he quickly discovered the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. “It was overwhelming for me at the time, the immensity and sheer
variety of stuff on display. The first exhibition I saw there was of Gauguin
paintings and I found I could stand in front of any one of them for as long
as I'd sit at the movies, yet not get tired on my feet. I'd lose all sense
of time. It was an intriguing thing.” It was as his music career gathered
pace that he found himself first trying his own hand at drawing. “Mostly
when I was on a train or in a café, just to make sense of what was in my
immediate world. I found it relaxed me. Some of the stuff I kept, some I
didn't.”
It was sketches completed in this manner and spirit that, years later, came to
the attention of Random House and led to that commission. However, little
accord was given to the book on its eventual publication. “The critics
didn't want to review it. The publisher told me they couldn't get past the
idea of another singer who dabbled. You know, like, ‘David Bowie, Joni
Mitchell, Paul McCartney...Everyone's doing it these days.' No one from the
singing profession was going to be taken seriously by the art world, I was
told, but that was OK. I wasn't expecting anything phenomenal to happen.
It's not like the drawings were revolutionary. They weren't going to change
anyone's way of thinking.”
But years later there came an approach from the Chemnitz City Art Gallery in
Germany. Ingrid Mossinger, its director and a fan of the 1965 album Bringing
it all Back Home, had felt it likely that someone as adept as Dylan in the
use of metaphoric and abstract language might also draw or paint. Her
research led her to the book Drawn Blank, in the preface of which Dylan
wrote of hoping to “eventually complete” its collection of sketches. She
encouraged him to do just that.
The method used to turn them into the paintings about to go on exhibition in
London involved making digital scans of the original drawings and enlarging
and then transferring them on to heavy paper ready for reworking. Dylan then
experimented with treating individual images with a variety of colours. “And
doing so subverted the light. Every picture spoke a different language to me
as the various colours were applied.”
Attempts have been made to pin down and name his influences. When I mention
this, Dylan wrongly takes it as a suggestion that the work is pastiche or
somehow derivative. “I haven't trained in any academy where you learn how to
do something in the style of Degas or Van Gogh, or how to copy Da Vinci,” he
retorts. “I don't have that facility to copy note for note. Influenced by?
If I had the ability to paint like any of those guys I might see the
similarity, but I don't. If there is anything it's just by accident and
instinctive.” Which is all that any critic was suggesting, after all. But,
it seems, he is as uncomfortable at having his paintings deconstructed as he
is his songs.
Of the latter process, he said on our last meeting: “These so-called
connoisseurs of Bob Dylan music? I don't feel they know a thing or have an
inkling of who I am and what I'm about. That such people have spent so much
time thinking about who? Me? Get a life, please.”
Today he expresses similar impatience with the critics who have read into his
art a variety of underlying feelings - anonymity, transience, rootlessness,
even loneliness. Reaching again for the Halcyon book. “Let's have a look,
shall we [the pages fall open at Woman in Red Lion Pub, her dress executed
in a vivid yellow]? Do you see loneliness in that? Or that [Six Women]? I
don't. And this one's just a pastoral scene [Sunday Afternoon]. What's
rootless, transient and lonely about that? It's a mystery why anybody would
say or think such a thing.”
And the idea that, in framing various images with windows and doors, he is
revealing himself as a perennial outsider, forced by his name and status to
observe the world rather than connect directly with it? Dylan rolls his
eyes. “I just find it to be less satisfying to have the ends [by which he
means the edges of the image] being endless, so I'll put a window there or
block it in some way. It just looks better to me that way.” So he would
prefer a purely emotional, instinctive response to the work rather than any
searching for themes and insights? “If it pleases the eye of the
beholder...There's no more to it than that, to my mind. Or even if it repels
the eye. Either one is fine.”
On both our previous meetings, Dylan voiced his disdain for those completists
who wish to see every scrap of paper he has written on or hear every studio
out-take that he has rejected. With that in mind, I ask if it was a big deal
for him to sign his name on each of the Drawn Blank paintings. “Yes!” he
exclaims, laughing. “I finally grew into it, but yes, it was.” And did he
perhaps practise his signature in advance? “I did, because it's tricky
getting it just right. Finally you think, ‘Oh, to hell...' and just go for
it, like you're writing a cheque or something.” He has, he says, no
particular favourite among the images. “It's the same as with the early
songs...In the Sixties, by the time they came out we were way past the
recorded versions and were saying, ‘No, don't release that. We are playing
it this way now.' So it is with the art. I find myself thinking, ‘I could
have done this or that to make it better'. In the end, though, you've just
got to let the work go and hope you'll know to do better next time.”
When I ask if he finds the art establishment preferable to the one he is more
used to, Dylan grins and pulls a face of mock disgust. “The music world's a
made-up bunch of hypocritical rubbish. I know from publishing a memoir
[2004's Chronicles Volume One] that the book people are a whole lot saner.
And the art world? From the small steps I've taken in it, I'd say, yeah, the
people are honest, upfront and deliver what they say. Basically, they are
who they say they are. They don't pretend. And having been in the music
world most of my life [he laughs again], I can tell you it's not that way.
Let's just say it's less...dignified.”
He tells me that he continued to draw for his pleasure after the Random House
commission was fulfilled. “Not as intensely but yes, I have sketchbooks from
the years since then. Of course, what I release to the public and what I
keep for myself are two different things.”
He has had proposals for two future series of paintings, the first of which
would involve having celebrities sit for him. “I could pick the names but
don't want to. I'd rather be given a list and have someone else contact the
people to find out if they're up for it. So I'm waiting to see who they
might be thinking of. I assume it's movers and shakers. You know, inventors,
mathematicians, scientists, business people, actors...We'll see.
“But what interests me more is the idea of a collection based on historically
romantic figures. Napoleon and Josephine, Dante and Beatrice, Captain John
Smith and Pocahontas, Brad and Angelina [here he laughs]... I could use my
own imagination for that. It wouldn't have to be the actual people,
obviously.” But the latter two might be delighted to sit for him, no? Dylan
chuckles at the possibility. “Maybe. Who knows? All I'll say is that I'm
intrigued by the basic idea. Whether or not it comes to fruition, time will
tell. This [The Drawn Blank Series] was easy to do because it didn't clash
with any other commitments. If something does, then I simply cannot do it.”
By commitments, one presumes Dylan means not just his touring schedule but
also his personal and familial relationships. Only the bald facts are known
in this regard. He has four grown-up children (Jesse, Anna Lea, Samuel and
rock singer Jakob) from a ten-year marriage to former model Sara Lowndes
that ended in divorce in 1977. And in 2001 it was revealed by a biographer
that he was married from 1986 to 1992 to one of his former backing singers,
Carol Dennis, and has another daughter, Desiree, also now an adult, from the
union.
But inquiries about his non-work life causes him to shut down. Not even a fact
as basic as that of where he lives (his main home is believed to be a
mansion on the coast beyond Los Angeles) receives ready validation, and when
I ask if he has a studio in which he worked on the paintings, he will offer
only, “Well, there are spaces in some of the properties where I can do just
about any old thing”, before looking off into the middle distance, awaiting
the next question.
Such reticence has earned him a reputation as rock's grumpy old man, a
curmudgeon who refuses to appear grateful that he is revered and adored. But
whether or not he intends it to do so, such determined self-protection
merely enhances the myth and mystery. Today and after spending much of the
1980s through to the mid-1990s out in the critical cold, Dylan's star is
higher than at any time since the 1960s, the decade with which he is most
closely associated (erroneously in his view). Honours, awards and citations
all but rain down upon him these days: it is as if we have all awoken to the
fact that we will not see his like again. Not that anyone doubts that he has
a long life still to live. “Well, thank you for that!” he notes with a
laugh.
For any further insights into his private world we must wait to see if any
crumbs are thrown in the next instalment of the intended three-book
Chronicles (“I could do more. It wouldn't be a problem in terms of
material”), at which he is already at work. Yes, he allows, he was gratified
by the critical and commercial success of Volume One. “Especially given the
effort that went into it. Writing any kind of book is a lonely thing. You
cut yourself off from friends and family to find that necessarily quiet
place in your mind. You have to disassociate and detach yourself from just
about everything and everybody. I didn't like that part of it at all.
“It took me maybe two years in total. I was touring so much in the beginning,
on days off or on a bus, I'd write my thoughts out in longhand or on a
typewriter. It was the transcribing of the stuff, the rereading and
retelling of it, that was time-consuming and I came to figure that there had
to be a better way. I know what that is now. You need a full-time secretary
so that you can get the ideas down immediately, then deal with them later.”
Meanwhile, there is the continuing delight that is his own radio show (he
smiles at the mention of it), Theme Time Radio Hour with your Host Bob
Dylan, the brainchild of America's XM Satellite Radio and now broadcast
weekly here on Radio 2. And later this year he will release a further volume
within the ongoing Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, featuring previously unreleased
or rare material alongside alternative versions of existing tracks recorded
between 1989 and 2006.
Coming on top of the recent award to him of a special Pulitzer prize
recognising “his profound impact on popular music and American culture,
marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power” (“I hope they
don't ask for it back!”), all of this would suggest that he has arrived at a
very creative but also contented period within his life.
“I've always felt that,” he says. “It's just sometimes I've got more going on
than at other times.” But life is good? “To me, it's never been otherwise.”
My time with Dylan is up and we stand in preparation for my leaving the room.
As a last aside, I ask for his take on the US political situation in the
run-up to November's presidential election.
“Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval,” he says.
“Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of
purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy out there now who is
redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama. He's
redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out.
Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are
going to have to.” He offers a parting handshake. “You should always take
the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the
future,” he notes as the door closes between us.
For more, see www.halcyongallery.comand www.bobdylanart.com
The Drawn Blank Series exhibition opens on June 14 at The Halcyon Gallery,
Bruton Street W1.
Bob Dylan Encyclopedia Buy
the book
Where does he endorse Obama? He say things might change. Is that code for "I plan to campaign for Obama this summer"?
I merely ask...
Jocelyn, Christchurch, New Zealand
First listened to Dylan some thirty four years ago.
Listened to lots of other artists at that time.
Last thirty three years have only listened to Dylan.
Any my wife, Jean, of course.
God bless you Bob.
Aidan Richardson, Dublin, Ireland
I love Bob Dylan and anything and everything he does is amazing.
Donna Crane, Poole Dorset, United Kingdom
Bob Dylan is such a cool dude in everyway.As the paintings in the exhibition of his work show he has a style all of his own.I have bought today the Liberty signed print.What I have got from Bob is to cut your own furrow in life and be your own man but always think of others.Thankyou Bob
Trevor Peachey, Stansted Essex, England
Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown ...
Welcome back Bob
from your friends at Ventrybeach Gallery.
Jenny, Dingle, Ireland
Simple as That Bob Bylan is Great and a Fine Artist too. I love his music and I'm looking forward to shake his hand some day. Sheena Tropea London United Kindom
Sheena Tropea, London, United Kindom
It's great to know he is ,well. I have grown up lisening to Dylan
and growing old with him too. I have find him inspirational,
I am looking forward to see his Art work. love the article and his last handshake. Nice thing to say for us outhere.
monica Campbell, london, UNITED KINGDOM
Maria was adopted when she was 2 and raised by Bob and Sara, which makes him her FATHER!
Vivienne, Los Angeles,
God bless Bob Dylan! I think he's just getting started creatively...
Finbar, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Wonderful how Dylan is still on top of his game. Barack Obama should be proud that he has endorsed him, as i believe its the first time he has endorsed a presidential candidate. Obama should acknowledge Dylan's endorsement.
john dowdall, dublin, ireland
Maria was the daughter of Sara and her first husbank, Victor Lowndes. The 'magazine husband' of 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands'?
john mclaughlin, Argyll, Scotland
As a moderate in the middle of the political spectrum, I have a burning question to ask Dylan and the rest of the world: "Who is Barack Obama?" and, "How EXACTLY is Obama redefining the nature of politics?" The only thing I ever hear are touchy-feely statements. I need cold hard facts and details.
Chris, Southern California,
every protest and anti-war song fits right in with todays us politics. Dylan hits the nail on the head, again! The internet is a good thing but, in this political climate in the us, we have no visable protests anymore. I believe that they did us a hell of a lot of good. You go Dylan!
Mary
MARY, NASHVILLE, USA
Of course it's an endorsement, especially from one as reticent in such matters as Dylan is. I'm gratified but not at all surprised by his choice. Now had he endorsed the mean-spirited Hillary, that would be a surprise. Obama, incidentally, is a great admirer of Dylan and his work.
James, Los Angeles, USA
was maria the daughter of sarah and her first husband?
marlene from minnesota
marlene, cokato, USA
Fine interview. To Bush, Cheney and all the rest who never served:
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
- "Masters of War
Henry, Durham, USA
I still love his voice , his music and his art though.
And , he is still probably the best!
Mrs Maggie Snook, Wareham, Dorset UK
"Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters."
Bob Dylan
Ron, Atlantic City, NJ, USA
Like the iconoClast in interview long time past, you dont have to paint it to know it's there. But the reporter has a moment to tell it, and, the link is interesting, the one with the orange sky and railroad by the subdivision. Makes you wonder. It's here. And where it goes, you know
John Lopresti, Banks-on-Inland, Call it USA
"When can we expect an album of new material?"
Ace, Brooklyn, USA
I supported Mugabe when he was a Freedom Fighter against Ian Smith and his illegal Apartheid Regime in what was then Rhodesia....now I want him gone.......but I still support everything he stood for.its not the man,its the moment,its not the Law its the moral legitimacy.
Gilp, Dumfries, Scotland
I will would like to see him and his paintings. Because he is a
legendary singer-songwriter and now exhibiting painter proves that is a great artist and he is able to prove to us that art no have limits.
Vilmar Resende, Porto Alegre, Brazil
I don't see that as a ringing endorsement at all. He basically just said America is in a political upheaveal.And then he added ,'welll just have to see how it plays out' That's no ringing endors. It goes to show exactly what Dylan has always said.,' Reporters twist your words to suit their own agend
Lori, Long Beach, USA
I don't tend to listen to what celebrities say about politics. Dylan has even stated in the past that entertainers don't have answers to these types of issues, yet many of them have to try anyways(Bruce)! At least he's just stating an opinion and you can take it any way you want it, that I respect.
Jef, Worcester,
Everything Dylan says is instantly jumped upon and bent to suit the opinions and attitudes of others. No wonder he has sometimes seemed obscure and non-committal. What he chooses to share with the world is his amazing body of work. A wise man with his heart in the right place is what I say.
Pauline, Durham, UK
Yes, Maggie, and Stevie Wonder also heartily endorsed Robert Mugabe early on!
Hugh, Adelaide, Australia
To say that Dylan is exceptionally perceptive is in essence a tautology. I am not in the least surprised that he endorses Obama. Indeed, the times they are a-changin'.
Lulu, Winchester, USA
Nice parting words on the interview Bob, have a good year.
Phil, North Yorkshire
Phil Lee, Richmond, England
It's always interesting to read what Dylan has to say. What keeps him motivated is a mystery. He's done it all and still does more.
Michael Macken, Swords, Ireland
Dylan you are the greatest. Wish you a long life.
Presh, Bath, Avon
I think it's a misnomer to say that Dylan "endorses" Barry Obama. He says - according t this rather interviewer-centered interview that "we'll have to see how things play out." Not exactly a ringing endorsement, now is it?
bb
BabyBlue, Washington DC, USA
Looks like pop and politics are morphing !
Stevie Wonder has also been singing the praises of B.O.
Politics is as shallow and self gratuitous as it will ever be.
He who pays the piper calls the tune!
Mrs Maggie Snook, Wareham, Dorset UK
It doesn't sound much like an endorsement to me - we all can agree that Barack Obama is redefining politics. The future will tell us if it's a good definition. By the way, you left out one of Mr. Dylan's grown up children,
his daughter Maria!
Beth, Cypress,