I Want Another Idea, Another Project, But

We Make The Oldest Stories New When We Succeed, And We Are Trapped By The Old Stories When We Fail

Rock 'n' Roll Is A Combination Of Good Ideas Dried Up By Fads, Terrible Junk, Hideous Failings In Taste And Judgment, Gullibility And Manipulation, Moments Of Unbelievable Clarity And Invention, Pleasure, Fun, Vulgarity, Excess, Novelty And Utter Enervation.

It May Be That The Most Interesting American Struggle Is The Struggle To Set Oneself Free From The Limits One Is Born To, And Then To Learn Something Of The Value Of Those Limits

I Am A Critic Who Is Pulled Toward History. But Bob Dylan Himself Is A Great Historian. He Is An Historian Who Acts Out History. So It Always Has A Personal Stamp. It Always Has A Particular Timbre. It Always Has A Particular Howl, Or A Moan, In That Voice.

Along With A Lot Of Other Things, Becoming A Bob Dylan Fan Made Me A Writer. I Was Never Interested In Figuring Out What The Songs Meant. I Was Interested In Figuring Out My Response To Them, And Other People's Responses. I Wanted To Get Closer To The Music Than I Could By Listening To It - I Wanted To Get Inside Of It, Behind It, And Writing About It Through It, Inside Of It, Behind It, Was My Way Of Doing That.