We interrupt this casting call to bring you some really old news about Bob Dylan. Somehow I missed this when it came out at the end of Spring, so if one of the others has posted this already, well … so what?
I’d read about Dylan’s use of the Yakuza autobiography, which made a funny kind of sense, and then of course his impersonation of the Civil War poet, which made a lot more sense, but some of the stuff in this A.V. Club article shows how he took it to a whole ‘nother level. Surfing with Mel fans, take note:
When Warmuth found similarities between phrases in Chronicles and Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas’s book about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, American Rhapsody, he was dumbfounded. “Even I was thinking, ‘There’s no chance,’ but as it turns out, some of the more salty lines in Chronicles comes from Eszterhas!”
Jack London, John Dos Passos, and even self-help author Robert Greene are all fair game.
Dylan’s response to charges of plagiarism?
“All those motherfuckers can rot in hell,” he said. “Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff….It’s an old thing,” he said of appropriation. “It’s part of the tradition. It goes way back.”
Makes you wonder why anybody would spend $250 for the right to quote from his lyrics to Gotta Serve Somebody, Trouble in Mind, and I and I.
Maybe add “sucker” to that list.
Related:http://tasteofcountry.com/remember-when-bob-dylan-sued-darius-rucker/
Related related: http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html
I wound up paying $300 for just two lines from Tom Waits. Worth it, though.
Makes you wonder how Counting Crows ever got away with calling a song “Mr. Jones.”
Perhaps because they pull an op. cit. in the song itself?
Related:
http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/12/jakob-dylans-back-pages-bringing-down-the-horse-revisited/
Dylan makes David Shields look like a baby in diapers.
Thanks!