Part 2 (1/2)

Well, it is his first cross-country tour of Aht years

”Yeah, but to me, an audience is an audience, no matter where they are I'steen-John Cougar-'Aly about the Auys do, but I personally feel that what's i, that don'tto me I'm more locked into what's real forever”

Quickly, Dylan seeins speaking at a faster clip ”Listen,” he says, ”I'uys, because I think Bruce has done a treutbucket rock & roll-and folk h the best thing on his record, I thought, was his grand That knocked me out But that ain't what music's about Subjects like 'How co political And if you want to get political, you ought to go as far out as you can”

But certainly he understands, I say, that Springsteen and Mellenca to fan the fla to say that if the nation loses sight of certain principles, it also forfeits its claireatness

”Yeah? What are those principles? Are they biblical principles? The only principles you can find are the principles in the Bible I ot them all”

They are such principles, I say, as justice and equality

”Yeah, but” Dylan pauses As we've been talking, others-including Petty, guitarist Mike Caers-have entered the roo It's hard to tell whether he is truly irked orprovocatively for the fun of it After a moment, he continues ”To me, America means the Indians They were here and this is their country, and all the whiteWe've devastated the natural resources of this country, for no particular reason except to e and shi+t like that To o for nothing more Unions, ers baseball gahs ”It don't raceful I think Aot to start there first”

I reply that a ht be to follow the warning of one of his own songs, ”Clean Cut Kid,” and not send our young people off to fight in another wasteful war

”Who sends the young people out to war?” says Dylan ”Their parents do”

But it isn't the parents who suited them up and put them on the planes and sent them off to die in Vietnam

”Look, the parents could have said, 'Hey, we'll talk about it' But parents aren't into that They don't kno to deal hat they should do or shouldn't do So they leave it to the government”

Suddenly, loudly, ures the conversation is getting a little too tense Dylan ss, then pats me on the shoulder ”We can talk a little more later,” he says

For the next couple of hours, Dylan and Petty attend to detail work on the track-getting the right accent on a ride cyospel-derived harers who have just arrived As always, it is fascinating to observe how acutely musical Dylan is In one particularly inspired offhand ers-Queen Esther Morrow, Elisecia Wright, Madelyn Quebec, and Carol Dennis-through a lovely a cappella version of ”White Christospel standard, ”Evening Sun” Petty and the rest of us just stare, stunned ”Man,” says Petty frantically, ”we've got to get this on tape”

Afterward, Dylan leads e area to talk soarette nipped between his teeth He see to finish the conversation ere having earlier, so we pick up where we left off What would he do, I ask, if his own sons were drafted?

Dylan looks almost sad as he considers the question After several moments, he says: ”They could do what their conscience tells them to do, and I would support theovernoverno down and raid Central American countries, there would be no moral value in that I also don't think we should have bombed those people in Libya” Then he flashes one of those utterly guileless, disar smiles of his ”But what I want to know,” he says, ”is, what's all this got to do with folk music and rock & roll?”

Quite a bit, since he, more than any other artist, raised the possibility that folk ht,” says Dylan, ”and I'm proud of that”

And the reason questions like these keep co up is because many of us aren't so sure where he stands these days-in fact, sos like ”Slow Train” and ”Union Sundown,” he's even ht

Dylan muses over the reins, ”there is no right and there is no left There's truth and there's untruth, y'know? There's honesty and there's hypocrisy Look in the Bible: You don't see nothing about right or left Other people s, but I don't, because I' people over the head with the Bible, but that's the only instru that stays true”

Does it disturb him that there seeood Christian one must also be a political conservative?

”Conservative? Well, don't forget, Jesus said that it's harder for a rich dom of heaven than it is for a camel to enter the eye of a needle I mean, is that conservative? I don't know, I've heard a lot of preachers say how God wants everybody to be wealthy and healthy Well, it doesn't say that in the Bible You can twist anybody's words, but that's only for fools and people who follow fools If you're entangled in the snares of this world, which everybody is”

Petty comes into the room and asks Dylan to come hear the final overdubs Dylan likes what he hears, then decides to take one more pass at the lead vocal This tieyou can say or do/To 's outset, and while it is hardly the ht he see passion

AGAIN, 1986 Another ht in Hollywood, and Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and the Heartbreakers are clustered in a cavernous roo out a harins playing a different, oddly haunting piece of in to take a fa a plaintive, bluesy variation of ”I Dreaustine” Keyboardist Bennize the raceful piano part; Petty catches the drift and underscores Dylan's har, sharp chord strokes Soon, the entire band, which tonight includes guitarist Al Kooper, is seizing Dylan's urge and transfor into a full and passionate perfornals a backup singer to take the lead, and iustine” beco spiritual

Fiveto Petty and Tench, Dylan's rehearsals are often like this: inventive versions of wondrous songs coain, except in those rare tie In a way, an instance like this leaves one wishi+ng that every show in the True Confessions Tour were simply another rehearsal: Dylan's iinative, they're practically et Dylan to talk about where suchto persuade hiht expect, not that easy ”I' froenuously Then he perches himself on an equip htens ”Hey,” he says, pulling a tape from his pocket, ”wanna hear the best album of the year?” He holds a cassette of AKA Grafitti Man, an albuuitarist Jesse Ed Davis ”Only people like Lou Reed and John Doe can dreah talent”

Dylan has his sound engineer cue the tape to a song about Elvis Presley It is a long, stirring track about the threat that so inally perceived in Presley's manner and the promise sofor the first time/Then we made up our own mind,” recites Trudell at one point, followed by a lovely, blue guitar solo frorins at the line, then shakes his head with delight ”Man,” he says, ”that's about all anybody ever needs to say about Elvis Presley”

I wonder if Dylan realizes that the line could also have been written about his not only inspired our own but, in some deep-felt place, almost seemed to be our own But before there is even time to raise the question, Dylan has put on his coat and is on his way across the room

IT IS NOW twelve years later, 1998, and Bob Dylan-presently in his late fifties-is still an active figure in rock & roll Over the last several years he has been busier than at any ti several collections of new recordings-even at one point writing and singing with the firstWilburys, including George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and the late Roy Orbison)

Yet despite this activity, and despite the enduring influence of his 1960s work, until 1997 the modern pop world had lost much of its fascination with Dylan In the late 1980s and early 1990s, artists like Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Madonna, Public Ene, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Beck, Pearl Jam, U2, Courtney Love, Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG, and Master P all produced (more or less) vital work that has transforht accoe, fueling ongoing social and political debate Dylan hadn't made music to equal that effect for many years, nor had he really tried to At best, he tried occasionally to render work that tapped into pop's coues (such as Empire Burlesque and 1989's Oh Mercy), or he ned to interact with thebands attracted (such as his 1980s ventures with the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) More typically, he produced records that arded as haphazard and uncommitted (like Knocked Out Loaded, Down in the Groove, and 1990's Under the Red Sky-though tohis best latter-day records and hold up wonderfully) In the early 1990s, he also released a ed, plus two all-acoustic albums of folk material by other artists, Good as I Been to You and the exceptional World Gone Wrong The latter two records feature so of Dylan's entire career-the equal of his best vocals on Blonde on Blonde, The Base, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, and Blood on the Tracks (They also feature his all-time best liner notes ”STACK A LEE,” he writes ”is Frank Hutchinson's version what does the song say exactly? it says no h public acclaim” Later he writes: ”LONE PILGRIM is fro is how the lunacy of trying to fool the self is set aside at soiven point salvation & the needs ofspell”) Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong re our first conversation, back in 1985 We had been talking about the steen and Dylan said: ”Bruce knohere he comes from-he has taken what everybody else has done and reat But so after Bruce, say ten or twenty years fro to Bruce as their primary model and somehow miss the fact that his music came from Elvis Presley and Woody Guthrie In other words, all they're gonna get is Bruce; they're not gonna get what Bruce got

”If you copy so with that-the top rule should be to go back and copy the guy that was there first It's like all the people who copied et what I got” Over thirty years after Bob Dylan's first album (which was also a testament to his folk sources), Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong worked as reets-from American folk music's timeless mysteries and depths

In addition, by 1997 Dylan had been touring aleneration Beyond his stylistic, political, philosophical, and personal changes, beyond the sheer weight of his legend, Dylan continued to play ht, it is what he would prefer to be doing; it wasn't just a career action, but instead, a necessary way of living-as if he had returned to the restless troubadour life that he effectively renounced following his motorcycle accident And yet Dylan's reclamation amounted to one of the best-kept secrets in modern music In the early and mid-1990s, in a period when popular music achieved an all-time saturation effect in the media-when numerous network and cable entertainment outlets pumped the sounds and looks and news of pop into our homes on an around-the-clock basis-Bob Dylan worked underneath the pop radar level at the sa some of the most remarkable music of the time In a low-key yet deter power perhaps more than ever before Whereas in his tours with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and the Grateful Dead, Dylan so about for a clear sense of his purpose and whereas in his tours with the G E Ss as if finally to flatten theain played as an itinerant bandleader in firm control of his art's textures, depths, and contexts-and at the saht push it all to Accouitar player Bucky Baxter, bassist Tony Garnier, organist Brendan O'Brien, guitarist John Jackson, and drummer Winston Watson (O'Brien later departed, Jackson was replaced by Larry Campbell, and Watson was replaced by David Kes as if they were livingto be found, explored, explained, even questioned, rather than as if they were siations to be endured, then escaped

On his best nights onstage, Dylanlike ”Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Meain” or ”Desolation Row” and turn it upside down, filling it with new energy and craziness Moments later, he may turn around and deliver a folk ballad like ”One Too Many Mornings” with a heart-stopping grace, in a voice as sweet as the voice hich he first recorded it, over thirty years ago, or he could produce ”John Brown” (for ) and render it with a truly breathtaking force In May 1998, I saw Dylan take the stage at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion and cleave into ”Absolutely Sweet Marie” (frohts, new rhythms, and a new melodic fancy It was plain that Dylan and his current band had achieved an impressive brand of musical kinshi+p, er once shared with the Band during their concert sprees of the 1960s and 1970s But in the late 1990s, Bob Dylan played ”Tangled Up in Blue”-the Blood on the Tracks song about what lies past lost fellowshi+p and ruined faith-with ht after night, he would push into a stinging flurry of acoustic guitar riffs and stru wide open and find its lastso of their own story in the turht and renewal

But as I say, these nightly triumphs went undernoted until the azines did not docuence In fact, with their increasing dependence on the flawed science of deraphics (which so often determines the content and cover-story decisions of azines), most pop media simply didn't knorite about a renewal that wasn't truem (Two notable exceptions: a series of mid-1990s articles written by Paul Williams in the reborn Crawdaddy! and Greil Marcus's Invisible Republic) It took two events to bring popular attention back to Dylan The first happened in late May 1997, when Bob Dylan entered a Manhattan hospital after suffering severe chest pains Early reports claier had been struck by a heart attack (it turned out that Dylan had incurred histoplasal heart infection), and the day's evening news and cable entertainrams treated the illness as prelude to an obituary Dylan didn't die, of course, but he was hit harder with the illness than he let be known at the time Still, the episode served as an aded the world, and the world had all but forgotten him

The second turnaround event was an affir talent In late 1997, Dylan released his first albus in over six years, Ti as it did captivating In the song ”Love Sick” in the albuuitar uncoils and rustles and Dylan starts an announce”-he pauses, as if looking over his shoulder, counting the footsteps in his own shadow, then continues-”through streets that are dead” And for the next seventy-plusstoryscapes in recent h some critics saw Time Out of Mind as a report on personal romantic dissolution-like Blood on the Tracks twenty-two years earlier-Time's intensity is broader and s about what res ”Love Sick” in the voice of an olderto hi to let go of his hopes so he can also let go of his hates, and da able to abandon histhis haunted by abandonhosts of Robert Johnson, Billie Holiday, Hank Williaoes beyond that By the point of the albuentle and hlands,” Dylan has been on the track of departure for so long that he arrives someplace new-someplace not quite like any other place he has taken himself or us before Is it a place of rejuvenation? That seeh this much is sure: Time Out of Mind keeps company with hard fates, and for all the darkness and hurt it divulges, its final effect is hard-boiled exhilaration It is the work of aat a new frontier-not the hopeful frontier seen through the eyes of an ambitious youth, but the unmapped frontier that lies beyond loss and disillusion

Time Out of Mind is an end-of-the-century work froive us one And, like Dylan's best post-1970s songs-including ”The Groo Black Coat,” ”Under the Red Sky,” ”Dark Eyes,” ”Every Grain of Sand,” ”Death Is Not the End,” ”Blind Willie McTell,” and ”Dignity”-Tis aren't that much of a deviation fro Stone” and ”I Shall Be Released” That is, they are the testae the world soto find a way to abide all the heartbreaks and disenchant in a morally centerless tieous than the fiery iconoclasm that Dylan once proudly brandished

IT IS TEMPTING, of course, to read some of Dylan's recent music as a key to his current life and sensibility-but then that has long been the case That's because, in the aftermath of his motorcycle accident, Dylan becaenature of his beliefs, and so when he made records like Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, and New Morning-records that extolled the value ofof life, and that countless critics cited as Dylan's withdrawal fronified the truths of Dylan's own private life Later, in the an to come apart, and he made Blood on the Tracks and Desire-with those records' accounts of ros see, and the pain appeared to suit his artistic talents better than domestic bliss had Well, maybebut alsothat is publicly known about the history of Bob Dylan's ether, how it survived for a time, or how and why it ultimately failed

Since that period, there is even less that is known about Dylan, beyond a few simple facts: namely, that he has never remarried and has apparently never found a love to take the place of his wife, except, perhaps, his love for God (though there were rumors in early 1998 that Dylan may have secretly remarried-maybe even more than once), and he reportedly maintains an attentive and close relationshi+p with his children Past that, Dylan's personal life pretty uarded private lives that any faed to achieve Dylan's friends do not disclose much about his secrets-except, that is, when they leak his unreleased recordings-and Dylan hi these s of his songs

Which only causes one to wonder: Are Dylan's songs truly the key to Dylan? Does his life still pour into his work? And is he a happy man-or have his history and vision instead robbed him of the chance for peace and happiness forever, as some critics surmised with Time Out of Mind?

There are, of course, no definitive answers to questions like these, andThen again, with Dylan it isn't always easy to know just what are the right questions to ask During those recording sessions for Knocked Out Loaded, back in 1986, I once or twice tried broaching soht, at about 2 AM, Dylan was leaning in a hallway in an LA recording studio, talking about 1965, when he toured England and h it was a peak period in his popularity and creativity, it was also a ti prior to his bizarre, early-otchildren: That's the great equalizer, you know? Because you don't care so much about yourself anymore I know that's been true in ood to people before that tiood to myself”

I asked him: Did he think he was a happier man these days than twenty years before?

”Oh”Happiness is not on s If I'm happy, I'm happy-and if I'm not, I don't know the difference”

He fell silent for a few moments, and stared at his hands ”You know,” he said, ”these are yuppie words, happiness and unhappiness It's not happiness or unhappiness, it's either blessed or unblessed As the Bible says, ”Blessed is the man alketh not in the counsel of the unGodly' Now, thatthat you are the person you were put on this earth to be-that'shappy

”Anyway, happiness is just a balloon-it's just temporary stuff Anybody can be happy, and if you're not happy, they got a lot of drugs that can make you happy But trust me: Life is not a bowl of cherries”

I asked him if, in that case, he felt he was a blessedbroadly ”Yeah, I do But not because I'hed, and excused hi session

That was about as far as we got with that line of questioning

A couple of nights later, I saw Dylan during another post- this album Knocked Out Loaded, Dylan said He repeated the phrase once, then laughed ”Is that any good, you think, Knocked Out Loaded?”