| People Magazine, November 10, 1975 |
| He is impatient with fans who expected his own expression to stay the same. "Those people were stupid," he snaps. "They want to see you in the same suit. Upheaval distorts their lives. They refuse to be loose and make themselves flexible to situations. They forget they might have a different girl friend every night, that _their_ lives change too." Certainly there were formative changes in Dylan's life: marriage in 1965 to fashion model Sarah Lowndes; the accident; the growth of his own family to five (including one child from Sarah's previous marriage). Yet, professionally, Dylan points out, "A songwriter tries to grasp a certain moment, write it down, sing it for that moment and then keep that experience within himself, so he can be able to sing the song years later. He'll change, and he won't want to do that song. He'll go on." But Dylan is not speaking of himself. Of his own massive anthology of poems, he says, "i can communicate _all_ of my songs. I might not remember all the lyrics," he laughs, "But there aren't any in there I can't identify with on some level." "I write fast," he continues. "The inspiration doesn't last. Writing a song, it can drive you crazy. My head is so crammed full of things I tend to lose a lot of what I think are my best songs, and I don't carry around a tape recorder." "Music," Dylan says, "is an outgrowth of family--and my family comes first." He moved them to the beach at Malibu from Woodstock several years ago, and has been intermittently rumored to be splitting from Sarah. He concedes, "I haven't been able to spend as much time with my wife as I would like to," but pinning Dylan down on personal matters is like collecting quicksilver. A sample colloquy: [ Note, Q: & A: added by EDLIS for readability ] Q: Are you living with your wife? A: When I have to, when I need to. I'm living with my wife in the same world. Q: Do you... A: Do I know where she is most of the time? She doesn't have to answer to me. Q: So you don't live... A: She has to answer to herself. Q: Do you live under one roof? A: Right now things are changing in all our lives. We will always be together. Q: Where are you living now? A: I live in more that one place. Q: Can you be more specific? A: I don't want to give out my address. Q: Region? A: I live where I have to live, where my priorities are. Q: Right now, is that in New York City? A: Right now it is, and off and on since last spring. Traveling is in my blood," said Dylan, as he rehearsed for his latest tour. "There is a lot of gypsy in me. What I'm trying to do is set my standards, get that organized now. There is a voice inside us all that talks only to us. We have to be able to hear that voice. I'm through listening to other people tell me how to live my life." Did Bob Dylan, of all Americans, feel himself mortgaged to others? "I'm just doing now what I feel is right for me," he concludes. "For my own self." |
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