Once Pete Townshend explained that it was Bob Dylan’s work during the first half of the 1960’s that changed all his notions of songwriting “I suddenly realized after listening to Bob Dylan, that the song that I had written, which was ‘I can’t explain,’ y’know, to the prettiest girl in the class -- ‘I love you, but I can’t explain, ‘cause I’m too shy’ -- that this song was actually about being inarticulate. It was a song about being unable to explain what you felt. And he was the guy that changed the way that we used the pop lyric. He was the guy that really said, ‘You can write a song about nuclear fallout -- and it can still be fun. Y’know, it’s a bizarre notion. That’s basically what happened.”
You and George Harrison were once supposed to do a recording session with Elvis, but he never showed up. What’s the real story?
He did show up, it was us that didn’t.
Heard any good records lately?
Iggy Pop’s Après, that’s a good record. Imelda May, I like her. Valerie June, The Stereophonics. I like Willie Nelson and Norah Jones’ album with Wynton Marsalis, the Ray Charles tribute record. I liked Amy Winehouse’s last record. She was the last real individualist around.
In a very long and detailed interview released on 22nd March, Dylan talks on almost everything about career music and odds. Full interview on http://bobdylan.com
This is your third album of standards in a row – Shadows in the Night was a big surprise and a really nice one. Fallen Angels was a sweet encore. Now you really upped the ante. Did you feel after the first two, you had unfinished business?
I did when I realized there was more to it than I thought, that both of those records together only were part of the picture, so we went ahead and did these.
Why did you decide to release three discs of music at once?
It’s better that they come out at the same time because thematically they are interconnected, one is the sequel to the other and each one resolves the previous one.
Each disc is 32 minutes long – you could have put it all on 2 CDs. Is there something about the 10 song, 32 minute length that appeals to you?
Sure, it’s the number of completion. It’s a lucky number, and it’s symbolic of light. As far as the 32 minutes, that’s about the limit to the number of minutes on a long playing record where the sound is most powerful, 15 minutes to a side. My records were always overloaded on both sides. Too many minutes to be recorded or mastered properly. My songs were too long and didn’t fit the audio format of an LP. The sound was thin and you would have to turn your record player up to nine or ten to hear it well. So these CDs to me represent the LPs that I should have been making
